Symphony to start with new director and lively programming
By Dana DuGan
The Sun Valley Summer Symphony, now in its 31st year, is celebrating the beginning of what it hopes is a long tenure with Jenny Kruger, as executive director. Until recently, Kruger was executive director of the Acadiana Symphony & Conservatory of Music in Lafayette, La. She holds a B.A. in Music from New Mexico State University and studied at the Aspen Music Institute, University of Denver and Mannes Conservatory of Music in New York City. Originally from New Mexico, Kruger was athletic and loved music, a combination that gave her many choices.
Her father gave her advice when it came time to choose.
“You know, baby, neither is a sure thing, but it’s better to choose what you love,” he said.
Kruger chose music, and has been a professional flute player since she was 15 years old.
When Kruger moved to Washington, D.C., with her then-husband, she continued playing professionally but also taught music at the Fredericksburg Academy, in Fredericksburg, Va., where she lobbied for an enhanced music program that included band.
“I got into the other side and found a good fit,” Kruger said. “Back home, when I was playing in the El Paso Symphony for opera, I’d started teaching. After the first day, I was completely enamored and in love. This is what I am passionate about.”
Kruger also realized she wasn’t the starving-musician type.
“I love it but I didn’t love it that much. Not for me. My time in the symphony world, and time in the classroom, was prepping me for what I was supposed to do.”
When her husband was transferred to Lafayette, La., Kruger was pregnant and antsy.
“I’m not about sitting around,” she said. “I worked with The Seth Foundation to help the working poor with medical needs and got lots of experience fundraising.”
Plus, she was still traveling to play. Both experiences led her to volunteering with the Acadiana Symphony, where she eventually became the orchestra representative on the board. The Acadiana Symphony Orchestra is one of only two in the U.S. that’s associated with a conservatory of music.
“Technology changed everything, and most businesses, including the media, didn’t take it seriously at first,” Kruger said. “Symphony business was just staying status quo. This organization was struggling, and there was a huge disconnect between musicians and board.”
Kruger went from a musician and volunteer to being offered the executive director position.
She told them that they needed to “hop on board. I was tasked with turning it around, making it financially viable, and by engaging the community. We did it. The community got behind us.”
During her time with the ASO, it experienced a complete rebranding. A three-year artistic vision, “Symphony of the Elements,” was created and implemented, and Kruger piloted an arts-in-education program offered to more than 9,000 4- to 5-year-old students who were considered at-risk students or who lived in poverty situations. The Link Up curriculum, a long-term partnership with Carnegie Hall, involved more than 3,000 local students.
“Overture” magazine, an arts publication issued nine times a year, was started during Kruger’s tenure.
“I was there for six years and had been in Lafayette for 10,” she said. “I was ready for something more. I put it out there. I know it sounds crazy, but I was sure enough to manifest it.”
Kruger was one of 30 finalists for the executive director position with SVSS. Her first interview was conducted in San Francisco with some of the board members.
“I didn’t even know where Sun Valley was,” she laughed. “The first question was, ‘What is your most moving musical experience?’” Kruger answered that it happened when she was in the audience of a performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2. Sitting next to her was SVSS Artistic Director Alasdair Neale, who admitted it was his favorite, too. Synergy was in play.
When Kruger had her second interview, it was in March, in snowy Sun Valley.
“It was very, very special. I could see myself here. There was something magical and peaceful. We loved it. It was way more than we’d researched or heard. There’s a mystique that you can’t describe.”
Kruger is nothing if not astute, and determined.
“I knew it was a big deal for the SVSS board,” she said. “But I don’t commit to anything unless I’m all in. I take it very seriously. This is what I was getting ready for all my life.”
After accepting the position, Kruger and her fiancé bought a house in the Valley. Her 11-year-old son Ben will live with Kruger’s fiancé in Lafayette for the school year, though he is in Sun Valley for the summer and loving it, she said.
Her plans for the future at SVSS start with learning how the staff works, and familiarizing herself with the inner workings of the SVSS, with a full-time staff of 12 year-round, which swells to about 33 during the season. During the symphony period, it also employs 114 musicians and puts on 16 free concerts between July 24 and Aug.18.
Kruger also intends on gathering information and beefing up the Symphony’s marketing.
“I’ll be spending a lot of time on the lawn, too,” she said, referring to the so-called “cheap seats” on the Sun Valley lawn, where picnics and parties ensue before, during and after the music each evening.
Kruger is especially excited about the opening of the “In Focus” series. On Monday, July 24, it will begin with Johann Sebastian Bach’s Brandenberg concertos featuring Associate Concertmaster Juliana Athayde on violin as well as other soloists.
“It’s what the world sounded like,” Kruger said. “Baroque was mostly sacred. Then it moved into entertainment with things like Joseph Haydn’s 45th Symphony, also known as the Farewell Symphony.”
Kruger explained that this symphony was written by Haydn after his patron, Prince Esterházy, kept the musicians and retinue at his estate in Hungary for too long. The musicians asked Haydn for help getting home. He wrote a new symphony in which, during the finale, each musician stops playing, snuffs out the candle on his music stand, and leaves, so that at the end, there are just two muted violins playing. Eh, voila!
“To open with ‘Firebird’ and end with Mahler,” Kruger said, “that’s as good as it gets. But, of course, we’ll find others ways that will be just as good.”
Kruger said her hand in programming wouldn’t really be felt until 2018. But she has plans, and hopes.
“The program has to feed our souls,” she said.
Opening this year’s Sun Valley Summer Symphony Orchestra Festival, a newly commissioned production of the classic Igor Stravinsky ballet “The Firebird” will include dancers and towering puppets at the Sun Valley Summer Symphony. It will be presented at 8:30 p.m., Monday, Aug. 1.
The performance will start later than usual to best show off special lighting effects.
Sun Valley Summer Symphony joined with five other orchestra festivals to commission the work. It will be performed in only six places in the United States this year including Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts with the National Symphony Orchestra, Ravinia Festival with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Mann Center for the Performing Arts and Saratoga Performing Arts Center. The local production is the only one that is free, with tickets selling for more than $100 at other venues such as the Hollywood Bowl.
The puppets have been designed by South Africa’s Janni Younge, previously of the Handspring Puppet Co. that created the puppets for the London and Broadway play “War Horse.”
It took more than 40 weeks to build the “The Firebird” puppets. These have to be realistic as well as delicately balanced so dancers can manipulate them while performing the choreographed steps. A stage extension will be installed to accommodate dancers and puppets.
First produced by the Ballets Russes in 1910 in St. Petersburg, “The Firebird” launched Stravinsky into international fame.
“Firebird has always had a special place for me ever since I first played it as a teenager,” Alasdair Neale, SVSS music director, said. “I love the drama, I love the exotic harmonies, but above all, I love the incredible color palette Stravinsky uses. It’s a real feast for the senses.”
It will be performed as originally composed for a 100-piece orchestra that includes five bassoons, two piccolos, a piano and a celesta.
The story is a modern adaptation of a Russian fairy tale involving a mystical bird that can help others as they struggle between the forces of good and evil.
The Symphony will present Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major Wednesday, Aug. 3, and a family concert with works including Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf” on Thursday, Aug. 4.
Benjamin Britten’s “The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra” and Sergei Prokofiev’s Concerto No. 3 in C Major with pianist Joyce Yang on Saturday, Aug. 6.
The season will conclude Thursday, Aug. 18, with Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 in D Minor.
Time for Three, which has a three-year partnership with the Sun Valley Summer Symphony, is losing one member and gaining another. The violinist, Nikki Chooi, was appointed concertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, in New York City. As a result, he will leave Time for Three. Succeeding him will be violinist Charles Yang, from Austin, Texas.
Time for Three’s Nick Kendall and Ranaan Meyer will be joined by Yang on Thursday, July 28, for their world premiere of “Free Souls.” Both Yang and Chooi will teach at various educational events in the Valley.