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UNCSA students will staff 'Nutcracker' orchestra
Production will no longer relay on paid musicians from the local symphony
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Published: May 8, 2009
Updated: 05/08/2009 12:10 am
The annual Nutcracker production at the Stevens Center will soon have a different sound.
Student musicians from UNC School of the Arts will perform in the pit during the show's run in December, replacing paid musicians from the Winston-Salem Symphony, UNCSA officials announced yesterday. Ransom Wilson, the music director of the UNCSA Symphony Orchestra, will conduct.
The move, which comes at a time of steep losses in UNCSA's endowment, is expected to net $80,000 for music scholarships at UNCSA, said John Mauceri, UNCSA's chancellor.
That's more than 70 percent of the money that UNCSA paid the symphony last year for its Nutcracker services.
"UNCSA has an enormous challenge to overcome in its scholarship program for the foreseeable future, due to the loss of income from the university's endowment -- the same challenge being faced by every other institution of higher education in this country," Mauceri said.
"It's my responsibility to take appropriate steps to protect our students and our future."
And Michael Rothkopf, UNCSA's interim music dean, called scholarships a "key" factor in recruiting and retaining the best musicians.
Ralph Womble, the vice chairman of UNCSA's board of trustees, said in March that the school will need $450,000 to bring scholarship aid up to this year's level.
UNCSA's endowment decreased from $17.2 million in June 2008 to $12.9 million in December, the last month for which figures are available.
Merritt Vale, the symphony's executive director, and Robert Moody, its music director, could not be reached for comment.
UNCSA began presenting The Nutcracker in 1966, quickly making Tchaikovsky's ballet one of the most attractive entertainment attractions of the Christmas season in Winston-Salem.
Symphony musicians have been playing in the show's pit since 1969. They will no longer be able to count on what amounted to a nice paycheck.
For Kathryn Levy, a symphony flutist since the 1970s, that's "over $1,000" each December.
Horn player Robert Campbell cited a similar amount.
Campbell said that the lack of Nutcracker work "is going to make Christmas kind of sad" both for him and his wife, Louise, the symphony's assistant principal violist.
"We counted on that," he said. "That hurts."
The decision to go with student musicians as opposed to paid professionals does make educational sense for UNCSA: The students will gain some experience performing a score that they will almost certainly encounter if they become professionals.
Levy questioned whether the students could summon the professional sound to which local audiences have become accustomed.
"It's a hard score," she said. "It took years for me to feel comfortable with my part."
But Rothkopf said that the school's "more advanced" music students would be selected for pit duty.
"I feel confident that the School of Music will assemble a professional-level orchestra to perform for our Nutcracker production," he said.
■ Ken Keuffel can be reached at 727-7337 or at kkeuffel@wsjournal.com.
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