(Above: Dave Moss, Eugene Symphony’s new executive director, shows his enthusiasm in his choice of T-shirt. He also has another favorite, the Chicago White Sox baseball team. Photo by Bob Williams Photography.)
By Daniel Buckwalter
First things first. When meeting Dave Moss, who took over as executive director of the Eugene Symphony Orchestra in January, you might give a nod to the South Side of Chicago.
Don’t show up sporting a Chicago Cubs baseball cap as I did one night prior to a concert late last season. Do what I did more recently and wear a Chicago White Sox cap. True, the White Sox are going through a historically bad season, but they are still Moss’s team, and he will appreciate the shout-out.
Then buckle up for a passionate and expansive discussion about all things regarding the Eugene Symphony.
It’s been a whirlwind, nine-month ride for Moss since the ice storm melted away and he began his work for the Symphony — this after having served in the same position for three-plus years in sunnier climes with the Hawai‘i Symphony Orchestra.
There have been introductions to donors, handshakes with business people throughout the community, additions of new members to the Symphony’s board of directors, prep work for the five finalists who will audition this season for the right to be the new conductor/artistic director, and a new three-year contract ratified in July with the Eugene Symphony musicians.
That doesn’t count additional concerts this summer in addition to the subscribers’ regular season docket, including the annual outdoor concert at Cuthbert Amphitheater plus indoor concerts featuring the music of Queen and The Music of Studio Ghibli in the Hult Center’s Soreng Theater. The latter had one performance scheduled on Sept. 21, but it sold out quickly, and two more performances have been added.
At the center of it all — as the emcee, if you will — is Moss, who always asks audience members at the start of a concert to raise their hands if this is their first time at a Eugene Symphony performance. His focus is to extend the orchestra’s reach, be it for single performances or season subscriptions.
“Who is the face of the orchestra?” he asks during an interview with Eugene Scene, noting that an artistic director will not be named until next spring, so it’s not a rhetorical question. “It’s very much intentional at the moment.”
The goal, Moss explains, is to grow the Symphony with more musicians and to take smaller slices of the orchestra into smaller venues, such as the Hult Center’s Soreng Theater. He emphasizes that “our subscribers are not getting anything less,” but that the Symphony needs to do more outreach with more diversified programming than the standard Beethoven or Rachmaninoff fare many people expect.
“What can we do for you? It’s important to meet people where they’re at. We have to move to where the audience is,” he says, acknowledging that the large Silva Concert Hall at the Hult Center “can be intimidating.”
“You should feel welcomed at the Symphony,” he says. “This is supposed to be fun.”
To that end, getting the three-year deal with the musicians union, the American Federation of Musicians Local 689, was critical, Moss says. Beyond the annual raises through the life of the contract, 18 currently vacant musician positions will be filled.
The Eugene Symphony, like orchestras nationwide, has faced deficit spending since the pandemic, and clearly, Moss — a trained violist before working in administration — doesn’t believe the Eugene Symphony can cut its way to prosperity.
“It’s not the musicians’ fault we had a deficit,” he notes, and if the Symphony’s infrastructure is to grow to Moss’s vision of more concerts and diversified programming, the musicians will lead the way, and “You can’t do that with fewer musicians.”
Then there is the matter of finding a new artistic director to succeed Francesco Lecce-Chong, who for the coming season act as Eugene Symphony’s “artistic partner.” Moss has experience in this, having hired the Hawai‘i Symphony Orchestra’s first ever artistic director, Dane Lam, in July 2023.
He used then, and the Eugene Symphony is using now, the Music Director Search Handbook prepared by Eugene resident and longtime patron of local arts Roger Saydack. The handbook has been a guide, if not an outright blueprint, for the Eugene Symphony in the past to hire and launch the careers of not just a young Lecce-Chong but other notables including previous conductors Marin Alsop and Miguel Harth-Bedoya.
“It’s the exact same process,” Moss says. It started with 177 applicants and was whittled to 33, then late last year to 10, and finally to the five finalists. Moss, in his role as executive director, is an advisor to a 15-member search committee that consists of five board members, two community representatives, six musician representatives and two staff members acting as liaisons.
The Saydack process this time has produced one unique quirk. The five finalists — Alexander Prior, Farkhad Khudyev, Rory Macdonald, Tania Miller and Taichi Fukumura — are mostly older than Eugene Symphony finalists of the past. Lecce-Chong was still in his 20s when he landed the artistic director jobs at both the Eugene and Santa Rosa (California) symphonies.
Also, as Moss notes, “All of them have had significant careers.” The Eugene Symphony Orchestra will not be the first baton-wielding for any of them.
The five finalists begin their turns at the podium on Oct. 24, beginning with Prior, followed by Khudyev on Nov. 21, Macdonald on Dec. 12, Miller on Jan. 23, and Fukumura on Feb. 13.
In the meantime, Lecce-Chong opens the 2024-25 season on Sept. 26, conducting the Eugene Symphony in Igor Stravinsky’s, The Rite of Spring.
As if there weren’t enough on his schedule already, congratulations soon will be due as Moss and his wife, Katherine Lynch Moss, will welcome a new baby, their second daughter, in October.
It is a busy time. But amidst it all, don’t forget to give some love to the South Side of Chicago.
