![\"Dancers](\"https:\/\/idsunmedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Firebird-2-200x300.jpg\")
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.<\/p>\n
Her father gave her advice when it came time to choose.<\/p>\n
\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cYou know, baby, neither is a sure thing, but it\u2019s better to choose what you love,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Kruger chose music, and has been a professional flute player since she was 15 years old.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cI got into the other side and found a good fit,\u201d Kruger said. \u201cBack home, when I was playing in the El Paso Symphony for opera, I\u2019d started teaching. After the first day, I was completely enamored and in love. This is what I am passionate about.\u201d<\/p>\n Kruger also realized she wasn\u2019t the starving-musician type.<\/p>\n \u201cI love it but I didn\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/p>\n When her husband was transferred to Lafayette, La., Kruger was pregnant and antsy.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not about sitting around,\u201d she said. \u201cI worked with The Seth Foundation to help the working poor with medical needs and got lots of experience fundraising.\u201d<\/p>\n 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\u2019s associated with a conservatory of music.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cTechnology changed everything, and most businesses, including the media, didn\u2019t take it seriously at first,\u201d Kruger said. \u201cSymphony business was just staying status quo. This organization was struggling, and there was a huge disconnect between musicians and board.\u201d<\/p>\n Kruger went from a musician and volunteer to being offered the executive director position.<\/p>\n She told them that they needed to <\/span>\u201chop 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.\u201d<\/p>\n During her time with the ASO, it experienced a complete rebranding. A three-year artistic vision, \u201cSymphony of the Elements,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n \u201cOverture\u201d magazine, an arts publication issued nine times a year, was started during Kruger\u2019s tenure.<\/p>\n \u201cI was there for six years and had been in Lafayette for 10,\u201d she said. \u201c<\/span>I was ready for something more. I put it out there. I know it sounds crazy, but I was sure enough to manifest it.\u201d<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t even know where Sun Valley was,\u201d she laughed. \u201cThe first question was, \u2018What is your most moving musical experience?\u2019\u201d Kruger answered that it happened when she was in the audience of a performance of Mahler\u2019s Symphony No. 2. Sitting next to her was SVSS Artistic Director Alasdair Neale, who admitted it was his favorite, too. Synergy was in play.<\/p>\n When Kruger had her second interview, it was in March, in snowy Sun Valley.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was very, very special. I could see myself here. There was something magical and peaceful. We loved it. It was way more than we\u2019d researched or heard. There\u2019s a mystique that you can\u2019t describe.\u201d<\/p>\n Kruger is nothing if not astute, and determined.<\/p>\n \u201cI knew it was a big deal for the SVSS board,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I don\u2019t commit to anything unless I\u2019m all in. I take it very seriously. This is what I was getting ready for all my life.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0After accepting the position, Kruger and her fianc\u00e9 bought a house in the Valley. <\/span>Her 11-year-old son Ben will live with Kruger\u2019s fianc\u00e9<\/span> in Lafayette for the school year, though he is in Sun Valley for the summer and loving it, she said.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u00a0 Kruger also intends on gathering information and beefing up the Symphony\u2019s marketing.<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ll be spending a lot of time on the lawn, too,\u201d she said, referring to the so-called \u201ccheap seats\u201d on the Sun Valley lawn, where picnics and parties ensue before, during and after the music each evening.<\/p>\n Kruger is especially excited about the opening of the \u201cIn Focus\u201d series. On Monday, July 24, it will <\/span>begin with Johann Sebastian Bach\u2019s Brandenberg concertos featuring Associate Concertmaster Juliana Athayde on violin as well as other soloists.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s what the world sounded like,\u201d Kruger said. \u201cBaroque was mostly sacred. Then it moved into entertainment with things like Joseph Haydn\u2019s 45th Symphony, also known as the Farewell Symphony.\u201d<\/p>\n Kruger explained that this symphony was written by Haydn after his patron, Prince Esterh\u00e1zy, 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!<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cTo open with \u2018Firebird\u2019 and end with Mahler,\u201d Kruger said, \u201cthat\u2019s as good as it gets. But, of course, we\u2019ll find others ways that will be just as good.\u201d<\/p>\n Kruger said her hand in programming wouldn\u2019t really be felt until 2018. But she has plans, and hopes.<\/p>\n \u201cThe program has to feed our souls,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Opening this year\u2019s Sun Valley Summer Symphony Orchestra Festival, a newly commissioned production of the classic Igor Stravinsky ballet \u201cThe Firebird\u201d will include dancers and towering puppets at the Sun Valley Summer Symphony. It will be presented at 8:30 p.m., Monday, Aug. 1.<\/p>\n \u00a0 The performance will start later than usual to best show off special lighting effects.<\/p>\n \u00a0 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.<\/p>\n The puppets have been designed by South Africa\u2019s Janni Younge, previously of the Handspring Puppet Co. that created the puppets for the London and Broadway play \u201cWar Horse.\u201d<\/p>\n It took more than 40 weeks to build the \u201cThe Firebird\u201d 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.<\/p>\n First produced by the Ballets Russes in 1910 in St. Petersburg, \u201cThe Firebird\u201d launched Stravinsky into international fame.<\/p>\n “Firebird has always had a special place for me ever since I first played it as a teenager,\u201d\u00a0Alasdair Neale, SVSS music director, said. \u201cI love the drama, I love the exotic harmonies, but above all, I love the incredible\u00a0color palette Stravinsky uses. It’s a real feast for the senses.”<\/p>\n It will be performed as originally composed for a 100-piece orchestra that includes five bassoons, two piccolos, a piano and a celesta.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n The Symphony will present Beethoven\u2019s Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major Wednesday, Aug. 3, and a family concert with works including Prokofiev\u2019s \u201cPeter and the Wolf\u201d on Thursday, Aug. 4.<\/p>\n Benjamin Britten\u2019s \u201cThe Young Person\u2019s Guide to the Orchestra\u201d and Sergei Prokofiev\u2019s Concerto No. 3 in C Major with pianist Joyce Yang on\u00a0Saturday, Aug. 6.<\/p>\n The season will conclude Thursday, Aug. 18, with Mahler\u2019s Symphony No. 3 in D Minor.<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0Succeeding him will be violinist Charles Yang, from Austin, Texas.<\/p>\n Time for Three\u2019s Nick Kendall and Ranaan Meyer will be joined by Yang on Thursday, July 28,\u00a0for their world premiere of \u201cFree Souls.\u201d Both Yang and Chooi will teach at various educational events in the Valley.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8343,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,18,36],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8342","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-art","8":"category-news","9":"category-slider"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Jenny](\"https:\/\/idsunmedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Krueger.-Jenny-200x300.jpg\")
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