Word: orchestra
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...brought serious music to millions of Americans. A snowy-haired, white-mustachioed figure, he would walk briskly onstage and lead his Boston Pops Orchestra in a program of show tunes and classics. His philosophy was simple and insouciant: "My aim has been to give audiences a good time. I'd have trained seals if people wanted them." That was one of Fiedler's exaggerations, though he was not above appearing on a record jacket dressed as Santa Claus or as a jaunty Yankee Doodle dandy. Such clowning caused some highbrows to sneer. But to Boston audiences and those...
Fiedler seemed destined to be a musician. His grandsires were musicians in Europe (Fiedler is German for fiddler), and his father, two uncles and a first cousin were all members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Fiedler joined the orchestra in 1915 as a violinist. Eager to conduct, the suave young maestro founded a series of free outdoor Esplanade concerts that are now a Boston tradition. In 1930 he was named conductor of the Boston Pops, the symphony's spring series, and proudly held that position for half a century...
Fiedler would not tolerate substandard playing. Once, to punish his musicians for an unruly session, he made them rehearse a three-minute mambo for 70 minutes. Well into his 80s, even after several heart attacks, he continued to lead the orchestra. "If I retired, I'd just be hanging around waiting to go to the dentist or doctor or undertaker," he said. Toward the end, the proud old man would shuffle unsteadily to the podium. But then, invigorated by the music, he seemed to shed 20 years. When Fiedler died last week, Boston lost one of its best-known...
...drama and vaudeville, despite a population of 507,000. Today just four of those buildings remain as legitimate theaters, and they are right next to the notorious "combat zone," where neon signs for porno joints light up more often than the theater marquees. Although the venerable Boston Symphony Orchestra continues to flourish, it is the city's only established performing arts institution. Even the major touring companies bypass Boston: world-famous dance troupes like the Bolshoi, Stuttgart and American Ballet Theater no longer visit because Hynes Auditorium, the only large facility, has the acoustics of a cow barn. There...
...results of his campaign are impressive. Hundreds of companies, including the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, the St. Louis Symphony, the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Houston Grand Opera and the New York City Ballet, have had increases of 100% or more since Newman started advising them. The Louisville Ballet has already sold out the up coming fall season with 7,000 subscribers and 2,000 more on a waiting list. Says General Manager Michael Durham: "His book is our bible...