Mark Patrick’s Journey to Alabama Symphony Orchestra President

Mark Patrick has been the President of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra since 2019, but he’s been with the orchestra for nearly 25 years. His journey to the role of classical music steward has been somewhat unusual; it’s rare, in the orchestral world, to have a symphony chief who has come from a production background. But Mark’s long history with the organization has given him a love and appreciation for the ASO that he believes is unique, and even occupies a prime position in his living room—but more on that later. I sat down with Mark to talk about his years with the orchestra, his thoughts on classical music, and his deep appreciation for the city of Birmingham.

Early Years and Starting with the ASO

Mark was born in Nashville, but raised in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, an outpost of the Nashville recording scene and a hub for session musicians. One of those players was his step-father, who got Mark and his brother started playing guitar. He studied Civil Engineering at the University of Alabama, but could never quite shake the music bug, playing in bands on weekends, and eventually owning a record store in Tuscaloosa.

When he moved to Birmingham in 2000, he spent the first few years as a stay-at-home dad, but he couldn’t help but seek out the local music scene. Eventually, he started working with the ASO on the stage crew. “Some guys that worked on the Symphony crew had actually worked with a rock band I had been in years before,” he recalls. “They called me and asked if I wanted to come work as a crew guy.” Soon, he became the right-hand man to the production manager. After that person left, he stepped into the role, then rose to Director of Operations in 2006, and later General Manager. In 2019, after the departure of former Executive Director Cheryle Caplinger, Mark was asked to step into the role on an interim basis, which has since become a permanent appointment.

The Joy of Discovering New Music

Over the years, Mark has become an enthusiastic classical music fan, but he also feels that his more limited background with the genre has preserved some of its magic. For him, coming to classical music late has been a blessing, and even after being with the orchestra for so many years, he still revels in the pleasure of hearing a new piece for the first time.

“I can’t remember what piece it was, but I remember one of the first Masterworks concerts that I ever worked on the crew for. When the concert was over, I was just blown away. I thought, man, that’s an incredible piece!” Even now, he lights up at the memory. “I know that our musicians have been playing some of these pieces their entire lives, but this was the first time I’d ever heard it, and I was so amazed. I think that’s been the thing that’s made this such an enjoyable job, the fact that so much of it is new to me. We still play pieces every year that I’ve never heard of.”

Maybe that’s why, when I ask if he has a favorite composer, he, somewhat unusually, selects a living one. Obviously, he loves the old masters, he concedes, specifically citing Beethoven, but what he’s most excited about are the younger artists writing music now. He’s particularly enthusiastic about the music of Brian Nabors, the Birmingham native with whom the ASO has done several collaborations, including the major commission, Letters from Birmingham.

Being Part of a Changing City

That enthusiasm for watching progress unfold also spills over into his feelings about the city of Birmingham, itself, which he says has changed a lot since he first moved here in 2000.

“There’s just been so much progress,” he says. When he first started working in Birmingham’s venues, the downtown was pretty barren, he recalls, and the arts scene was just a shadow of what it had once been. The Lyric Theater, for example, had become a dumping ground of old props and equipment, and Mark remembers spending several weeks clearing it out. “The only place to eat [near there] was the Lyric Hot Dog Stand,” he says, so watching the recent investments in revitalizing downtown Birmingham has been very heartening. And the orchestra, he says, has a big role to play in the vitality and appeal of the city.

“Businesses that are looking for top-notch talent often are trying to attract people from out-of-state,” he notes, “and a lot of times they’re coming from areas that have a great arts scene, they have great restaurants. It’s a whole package. They want to come somewhere that has a great art museum, a great orchestra, a ballet, a zoo, botanical gardens. If Birmingham wants to be on the map with these other great metropolitan cities, we’ve got to have that.”

A World-Class Orchestra Close to Home

Mark believes that the ASO musicians more than meet the demand of a great orchestra. “We have a world-class group of musicians here in Birmingham, not flying in for a show and then taking off. They’re part of the community, they shop where you shop. Coming from the background of an amateur player, what continues to strike him most is the musicianship a professional orchestra brings. “I know how much you put into it,” he says. “If you just want to play with a little neighborhood garage band, it’s a lot of work. So I’m always really awed by the musicianship on stage. Whether it’s Masterworks, movies, or with the Indigo Girls, you guys can play anything”

In fact, watching people discover how good this orchestra is is one of the things he misses the most about being on the ground in production. When his job involved chauffeuring visiting soloists to and from the hall, he was often present for visitors’ first reactions to playing with the ASO. “I heard Yo-Yo Ma say, ‘Wow, I was not expecting that!” I think a lot of people come to Birmingham and kind of think this is going to be a small regional orchestra. And there’s nothing wrong with [those groups], but this group punches well above its weight, and I heard that so many times.”

Fond Memories from Years on the ASO Stage Crew

Mark looks back at his previous ASO posts fondly, and admits that being on the production side of things is where he has always felt most comfortable, a fact he guesses might stem from his engineering training. Those years also hold some of his favorite memories, and I’m treated to a story that he says is his wildest ASO memory.

In the days before settling at Railroad Park, the ASO used to close each season with shows at Caldwell Park and Fort McClellan. “After the show [at Caldwell], we would pack up the orchestra and go to Anniston, to Fort McClellan, and do a concert there on Saturday night. So, we would get loaded up at 3am or maybe 3:30, and early the next morning we would go to Anniston and do it all over again.” Fort McClellan is a massive old Army Base, and the portable orchestra shell would be set up outdoors. “It’s like a little city, and there was a giant quad that the stage would be set up in.” Today, the ASO crew constantly checks the weather during outdoor shows, but this was the early 2000s, before smartphones could give minute-by-minute updates.

“We had a grand piano on the stage, and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, a micro-burst thunderstorm hit. It happened so quickly that we couldn’t even clear the piano. The wind was blowing so hard that it blew music stands off of the stage. There was lightning, and we’re trying to take cover. The nearest buildings were pretty far away, so we were hunkered down on the stage.”

“Finally, it passed, and we were able to gather the equipment, and because there was a little gymnasium in one of the buildings, we were actually able to do the show.”

But then the crew faced the task of dismantling a sopping concert setup and loading it onto trucks that were quickly sinking into the mud. “I don’t know what time this was, but it was very late,” he remembers. “The only way we could get the piano off the stage was to take a giant rubber-wheeled forklift and inch it out to the road.”

Mark assumed that the piano was completely destroyed. “I said, I’m sure the thing’s ruined. It sat out in the thunderstorm. But [the piano tuner] called me back, and said, ‘man, this piano sounds great! I think it sounds better than it did.” The ASO tried to sell the piano, but with its soggy history, takers were hard to come by. “Finally, the price got so low that I just bought it, and it’s amazing!” That piano still sits in Mark’s living room, a little piece of insider ASO history.

ASO in the Community

In the end, Mark Patrick is a local musician at heart, and what’s most important to him about the ASO is what it offers the Alabama community. “I think one of the things that’s a huge void right now is music education in our schools.” Don’t get him wrong, he loves sports, but he believes that equal resources should be put into the arts. The ASO’s education programs currently reach 43,000 kids a year, and counting. “I really think that’s somewhere where we can make a difference,” he says. What the ASO also offers—and this is what lights him up more than anything—is a place for Alabama music lovers to gather and explore music that might be new to them. As he said before, there’s nothing more exciting than that.

But, funding an orchestra is no small feat. “It takes the same number of people to play a symphony as it did when it was written 300 years ago, and so it just gets more expensive every year to try to keep up. We’re fortunate that we’ve got people who realize how important it is.” He also notes that “there’s a reason why it’s called the Alabama Symphony Orchestra. It’s in order to serve the whole state. I would like for the state to realize what that means, the kind of asset that is, and invest in it. I think if that happens, there would be ways for us to get out and do more around the whole of Alabama.”

—Article by Valerie Sly, Principal Horn, Symphony Volunteer Council Chair, August 2026

9-minute read

Written by Valerie Sly, Alabama Symphony Orchestra, Principal Horn

Daniel Cho joined the ASO as Assistant Conductor during the 2023-24 Alabama Symphony season and was promoted to Associate Conductor in 2025. You’ve probably seen him on the podium or behind the scenes at an ASO event. In his capacity, he also serves as the director of the Alabama Symphony Youth Orchestra, so there’s a chance he’s worked with your kids or grandkids. So, what exactly does an assistant conductor do? The answer is: a lot.

During rehearsals where he’s not conducting, Daniel is our ears in the audience, listening to ensure that what we hear on stage translates into the hall. He’s looking at the score, monitoring for any mistakes that might be in our parts. You can often find me texting him during rehearsal breaks, asking things like, “Are the horns projecting enough at measure 75?” Or, “Are we sure that’s supposed to be an E-flat in measure 434?”

An assistant conductor is also an understudy, ready to step in and conduct the performance in case of emergency, but Daniel is also tasked with leading the orchestra for a myriad of pops, children’s, and outdoor concerts. This past season, he led his first masterworks programs, and next season, he’ll be at the helm for three more.

I sat down with Daniel to talk about his work with the ASO and ASYO, his background, and his thoughts on the importance of classical music. As tends to happen when you put two bona fide nerds in a room together, we also wandered into the weeds of music history, composers we love, and even a bit of music theory. As usual, I was struck by the infectious energy and passion that Daniel brings to everything he does, which is what I’ve tried most to capture in this profile.

From Violin to the Podium: Daniel Cho’s Early Musical Life

Daniel grew up in San Francisco, and like many kids, began playing an instrument at a young age. His mom started him on violin at age four because she had read in a parenting magazine that it might calm him down. “I think I was kind of a wild kid,” he says, “at least that’s what they tell me.” At first, he hated playing; it felt like a chore and he never wanted to practice. But then, at 11, he joined the Napa Valley Youth Symphony and fell in love with orchestra. “My mom tells me there was a noticeable difference when I started [in the orchestra]. She said, ‘You started practicing. I didn’t have to tell you to practice!’”

Part of this new engagement was the Youth Symphony’s director, Ming Luke, who Daniel says was the first to suggest that he might make a good conductor. “Ming was especially inspiring because he had a lot of joy for the music; you could just tell he loved it, and that made me love it. Also, he was an Asian man conducting, something I hadn’t seen up to that point, so naturally, I saw myself in him.”

That enthusiasm is part of why Daniel enjoys working with the students in the Alabama Symphony Youth Orchestra. “They’re just so excited about it,” he says. “They really want to learn, and they’re really, really focused.” While working with professionals is rewarding, Daniel says the pressure to execute a great performance can sometimes get intense, so he enjoys the freedom afforded by working with students. “There’s something about their excitement, especially during performances—it gets pretty rowdy musically, and it’s really fun watching them jump to a whole other level.”

New England Conservatory and the Path to Conducting

After high school, Daniel attended the New England Conservatory of Music for his undergraduate degree in violin performance, but the idea of conducting was always in the back of his mind. He found another mentor in the school’s Wind Ensemble director, Charles Peltz. “I was interested in conducting at that time,” Daniel says, “and he offered that I could join his conducting class, just as an auditor.” Daniel wound up earning his master’s degree in Wind Ensemble Conducting, an unusual choice for a string player. “At first I was kind of embarrassed about it, that it was a wind ensemble conducting degree, but now I’m very grateful I did that. I learned basic stuff I didn’t know about winds, brass, and percussion, and the repertoire for that ensemble is primarily 20th-century. It’s very complex, so it got my chops up doing mixed-meter and other difficult things.”

History, Context, and the Rabbit Holes That Make Classical Music Irresistible

When I ask whether he ever considered a career outside of music, Daniel and I can’t help but wander down our first rabbit hole. The only other path he ever seriously considered was history, “but classical music kind of covers that,” he says.

“Me, too,” I exclaim, “That was my other choice as well!” It’s the interconnectivity, we discover—how one event or one composer influences the next, that fascinates us both.

Now thoroughly distracted, I ask, “Do you ever listen to the podcast Hardcore History?”

“Yes!” It turns out Daniel is acquainted with Dan Carlin, the show’s host. He lives in Eugene, Oregon, and attends the Eugene Symphony, Daniel’s previous post. I fangirl for a moment before finding my way back to my point. “You know how he says he’s addicted to context?” I ask. “That’s how I feel. The idea that in order to explain one event, you have to back up centuries to find the beginning of the story.”

“We get a lot of that in music as well,” Daniel points out, “so I think it scratched that itch for me.” For him, the fact that classical music has been around for so long and has been worked by so many different hands makes it all the more powerful.

“When I think back to a person living [in another era],” he says, “especially as a Korean person, a child of Korean immigrants…my ancestors, while Beethoven was composing symphonies, were working in rice paddies. It might as well have been Jupiter, but their descendant is now living in the United States. When I listen to a Beethoven symphony, and I feel things, and then this person that I’m imagining, a random audience member sitting in a hall in 1770, listening to the premiere of [a Beethoven] symphony…I’m connected to that person. We’re both sitting here, and we’re both feeling this thing, listening to this thing. It’s probably very different in many ways, but we’re both feeling similar things. For me, that’s magic.”

The Impossible Question: Who’s Your Favorite Composer?

I shake myself out of the starry-eyed stupor that Daniel has just left me in to ask a question that every musician loathes to answer: Who’s your favorite composer?

That earns me some well-deserved griping. The problem, Daniel says, is that every time he works on something, he becomes convinced that it’s the greatest piece ever written. But eventually he acquiesces.

Structure, Twists, and Turns

“I guess as a conductor,” he says, “the one I always go back to is Brahms. “It’s got the structure and the puzzle-piece nature of Mozart or Haydn, but then it’s also got little twists and turns. So probably Brahms.” But then Daniel gets sucked into the same loop of reconsideration that overtakes every musician faced with this question. “But, also Britten comes to mind,” he reneges. Ravel, Mozart…how can you choose just one?” He punts it to me, and I balk at the taste of my own medicine.

“It depends on what day of the week it is,” I protest. Trying to pick a favorite composer, we decide, is a bit like trying to choose a favorite emotion. Each one offers something unique and important.

“And they’re all built on each other,” Daniel, too, is addicted to context, it seems.

Rewriting Music History

This leads me to my favorite question to ask musicians. “So many great composers died young,” I propose. “If you could go back in time and save one of them so they could write more, who would you save?” This, it turns out, is a much easier question for a musician to contemplate, and I’m rewarded with a quick and decisive answer.

“Probably Schubert,” Daniel says confidently. A small squeal escapes me before I can stop it—he was my pick, too. “He was so prolific already,” Daniel observes of the composer’s output during his short 31 years. “We’re so lucky to have so much from him, but he ended on the Cello Quintet, the late quartets, and then his latest songs. I think he was starting to really explore, and had gotten to the point where he gained confidence. And then he just…you know…got syphilis and died. Who among us?” We both laugh at that, but it’s not long before the topic of a young composer dying at the most intriguing part of their career brings us to Mozart, whose 40th symphony we had just performed.

And Then There is Mozart

As we discuss the various oddities of Mozart’s 40th symphony—the ways in which he pressed against the constraints of the classical form, I trot over to my bookshelf and pull down Mozart’s Last Year by H. C. Robbins Landon. “Can I borrow it?” asks Daniel. Of course he can! The book follows Mozart through exactly the tumultuous period we’ve been discussing. And because I can’t help myself, I pull down a couple more recently acquired tomes. I thunk Jan Swafford’s 1000-page biographies of Beethoven and Brahms down onto my kitchen table and Daniel lights up. “I became friends with him when I lived in Boston! My favorite thing about him is his basic philosophy, which is that we deify these people, and they are not [Gods], they’re just people. He writes from that angle.”

“This Music Is About You”: Daniel Cho on What Classical Music Really Means

As we chatted, I noticed a theme emerging: the unpretentious connectivity that defies how classical music is so often perceived. What’s most magnetic about this art, to Daniel, is that it captures the constancies of the human experience.

“I wish people knew that this music is about you,” he says. “It’s not some high-minded form. The people who wrote this music were human beings. You can clearly see the events of their lives affecting the music, and those events are the same as ours. It’s just difficulty, grief, joy, anger… it’s all the same stuff.” This is how Daniel wishes people thought of Classical music, instead of the powdered wigs and royal courts that so often caricaturize the genre. “Don’t think about that,” he pleads, “that’s not what it’s about. It’s about you.”

Why the Alabama Symphony Matters: Community, Identity, and Live Music

It’s not just the music itself that Daniel feels is important. After all, the internet age has made it so that anyone can go online and listen to the Berlin Philharmonic or Chicago Symphony at the click of a button. But, there’s a downside, he believes, to the growing homogenization that today’s conveniences bring. “Those little shops where you used to go grocery shopping, they’re all disappearing and being taken over by Target and Walmart and Publix. What makes this city [unique] is the Alabama Symphony, it’s the Birmingham Zoo, it’s the Alabama Ballet. In a world where places are losing their identity, I think that’s really important.”

What the ASO offers, then, is not just an opportunity to experience great art, but to do so together as part of this community. “I think what we actually present is less the point of what we do. It’s more about the experience, and the space that we provide for people to come together.”

The Case for Showing Up: What a Live Orchestra Concert Actually Does for You

Attending an orchestra concert, in Daniel’s mind, offers a prescription for so many of our modern afflictions—our short attention spans, the decline of quality time spent together, our obsession with our phones, even the AI-driven predilection for shortcuts. “Come to the hall,” he offers, “sit in the dark, and listen to music for an hour. It’s okay if your mind wanders, bring your mind back. Come be with hundreds of people just sitting together, listening, reacting to the musicians on stage who have spent years perfecting their craft. There’s no amplification and musicians are playing wooden and metal instruments made mostly by hand.”

When put that way, it sounds almost quaint, but Daniel believes this music and the people who perform it deserve the utmost respect, and he approaches his role at the front of the orchestra with that in mind. There are members of the orchestra, he notes, who have been performing longer than he’s been alive and have dedicated their lives to this art form. That, he says, is where the pressure comes from.

High-Pressure Performance

“I don’t think there are many fields that ask people to perform at such a high level just because. In sports, they get paid tens of millions of dollars. We put that same amount of pressure [on ourselves] just because this is important to us.” As the person on the podium who’s in charge of guiding the orchestra toward that standard, Daniel wants to make sure he’s worthy of the responsibility. The role of a conductor, to him, is a bit like that of a travel guide. He studies the cartography of the music to the level of a London Cabbie so that he can point the players towards the most important landmarks. But the musicians bring their own experience and ideas, so he views every gesture as an offer for a player to accept or decline. “Truly, you don’t have to listen to me!” he exclaims.

“I’m going to remember that,” I joke, but Daniel is serious. He says he prefers it that way because it means his ideas must be convincing and rooted in the score. “If I’m going to be up there,” he says, “there has to be a reason.”

Don’t Keep the ASO a Secret — It’s for Everyone

“Is there something you wish everyone in the state knew about the Alabama Symphony?” I ask.

“That we exist!” Daniel laughs, but he has a point—the ASO has been referred to as the “best kept secret in Alabama” in more than one article.

“I guess I would want people to know that these are people from your community, people you’ll see at the grocery store. They live here and they work every day to be ready to give a performance to you specifically.” And lest anyone wonder if Daniel understands the operational aspect of a conductor’s role, he adds that the ASO’s nonprofit status is hugely important to our identity. “The reason that we’re here is not to make money but to serve our community. The way that we function directly relies on the generosity of both small and large donors. Every dollar we receive is an investment in your community and will be put back into your community. That’s why we’re here.”

To Daniel, that personal connection matters most of all. “All I hear about is how crazy the world is. [The orchestra] is a place where you get to come to watch human endeavor. Your human connection, performing music that is about what is the best of us, and doing that together. It’s just the solution to everything. I believe that.”

References and Helpful Links:

For anyone who wants to explore some of the people, music, or books referenced in this interview, I’ve included links below.

Concerts to attend:

Daniel Cho will lead the ASO in three Masterworks programs next season. Concerts listed below.

November 6-7, 2026
Jesse Montgomery | Starburst
Leonard Bernstein | Serenade after Plato’s “Symposium”
Johannes Brahms | Symphony No. 2

March 19-20, 2027
Arturo Márquez | Danzón No. 7
Gustav Mahler | Blumine
Maurice Ravel | Mother Goose Suite
Ludwig von Beethoven | Symphony No. 7

May 7-8, 2027
Leonard Slatkin | Voyager 130
William Walton | Viola Concerto
Gustav Holst | The Planets

The ASO is excited to welcome guest conductor Ming Luke for our October Masterworks program.

October 23-24, 2026
Franz Schubert | Symphony No. 8 “Unfinished”
Johannes Brahms | Alto Rhapsody
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart | Requiem in D minor

Explore our Masterworks season here

Suggested Music to listen to:

Mozart Symphony No. 40

ASO performed this work in May, 2026. To read the program note from this performance, click here

Schubert’s late works

String Quintet in C Major, D 956

Referred to by Daniel in this article as the “Cello Quintet,” this was Schubert’s last piece of chamber music, completed just a few weeks before he died. The top comment on this video says “petition for Schubert to release a new album.” It seems more people than just the two of us wish he had lived to write a bit more.

String Quartet No. 15 in G Major (D. 887)

Wintereise, D911

Schubert’s final song cycle sets 24 poems by Wilhelm Müller, following a heartbroken wanderer through a bleak midwinter landscape. Schubert’s landmark song cycles can be considered precursors to the modern concept album, uniting independent songs into a cohesive story.

Recommended Books/Podcasts:

Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History

Mozart’s Last Year by H.C. Robbins Landon

Books by Jan Swafford:

• Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph
• Johannes Brahms: A biography

—Article by Valerie Sly, Principal Horn, Symphony Volunteer Council Chair, June 2026

Welcome and Introduction

In April 2026, ASO’s Insider Evenings series welcomed Principal Percussionist Mark Libby for an intimate conversation with donors — his first time speaking at one of these events. What followed was a candid, wide-ranging discussion about his life in music, his journey to Birmingham, and the surprisingly vast world of percussion.

Mark has been an ASO member since 2000, when he joined from the Dayton Philharmonic. Originally from Wisconsin, he has called Alabama home for many years — and that evening, donors had the chance to hear his story firsthand.

Mark’s Opening Remarks

Mark Libby:

Thank you. I have a lot of great questions ready, and I’d love to open things up for conversation. But what I thought I’d do tonight is start by sharing a little about my background — how I got started in music, what my path looked like, and what it’s like to work with the symphony. What we do is pretty different from what most people imagine, so I thought it would be interesting to share some of that.

I’ll say a few words about my work with the orchestra, but first I’d like to play a short snare drum piece — just to make things a little more interesting.

Early Influence of Buster Bailey

This is a very short snare drum piece written by a very famous percussionist — famous in the percussion world, at least. His name was Buster Bailey. He was with the New York Philharmonic from 1949 to 1991. If you ever watched orchestral performances on television in the ’50s and ’60s, Buster was one of the guys in the back playing drums.

One reason I mention him is that he wrote this piece for a television program. I’m hoping you’re my perfect audience for this — do any of you remember Omnibus? Yes! Some of you do — you’re not faking it. When I mention it to people my age, they have no idea what I’m talking about. But it ran for about eight seasons on Sunday afternoons in the ’50s. It featured programs on science, the arts, and the humanities — you can find some of them on YouTube. Buster wrote this piece for the show, apparently as an introduction to a segment. My teacher in Cleveland had a copy of a copy of a VHS. I’ve seen it — though it may be the one thing in the world that’s not on YouTube.

Anyway, this is a short snare drum piece by Buster Bailey. Fair warning — it’s quite loud.

[Mark performs a snare drum piece.]

Buster Bailey Stories

Thank you. Buster was a tremendous musician. He taught at Juilliard for many years and influenced generations of percussionists. My Buster Bailey story: I met him once. I didn’t study with him directly, but many of the people I studied with did. That’s one of the interesting things about music — there’s a lineage. My teacher studied with Buster, so even though I never met him directly, I feel like I absorbed his ideas about music and playing secondhand through his students.

When I was in high school, I went to the Aspen Music Festival in Colorado. Many of the faculty there were from New York, so I heard plenty of Buster stories. I graduated from high school in 1992, right around the time Buster retired. I auditioned at Juilliard that year — and there he was at the table. The principal percussionist of the New York Philharmonic, sitting right there. I was setting up my drum when he asked, “Where are you from?” I said Wisconsin. He said, “I’m from Wisconsin, too — have you ever been to Baraboo?”

I knew Buster loved circus music. He had a real joy for life — that’s why I brought the picture. Whenever people talk about Buster, they mention his infectious enthusiasm. He loved circus music so much that he’d go play with circus bands in the summers. And in Baraboo, Wisconsin, there’s the Circus World Museum. So when Buster asked if I’d been there, I said, “I don’t know much, but I have been to the Circus World in Baraboo.” Buster lit up. He was thrilled — like it was the most exciting thing. That was my Buster Bailey moment. Unfortunately, it was all downhill from there.

Background in Music

Mark Libby:

I’m from Wisconsin. I didn’t grow up in a particularly musical family — my dad was musical, and his mother was a vocalist — but I wouldn’t call us especially musical overall. I was fortunate to be part of a strong public school music program, and I had a wonderful private teacher. So it was a really good environment to grow up in.

I went to the Aspen Music Festival in high school, encouraged by my teacher there. It was eye-opening — being around older students, including college- and conservatory-level players. Being one of the youngest, I barely knew what college-level playing looked like, but being around those students opened my eyes. I auditioned for music conservatories after high school and ended up at the Cleveland Institute of Music, and loved it. I lived in Cleveland for eight years. Just really tremendous years of my life.

As mentioned, I played part-time with the Dayton Philharmonic for three seasons and was fortunate to secure a position here. That audition was around 2000, and I’ve been here ever since. I’ve really enjoyed being part of the Birmingham and Alabama community. I love bringing my colleagues and the great music we perform to our audiences.

Q&A — Instruments and Practice

Audience Member:

How many different instruments do you play? Do you play them all equally well, or do you favor some over others?

Mark Libby:

That’s one of the things I really enjoy about being a percussionist — we play a wide range of instruments. Most of us start on the snare drum. I grew up in Wisconsin, and my next-door neighbor had a drum set, which became my entry point. I played in marching band and jazz ensemble, all of it as a kid.

Then you branch out. You learn the keyboard percussion instruments — marimba, xylophone, vibraphone. I had to learn to read pitched music, and I was terrible at it at first. Snare drum music is all on one line. Then suddenly I had to read a full staff on the marimba — it was awful. It took me forever, but I stuck with it, and now I play all the keyboard instruments. Triangle, cymbals — we can talk about those in a bit.

It’s one of my favorite things about being a percussionist — the variety. It’s not easy. A piano player might practice six hours on one instrument. I might spend four hours on a single marimba piece, then four hours on a snare piece. But it’s its own kind of fun.

Practice Time

Audience Member:

How do you practice at home? Do you have all of that at home?

Mark Libby:

I’m in the basement. [laughter] I have a little studio down there. I have a marimba at home, a xylophone, a wood block, steel instruments, and drum gear. Most of us have what we need at home. It’s not a small investment — I told my daughter, when she started violin, that we’d start with a starter instrument and see how it goes.

Timpani

Audience Member:

We saw you playing timpani at a concert a while back. Do you enjoy it? Does it feel very different from other percussion?

Mark Libby:

I really do love playing timpani. When I was in college, I thought maybe that’s the direction I’d go. In a professional orchestra, it’s typically split — you’re either a timpanist or a percussionist. Jay Burnham is our timpanist, and he’s fantastic. He plays all the timpani. Lucas Vogelman and I play in the percussion section. By necessity, most people focus on one or the other because preparing for auditions for both is extremely demanding.

But I love playing timpani whenever I get the chance. The big difference is intonation. As a percussionist, you generally don’t worry about intonation — it’s set. With timpani, you have to tune the drums, and the pitch can drift during a concert as the heads respond to changes in temperature and humidity. You need a great ear. It’s very demanding that way, but also really rewarding — you feel even more connected to the orchestral sound because your pitch blends with everyone else’s.

Historically, timpani heads were made from calfskin. They sounded beautiful but were incredibly susceptible to weather changes — real humidity nightmares. Now they’re plastic, which is much more stable. But people still use natural heads, especially in period instrument ensembles. They sound fabulous. You just have to take very good care of them.

Tuning

Audience Member:

Is there a tuning gauge that helps?

Mark Libby:

Yes — there’s a gauge on the drum that gives you a reference point. It helps a lot. You can tune the drum, note where the gauge reads, and then check it during the concert. But you still have to use your ear as the final judge. The gauge tells you where you were, not necessarily where you need to be right now.

Counting Rests — The Percussionist’s Challenge

Audience Member:

How do you know when to come in? What does your music sheet look like?

Mark Libby:

A lot of the time, we’re not playing — we’re sitting and counting. We might sit for a very long time, then stand up and play a few notes, then sit back down. The part can show something like “tacet,” which means don’t play until further notice — for a long stretch. And then it’s like, wait, how long was that? [laughter]

It is genuinely difficult. We have to know the piece and the score well enough to track where we are. I always tease string players — and my wife plays violin, so I can say this — because they can’t count rests. If they have a long rest, they’re lost, because they’re used to always playing. We might have concerts where I play 30 notes total. Those guys play 30 notes in the first two minutes. So, to be fair, they face a different kind of challenge. But counting long rests is a real skill in our world.

Unusual Instruments

Audience Member:

What’s the most unusual instrument you’ve ever had to play?

Mark Libby:

Great question. In the percussion section, we get to play some unusual things — especially in contemporary music. Bottles, trash cans, big metal plates. I’ll tell one story.

There’s an instrument called a lion’s roar — it’s a friction drum. It has a head like a regular drum, but with a rope or thin rod attached to the center of the head. You pull on it, and the friction vibrates the head, producing a sound like… well, a lion’s roar. [demonstrates sound] Composers like Varèse used it often.

I played it once with the Cleveland Orchestra when I was a student on tour, and we were heading to Carnegie Hall. I was playing the lion’s roar in a Varèse piece. We had 13 people on stage, which probably explains how I got pulled in. We played through it, and Christoph von Dohnányi — the conductor — stopped and said, “Let me hear the lion’s roar.” I froze. I was 22, a senior in college. My teacher, Richard Weiner, the principal percussionist, was on the other side of the stage. I looked over at him, and he just looked away. [laughter]

I played it again. It turned out the issue was the drum itself — they had a new drum on tour, and Dohnányi remembered the old one. The old drum was white; this one was blue. He noticed it was a different drum. So no matter how I played, he was not happy. It was humiliating in the best possible way — you’re trying to make this intentionally strange sound in front of everyone. But I survived.

Snare Drum vs. Keyboard Instruments

Audience Member:

Do you find it difficult to switch between unpitched instruments, such as the snare drum, and melodic instruments, such as the marimba? They seem so different musically.

Mark Libby:

That’s a great question, and you’re right — they are different. But hopefully not as different as you might think. One of the things we’re taught, going back to Buster Bailey’s approach, is to play musically even on the snare drum — to maintain a musical line, phrasing, and shape, just like a horn player or a pianist. So the goal is to bring that same musicality to everything, even instruments that don’t have pitch.

We’re also taught to develop a technique that’s loose and relaxed enough to transfer across instruments — not a completely different technique for each one. You don’t want tension; you don’t want to choke the stick or the sound. The goal is for what you’re doing on the marimba to feel fundamentally similar to what you’re doing on the snare drum, even though the musical content differs.

The field has changed a lot. It used to be that players specialized — you were a drummer or a keyboard player. That’s not really the case anymore. Players like Lucas, our newly hired percussionist, are fantastic keyboard players and equally strong on all the drum instruments. The expectation now is that you do it all, so we’re all adapting and growing.

Practice Alongside the Orchestra

Audience Member:

Since so much of what you play is in context with the rest of the orchestra, do you practice your part alongside the other players’ parts?

Mark Libby:

Yes — great question. Most of my personal practice, especially for technically demanding work, focuses on working through the technical challenges at home first. When we get together in rehearsal, time is limited, and we’re focused on the musical ensemble work — fitting our parts together and responding to each other. So I do both. The technical groundwork happens at home, and a big part of that is score study — really learning how my part fits into everything else, so when I get to rehearsal I’m not just reading my notes in isolation.

Favorite Works

Audience Member:

Do you have a favorite piece or two that you especially enjoy playing?

Mark Libby:

I get that question a lot, and my honest answer is that I don’t have a single favorite. What I love is playing any work where the percussion writing fits beautifully and serves the music. Not all scores use percussion well — it’s not a given.

But a direct answer: one of my absolute favorites is a piece we performed at the Carver Theater on April 23, 2026. It’s by the French composer Darius Milhaud, who traveled extensively — including to Brazil, which influenced some of his work. Milhaud came to New York in 1922, went up to Harlem, and heard jazz and dance bands at the very beginning of the jazz era, and he was captivated. He wrote this chamber piece for about 17 instruments, very jazz-influenced, and the drum set part he wrote is remarkable, because at that point, the drum set as we know it barely existed. Players in New Orleans were still figuring it out: a bass drum on the floor with a pedal, cymbals lowered on a stand so one person could play everything.

Milhaud saw that happening in Harlem and went back and wrote this part. It’s not a modern drum set — it’s a bass drum with a pedal, a small cymbal attached, and some woodblocks. Very 1920s. But the writing is just terrific. I love jazz; I love the chamber-music aspect of the piece, and it’s beautifully written for the instruments. I’m really looking forward to it.</p>

Teaching

Audience Member:

Do orchestra members typically teach on the side?

Mark Libby:

A lot of us do, yes. I don’t teach very much myself. And I’ll be honest — I think there’s a common misconception that being a good performer makes you a good teacher. That’s not necessarily true. Teaching is its own skill. It’s hard for me to turn off the critical, analytical part of my brain that got me to this level and just be encouraging and patient — not make a kid hate music. [laughter]

I will say, though, that having my daughter play the violin now has been a completely different and wonderful musical experience for me. Not as a professional evaluating every note, but just as a parent enjoying her joy in it. That’s been really special.

There are many excellent teachers in Birmingham, and I have tremendous respect for them. It’s a genuine skill, and I refer students to those teachers all the time.

Audience Member:

When do you practice, given your family life?

Mark Libby:

In the basement. [laughter] Definitely in the basement. Usually in the mornings and afternoons. When kids are in school, from around 8 to 2:30, that’s your window.

Cleveland Institute of Music — Anecdotes

Audience Member:

Do you have any favorite memories or stories from your time at the Cleveland Institute?

Mark Libby:

I was so fortunate there — I didn’t fully realize it at the time. The Cleveland Institute of Music is a very small conservatory, and the Cleveland Orchestra is right there. We’d go to concerts on Saturday night, and those were our teachers at the Tuesday morning lesson. Walking down the hall, you’d see John Mack — the principal oboe — just right there. That was the environment.

One story: we had a guest artist come in for a masterclass — Bob van Sice, a fantastic marimba player who had studied at CIM with Cloyd Duff, the legendary timpanist with the Cleveland Orchestra. He’d become well known for his marimba playing. He had a reputation for being intense in masterclasses — if you weren’t prepared, he let you know. So when he came, my teacher Richard Weiner made it very clear: be ready.

Richard and the other faculty were there for the first hour or so. Everything went smoothly. The moment they left, the atmosphere changed. For anyone who maybe hadn’t quite prepared as much as they should have — well, Bob was not shy about pointing it out. It was a great lesson in showing up prepared. I learned a lot.

Another memory: I was in the basement one day practicing timpani when some of the brass players were having a sectional upstairs. They needed timpani for the Beethoven Third Symphony, so they grabbed me — come up, come do this. And there I was, playing with the principal trumpet of the Cleveland Orchestra in a student sectional. How lucky is that? You just can’t replicate that kind of environment. Seeing that level of musicianship up close every day — it’s so fortunate.

Brake Drums and Unusual Sound Sources

Audience Member:

We were at a concert and noticed someone in the percussion section playing what looked like a real car brake drum. Is that right? What kind of sound does it produce?

Mark Libby:

Yes, absolutely! We use brake drums all the time. They’re literally automotive brake drums — I went to a junkyard off I-65 and picked out a bunch of them. [laughter] I put them in the trunk and drove back. They produce a great metallic sound, kind of like an anvil — in fact, in some pieces the part is actually marked “anvil,” and we use a brake drum to simulate that sound.

Contemporary music calls for a wide range of creative sound sources. Oxygen tanks are another example — different sizes produce very resonant, almost-pitched sounds. It’s exciting, actually. Sometimes a score is very specific: “I want a wood block exactly three inches long, struck with this type of mallet.” That’s thrilling because you get to explore and find exactly the right sound. We always try to honor those specifications while trusting our own ears.

Favorite Concerts

Audience Member:

Are there any concerts you’re particularly excited about?

Mark Libby:

Definitely the April program at the Carver Theater — I already mentioned that piece, and I’m really looking forward to it. Also, we’re performing Carmina Burana in the first week of May with the Alabama Ballet. I always enjoy playing it — it has a lot of great percussion writing. It gets a bit of a reputation for being overplayed, but it’s genuinely fun to perform.

The Triangle

Mark Libby:

I brought a triangle tonight and want to pass it around — because it’s the instrument people always ask about, usually with a smile, as if it must be the easy one. But it’s actually quite difficult.

One of my favorite triangle stories involves a television program — there’s a clip on YouTube of journalist George Plimpton, known for participatory journalism. He embedded himself in different worlds to write about them — he played football with the Detroit Lions, that kind of thing. He also played the triangle in a rehearsal with the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein.

Bernstein stops the orchestra, looks at Plimpton, and says he wants to hear the triangle. Plimpton is absolutely terrified — as he should be. He’s alone on a single note in front of a full orchestra, with Bernstein staring at him. Plimpton said afterward that he’d never been more frightened. That’s the reality of the triangle — when you play it, everyone can hear you, and you usually have to play very softly. One person, one note, total exposure.

So, let’s pass it around — give it a try.

[Triangle passed around the audience. Laughter and audience participation.]

The piece I’m referencing is Liszt’s First Piano Concerto, which is famous in the classical world for its triangle part. There’s a prominent solo that has been the subject of many jokes — and much terror — over the years. But it’s a gorgeous piece, and that triangle note matters. Thank you all — you did great.

 

Experience It for Yourself

Insider Evenings happen twice a year, offering donors an up-close look at the orchestral world — from the musicians who bring it to life to the production team that makes it all happen.

You can be part of it with a yearly commitment of just $100, which works out to a little over $8 a month on a recurring plan. View our full donor benefits here.

And if you step up to $250 or more annually, you’ll also gain access to Conductor’s Corner — an exclusive conversation with our conductor about their artistic process and what goes into preparing each concert program.

These are the moments that turn audience members into true insiders.

“Every time the Alabama Symphony Orchestra takes the stage,

audiences experience the culmination of countless behind-the-scenes decisions.”

An interview with Clay A. McCollum, Director of Artistic Administration, and Nick Ciulla, Personnel Manager and Acting Principal Trumpet

Every time the Alabama Symphony Orchestra takes the stage, audiences experience the culmination of countless behind-the-scenes decisions. Who plays which instrument? How do we find musicians when our full-time players are unavailable? What happens when a soloist cancels at the last minute?

Two key figures orchestrate these critical details: Clay McCollum, the ASO’s Director of Artistic Administration, and Nick Ciulla, the orchestra’s Personnel Manager, who also serves as acting principal trumpet. Together, they navigate the complex world of hiring musicians, managing personnel, and ensuring that every concert features world-class artistry.

Clay joined the orchestra in 2021, bringing his background as a trained singer and musicologist to the role of selecting soloists who perform concertos and featured vocal works. Nick, now in his 11th season as a player and second full season as Personnel Manager, handles the intricate task of hiring substitute and extra musicians needed to complete the roster for each performance—typically 10 to 30 additional players per week.

In this candid conversation conducted in October 2025, Clay and Nick share their perspectives on what it takes to build an orchestra, the challenges facing musicians today, and behind-the-scenes stories from their work with the ASO.

 

Getting to Know Our Guests

Can you tell us about your backgrounds and how you came to the Alabama Symphony Orchestra?

Clay McCollum: I’ve been with the orchestra since 2021, joining as the pandemic was starting to ease. I’ve lived in Birmingham since 2014. I attended Ole Miss, where I double-majored in modern languages—French and German—and earned a Bachelor of Music in voice. After spending time in New York for graduate study, I returned to Alabama to continue my education in Tuscaloosa.

By the time I was 25 or 26, I realized I wasn’t going to be singing at the Metropolitan Opera, and teaching 18 hours of studio voice a week for 40 years sounded unsustainable. I went back to school at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa—Roll Tide—on an assistantship, where I taught sections of music appreciation while completing my master’s degree in musicology. That’s how I ended up in Alabama, and now I’m in Birmingham working with the orchestra.

Nick Ciulla: I’m in my 11th season as a player. I started in 2015 as assistant principal trumpet, and I’m now in my second full season as orchestra personnel manager, handling both roles.

Before coming to Alabama, my wife and I were at Florida State working on our Doctor of Musical Arts degrees. My wife finished her degree, and I’m nearly done with mine through the University of Alabama. I earned my Bachelor of Performance at Baldwin Wallace University and my master’s in trumpet performance at Wichita State University, where I also served as second trumpet with the Wichita Symphony Orchestra.

I won my audition here in 2015, which brought me to Alabama. Before moving into administration, I was very active on musicians’ committees, serving on the orchestra committee, the local union board, and for a time as a representative on the board of directors. I believe my experiences as a player and committee member give me a strong foundation for overseeing orchestra personnel.

Understanding the Roles

Can you explain what each of you does and how your roles differ?

Clay: I work with the conducting staff to select and hire soloists—the featured artists who perform concertos or vocal works with the orchestra. When we present a piano or violin concerto, for example, I help identify and hire the soloist in collaboration with our Music Director, Carlos Izcaray, and the conductor for the program.

Since Carlos enjoys working with vocalists and I’m a vocalist with opera experience, that collaboration is especially rewarding. When we perform Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, which requires a solo vocal quartet in the fourth and final movement, I work closely with Carlos to select the singers.

Nick: I handle the instrumentation that supplements our existing orchestra based on repertoire requirements every time the Alabama Symphony Orchestra takes the stage. The ASO currently has 50 full-time musicians under contract. Each week we perform, I hire an average of 10 to 30 substitute or extra players to complete the ensemble.

Extra players are needed when a piece calls for more musicians than we have on staff. For example, during a Harry Potter concert—one of the largest orchestral programs we assemble—we may need 10 second violinists, but only have five on staff. A substitute player fills in when a full-time musician is unable to perform due to vacancy, illness, or leave. That’s why you may see different musicians on stage from concert to concert.

The Hiring Process: Building the Orchestra

Do you maintain a directory of musicians who regularly play with the ASO?

Nick: Yes, I have an extensive list of substitute players. When selecting qualified players, our criteria generally include recommendations from principal players or the music director, or a review of submitted resumes and recordings.

Often, we give someone a chance to play in a less demanding setting first—such as a brewery or pops concert. If that goes well, we may bring them in for a masterworks program.

Clay: Each program varies depending on the repertoire and level of virtuosity required. The demands of a masterworks concert can be quite different from those of a young people’s concert, which serves as an introduction to the orchestra.

Geographically, how far would you consider hiring someone?

Nick: We hire players from all over the country, not just locally. We offer subsidies that may include airfare assistance, per diem, mileage reimbursement, and a modest housing allowance. We’re also fortunate to have a donor housing program coordinated through Liz Saunders, which provides no-cost housing for visiting musicians.

We work with a wide range of players, including retired ASO musicians, local players from across Alabama, musicians from nearby states, and others who travel in from farther away.

Are substitute players given auditions?

Nick: Not in the traditional sense, but they are carefully evaluated. Often, an ASO member has played with them before, and hiring decisions are made collaboratively between the principal player and me.

Hiring Soloists

How far ahead do you hire soloists?

Clay: Typically, I plan 18 to 24 months in advance. By this point in the season, most soloists for the current year are booked, and I’m well into planning for the following season. During the summer, I often work three seasons ahead.

What are your criteria for selecting soloists?

Clay: My role is to support the conductor’s artistic vision. Once the repertoire is chosen, the conductor and I discuss potential soloists.

For example, when we programmed Liszt’s Second Piano Concerto for the 2025–26 season, Carlos recalled Llewellyn Sanchez-Werner from a previous performance. He was an excellent fit, and we invited him to return.

“Auditions are blind and highly competitive.”

The Audition Process

How do you maintain such a high level of quality in the orchestra?

Nick: It comes down to our audition and tenure process and the standards our musicians uphold. Auditions are blind and highly competitive, with candidates preparing numerous orchestral excerpts. Successful auditions lead into a tenure process that spans 18 months.

Not everyone receives tenure. Some are offered extensions, and others move on. The process includes regular performance reviews with detailed feedback.

The Reality of a Music Career

How common is it for musicians to hold administrative roles?

Nick: It’s challenging for musicians to rely on a single income source. Taking on an administrative role allowed me to stay closer to Birmingham and contribute in a different way while continuing to perform.

Clay: It’s fairly common for orchestra personnel managers to be musicians themselves. That shared experience builds trust and communication.

“Most players will take between 20 and 30 auditions before they win a job.”

Behind-the-Scenes Stories

Has anyone ever had a last-minute crisis?

Nick: Being late is extremely rare in this profession. Most issues arise well in advance, which gives us time to respond.

Clay: I’ve only had one soloist withdraw close to a concert. In May 2022, during a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, we were able to secure a replacement on short notice because it’s standard repertoire.

Looking Ahead

Why haven’t we seen many guest conductors recently?

Clay: Since we have three talented staff conductors, we’ve chosen to focus on them this season and allocate resources elsewhere. We do plan to bring in guest conductors for select masterworks programs in future seasons.

How You Can Help

Anna Newsome, VP of Development: As a non-profit organization, the Alabama Symphony Orchestra relies on ticket sales and philanthropic support. The orchestra employs about 70 people—50 on stage and roughly 20 in administrative roles. Community support makes our work possible.

The Alabama Symphony Orchestra thanks Clay McCollum and Nick Ciulla for sharing their insights into the work that brings each performance to life every time the Alabama Symphony Orchestra takes the stage . To learn more about supporting the ASO or attending upcoming concerts, visit alabamasymphony.org.

 

.. time In a previous blog post, writer Nicky Swett heard from ASO string players about their experiences searching for instruments. In this article, he speaks with Alabama Symphony Orchestra musicians about how they came to their wind and brass instruments.

The contrast between searching for brass instruments and string instruments

I began by asking Alabama Symphony Orchestra musician Masa Ohtake about how he found the trombone he plays on. He immediately formed a contrast between searching for a brass instrument and looking for string instruments. “I’ve had string playing friends go through finding a bow and how heartbreaking and excruciating and difficult and possibly financially destructive that process can be. The most expensive orchestral-style trombone you can buy is probably a type of German horn, which costs 10-15 thousand dollars.” Professional-grade string instruments, on the other hand, start in that range and can go up to hundreds of thousands, or even millions. “That’s a very different category of stress,” Masa exclaimed, though he acknowledged that the purchase of any high-level orchestral instrument is a substantial investment.

Brass instruments and some woodwind instruments are quite customizable. “This is just my opinion, but metal has less personality than other materials that are used in instrument making. The difference changing from metal to metal is not the same as from wood to wood,” Masa told me. Parts can be swapped for one another and adjusted with relative ease. This means that for wind and brass players, the search process often involves assembling a new instrument rather than finding one that is already out in the world, ready to go.

The search for the right instrument is still involved and demanding

That certainly doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a less involved and demanding process. “I tried more flutes than I could count,” flutist Tessa Vermeulen told me. “My time was spent trialling many different makers, emailing them, and asking if they could send me a couple with various specifications. I didn’t really feel a serious click with any of them until I tried Kanichi Nagahara flutes. My search immediately narrowed when I tried these. They have this vibrancy and immediacy of response that was really attractive. Nagahara flutes have the capacity for a lot of power. I don’t want to feel like the flute can’t quite take this amount of air, or it can’t do this extreme of a dynamic.”

Because Tessa was planning to commission a newly-built flute, rather than buy a pre-made one, she had the chance to get things just right. “He made one body to my specifications, but I was debating between two head joints—the same material, but a very slightly different cut. He made two of them and he sent them both to me. It was very subtle, both of them were great, but I ended up picking one.”

I asked Tessa about what helped her to make that decision. “Head joints are the main element of the flute that determines the sound,” she explained. “It was about which specific cut was going to alter the direction of the air ever so slightly in a way that was going to feel more like my voice. The cut that would make me feel physically empowered to do whatever it is I want to do. One of them felt a little bit more direct in terms of where the air was hitting. Another was slightly more diffused. I ended up picking the one that was more direct, because it felt like throughout the various registers, and with different articulations and dynamics, I had the most control.”

The reality of the complexities of an instrument’s limits

Principal Horn Valerie Sly wound up with her french horn after a long and sometimes frustrating string of these kinds of back-and-forth modifications on another horn. “I had been sending the horn that I had been playing on to this horn maker named Jacob Medlin. We had been trying to fix a couple little things in the instrument that weren’t working very well. At a certain point, he was like ‘I don’t think we’re going to be able to get some of these problems worked out the way that you want. We’ve kind of hit the upper ceiling of what this instrument can be.’”

She explained that horns are extremely sensitive instruments and that even great makers sometimes can’t fully explain why certain notes work well and others don’t. “The way that I would describe what it feels like to find notes on the horn is a little bit like throwing darts. The wiggle room that you have on each note is different.

“When you’re in the low register, you’re trying to throw a dart at the bullseye, but the bullseye is big and you’re like five feet away from it. It’s not that bad. As you get up into the higher register, you’re taking steps backward, and your margin for error becomes much smaller. But there can be certain notes where, for whatever reason, the way the instrument is vibrating, it feels like the bullseye is non-existent! There’s no stability to the note. You’re trying to balance a pencil by the eraser or the point.

Even the best horn builders in the world don’t totally know everything

“Even the best horn builders in the world don’t totally know how this works from a physics standpoint, because the way that the sound waves move through brass instruments is so complicated. On my old instrument, a couple of notes in the high register were what I would refer to as very squirrely! The horn just like didn’t want to snap into place on them – it felt like the slot was non-existent.”

Jacob, the horn maker she was working with, suggested that he could get further with a different instrument. “He suggested that it would actually be better to take a Yamaha, which are horns that horn makers love to work on because they’re very consistent, and do a bunch of tweaks to it. He knew what the outcome would be.” Fortuitously, Valerie’s backup instrument happened to be the exact Yamaha model he suggested, and so she quickly shipped it his way. “It has a whole new bell that’s his, a whole new lead pipe that’s his. There’s a ton of work to the body of the horn. It’s sort of half Yamaha and half his. He sent it back to me and I really did not know what to expect. I played on it and it was amazing. I never went back to my other horn!”

The timing of “The Search” is unpredictable

The musicians I spoke with all initiated instrument searches at different stages in their careers. Masa, for his part, was adamant that it is important not to look for an upgrade too early on. “I think it’s generally good practice when you’re young and developing not to look outwards for solutions but to look inwards. Become a better producer of sound before we start to think, ‘if I change this about the instrument, it’ll make me better.’

“I see a lot of students spend a lot of money changing stuff out every semester. If you have the resources, great. But if you don’t, really make sure that you have all the fundamentals in place. Get to the point where you know the way that you want to present your sound, what you need from a trombone in an orchestra job, and what you need to fit in the section. That kind of clear picture is what navigated me toward my instrument. It’s like buying clothes. You don’t want to buy the nicest designer things if you know you’re going to grow 6 inches in the next year!”

Know the goal and have a target in mind before starting the process

Masa decided to get a new instrument shortly after he won his job in the ASO, and once he started the process, he really enjoyed working with a trombone maker in Boston. “They do fittings for you, these instrument makers. They have hundreds of different trombone slides! For different components, you can get rose brass, yellow brass, gold brass, nickel, sterling, and silver. It’s interesting. I’m glad I went through it. I know a little bit more now, I feel better equipped to talk about it, but I felt very lucky to know what I was going for and have a target in mind before I started the process.”

Tessa also noted the importance of really knowing her own sound. She brought that knowledge to the decision-making process for possible flute configurations. “The more diffuse head joint had some specific [tonal] colors that I liked. One or two colors were slightly more difficult to achieve on the one I ended up choosing. But I decided I wanted something that would give me a super-solid base. I can now make my own colors on top of it. As soon as an instrument is imposing some sort of color or condition on your playing across the board, it’s taking your options down a notch.”

I was struck by the difference between this mentality and that of string players I have spoken with about their instrument searches. They expected that the violin or cello they chose would have its own inherent sound that would force them to adjust their playing style in various ways. Perhaps the potential for customization in wind and brass instruments also creates a different set of expectations. All scenarios create a unique relationship between the player and the instrument. “I believe the best instrument is a blank slate,” Tessa proposed. “That’s how you know that you found the right instrument for you: if it’s physically comfortable and if it feels like a blank canvas.”

 

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Cellist, writer, and musicologist Nicky Swett speaks with Alabama Symphony Orchestra musicians Lauren Peacock and Boyu Li about how they came to the string instruments they play on.

The transition from early beginnings to “The Search”

Many string players have little memory of the very first instruments they used. “I started on violin when I was three. I think I had one of those cardboard violins,” Lauren Peacock, Assistant Principal Cellist of the Alabama Symphony, told me. “When I was five, I asked to switch to cello. I don’t think I had a cardboard cello, but I had one of those little baby wooden ones that probably didn’t sound too good.” As kids get older, they often go from instrument to instrument without having much input about what they are playing on. “When you’re really young or in high school, you don’t know exactly what to look for. Your teacher often helps you find the instrument,” Lauren explained.

At a certain point, performers who have decided to play professionally begin thinking more actively about the tool they bring on stage every day, and they look for something that can take their playing to a different level. This can happen at various career stages. Lauren began seeking a cello after she had completed her master’s degree, while she was playing in The Orchestra Now, a training orchestra in upstate New York. “It was the first time I searched for a cello after developing my ear in college. When you look for an instrument at that stage, you have wants of your own: your sound, the colors that you are going for, a sense of what feels right to you. Looking for an instrument is a scary, long, but special process to go through.”

“The Search” is a long, challenging process

At times, the search can be daunting. “There are so many options out there, it can be overwhelming. Your ears get tired after a while!” Lauren admitted. “You have to take a break. Kind of like if you smell too many fragrances, it just gets confusing.” She mentioned that it was helpful to have friends who were looking at the same time. “One friend and I went to Boston together, and we would play for each other, which was really helpful. The shop that I got my instrument from, Carriage House, has a little recital hall. They would bring 10 or so cellos in, and my friend and I would play them for each other and get instant feedback from each other.”

Professional-grade string instruments range in price from $10,000 to millions of dollars. While the people running shops are often very generous and helpful, there are high stakes around every purchase. “They’re trying to sell you something—that’s their job,” Lauren acknowledged. The key is to demonstrate the instrument in different contexts for as many colleagues and mentors as you can before committing.

“The instrument often sounds very different under your ear than it does far away. Is the instrument bright or dark? Is it loud or soft? Does it have a lot of core to the sound? You have to play for people in a big hall to know that what you’re hearing is getting translated out into the audience.” After a search of about six months, she settled on a modern instrument by a New Haven-based maker named Lawrence Wilke. “There were a lot of colors and sounds that I hadn’t been able to access on my previous instrument, and that really drew me to it.”

Each musician has their own journey in “The Search”

Boyu Li, Associate Concertmaster of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra musicians, had quite a different experience coming to his current instrument. He first recognized that he needed to use a new violin back before he applied for graduate school. “One time, I borrowed a violin during my auditions for Master’s. I went to the Fine Arts Building in Chicago to a shop with very nice violins. I just talked to someone and said ‘I’m auditioning for a good school and I really want to get in.’” They gave him a good instrument for a month, but he had to return it when he finished his auditions.

He began looking for a violin to use long-term more recently, while he was studying for his Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Boston University. “I started taking orchestra auditions, and the instrument I had was really bad. I don’t think that instrument was going to help me to win a job.” He started his process by looking for a sponsor who would either lend him an instrument or help him to pay for one. “There are a lot of foundations out there if you don’t have a personal connection. You can send your resume and recordings. If you can win a competition, that’s even better,” he explained.

Sometimes the journey of “The Search” provides great insight

Boyu was fortunate enough to connect with Mr. Zhou, a private sponsor based in Boston, who offered him a loan of an 1808 violin by Nicolas Lupot, an esteemed French luthier (the official term for a string instrument maker). “When I met Mr. Zhou, he actually had two violins available,” he told me. “The Lupot, which is quite valuable, and then also a violin by Giuseppe ‘del Gesù’ Guarneri, which is worth like $1,000,000! I tried the Guarneri first. But when I tried to play it, and I know it wasn’t my fault—it didn’t sound as good.

“From that point on, I knew that the price tag didn’t always track with what musicians want. It means a lot to the dealer or at the auction. But for the musicians, you can find the personality of the instrument right away and know if it’s the sound that are looking for. The Lupot had a lot of warmth. A lot of essence in the sound. I knew it was a great violin. Still, it wasn’t a very easy violin to play at first because the bridge was high, which meant the distance between the string and the fingerboard was large and it’s more work to put your finger down.”

The result of “The Search” might be a surprise

Boyu discussed the palpable effects this instrument has had on his approach to playing. “Having an old violin is a learning process. I used to play in a way that was pretty tight and not comfortable. These old instruments can teach you a lot of things because there are only one or two ways that you can make the instrument sound really good. I learned a lot about how I’m playing, and I started trying to be more relaxed to bring out the instrument’s natural sound rather than the sound I want to put on it. You have to adapt to the instrument. It has its own voice.”

Lauren had a similar experience, subtly shifting her playing in response to the instrument she chose. The shape of her cello is modelled on instruments by Matteo Goffriller, a 17th – and 18^th-century Venetian luthier. Gofriller-style cellos have relatively large bodies, which can take some adjusting when you start playing them. “I had to learn to relax a lot more,” she explained. “I couldn’t muscle the sound out! You’ve got to let your gravity—your natural arm weight—get the most beautiful tone from the instrument.”

Though the search process can be intense and stressful at times, the instruments themselves can take some getting used to. The reward is often a lifelong musical companion. For Boyu, there was a close connection straight away: “I knew immediately when I started playing the Lupot, from the first note, that it was the right one.” As Lauren said of her cello with a smile and a laugh, “It’s a big, big friend.”

–Nicky Swett, cellist, writer, and musicologist, 2025

The Alabama Symphony Orchestra (ASO) community honors our veterans for their vital contributions to defending our freedom. We can genuinely honor veterans by deepening our understanding of their experiences and supporting them in meaningful ways that address their needs and challenges. Here, we say “thank you for your service” with this feature about one veteran, as we follow one of our core missions, which is to connect people through the power of live symphonic music in Birmingham, creating shared experiences that uplift and unite.

Whenever you attend a Coffee Concert at UAB’s Alys Stephens Center, you might spot Retired Master Sergeant George Coward, a familiar face in the audience. Having served for an impressive 39 years, Sgt. Coward built his career in Global Logistics for the U.S. Army, ensuring the smooth movement of supplies and equipment across the world—a mission that kept operations running for combatant commands everywhere.

Enlisting in 1964, Coward served in Central America, Germany, Japan, and across the United States. Out of respect for each culture, he learned German, French, Japanese, and Spanish. He describes his time in the Army as “a most gratifying experience.” Reflecting on his role at a missile site, he recalls “successfully moving equipment around the world—especially using the Army’s supply ships.” With a grin, he adds, “The Army has more ships than the Navy.”

Now retired, Coward enjoys attending the ASO Coffee Concert Series and often visits other events such as the New Year’s Eve Concert. He always attends with his dear friend Linda Pearce, whom he met at church. They love the music, the friendships, and the warmth of the ASO community. “They are a real pleasure, and I even get hugs,” he says—proof that the orchestra’s concerts truly create a sense of belonging.

Music has always been a part of Coward’s life. As a child, he admired Victor Borge for his humor and piano artistry. Today, he finds that same joy at the ASO’s holiday and pops performances led by conductor Christopher Confessore. His favorite pieces include Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata and Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, both staples of the classical concert repertoire.

Pearce shares his enthusiasm: “The Alabama Symphony Orchestra brings musical experiences to all groups, especially the elderly,” she says. Together, they even recall a pianist from the Philippines who once performed with ASO and whom they hope to see return as a featured soloist.

As Coward beautifully puts it, “Life is fulfilling, and it is a pleasure to be alive. Sometimes it is difficult to get old, but when you hear music, you are made to feel good. People—staff, volunteers, and musicians—go the extra mile here.”

 

By Mary Yakimowski, ASO Patron Experience Volunteer, 2024/2025 and 2025/2026

Read more articles by ASO and other contributors here.

 

From the desk of Clay A. McCollum, ASO’s Director of Artistic Administration

When I’m asked, “Hey, Clay, what are you most excited for in the 2025-2026 season?” my immediate reaction is this: “I’m excited that the orchestra is producing Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific in concert in January 2026.”

Hi, I’m Clay McCollum, ASO’s Director of Artistic Administration. As some already know, my background is in classical music, but my main experience comes from regional opera. Producing this type of performance with the ASO is exciting because I’m bringing my expertise to ASO in a whole new way, not only for the 2025-26 season but also for 2026-27. Specifically, the orchestra will produce a semi-staged Golden Age musical, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific, in January 2026, followed by the world premiere of a new chamber opera by Alabama composer Joseph Landers in April 2027. Jody’s opera will be called Pink Clouds, with celebrity journalist and Alabamian John Archibald having written the libretto.

These concert productions of large, non-choral vocal works have historically been part of ASO’s tradition. Our most recent such concert was over ten years ago, and I hope to revive these performances regularly—ideally annually—or as close to that as practical. In November 2014, ASO staged Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel under the baton of Music Director Laureate Justin Brown (our Music Director at the time): Dane Peterson from UAB’s ArtPlay directed the production.

“Offering semi-staged concert productions at UAB’s Alys Stephens Center will provide an experience for patrons that ASO hasn’t mounted in more than a dozen years,” says Principal POPS Conductor Chris Confessore. “Clay has been invaluable as we work to bring South Pacific to the stage! He and I have been working on this off-and-on since summer 2023, and January can’t get here soon enough!”

In preparing for these performances on January 16 and 17, 2026, Chris and I are joined by veteran stage director Stacy Alley (Area Head of Musical Theatre at UA, Tuscaloosa) and Kelly Allison (Department Chair of Theatre at UAB) as we each take on our own “roles” in bringing South Pacific to life. This summer, you may have seen Stacy’s (director) Big River at Virginia Samford Theatre.

Some of you may be aware that Carnegie Hall mounted a similar South Pacific concert featuring Reba McEntire and Alec Baldwin. ASO’s performances will feature William Michals as French expatriate Emile de Becque and Birmingham local Kristen Campbell as Navy-enlisted nurse Nellie Forbush. Michals is perhaps best known for previously playing de Becque in Lincoln Center Theater’s most recent Broadway revival in the middle-2000s. That production was directed by Bartlett Sher and garnered multiple-Tony® Awards.

How lucky are we to bring William Michals to Birmingham to explore this timeless story and its poignant magic and heartache and redemption in a new way with you, our audiences! I saw LCT’s production, and we are truly in for two remarkable evenings of theatre. Kristen Campbell was seen this summer in July and August in Sara Bareilles’ Waitress with our friends at Red Mountain Theatre Company. She played zany best friend Dawn Pinkett. Coming off Dawn, it’ll be awesome to see Kristen step into a totally different character in the love-interest protagonist ingenue (Nellie in ASO’s South Pacific).

Tuscaloosa-based mezzo-soprano Dr. Alexis Davis-Hazell and local celebrity artist Caleb Clark complete our production’s main cast. Alexis, who recently appeared in our latest Birmingham Does Broadway! (February 2025), will portray the fearless Bloody Mary. We are excited to continue working with Alexis in January! She will also perform for ASO audiences in October 2025 and October 2026, appearing in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem, respectively. Creating complex characters such as Bruce in Fun Home and George in Sunday in the Park with George, Caleb is also a noted Birmingham artist who works in various mediums, focusing on portraiture and figure. Check Caleb out on Instagram, @calebclarkartist. He has been a regular part of our Birmingham Does Broadway! series, and he helped us close the 2024-25 season as a featured soloist in the Summer Symphony series.

If you have any follow-up questions about ASO’s January 2026 South Pacific, feel free to send me an email: Clay A. McCollum (Director of Artistic Administration), cmccollum@alabamasymphony.org. I would love to hear from you, and I look forward to seeing you in the theatre!

Get tickets to see this amazing production now! Click here. 

 

Read more articles by ASO and other contributors here.

Music has always meant a great deal to me, as it does to many of us. I believe it is hardwired into us to some degree. That is how people who have never played an instrument may have a sense of rhythm or harmony. I played trumpet and baritone throughout my school years, but like many, I fell out of practice and stopped playing not long afterwards. Over the ensuing years, I did miss the inspiration from dozens of musicians collaborating to create. It was with that in mind that I volunteered with the Alabama Symphony Orchestra’s Patron Experience program for the 2024-2025 season.

The Alys Stephens Center on the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s campus is the home venue for the symphony, and it is a lovely facility. Throughout the season, the Masterworks program was performed there, along with additional works, often featuring notable guests from throughout the music community. The symphony celebrated 10 years under the direction of Carlos Izcaray during the season. Handel’s Messiah carried on as a popular tradition, and it was great to see the community come out to celebrate the season with the venue all decked out for the holidays. The symphony performed compositions by local composer Dr. Brian Nabors and, towards the end of the season, accompanied Alabama folk artists The Secret Sisters. As a volunteer, I had an incredible vantage point for so many inspirational performances.

ASO added events at The Carver Theater for the 2024-2025 season, and I was able to attend all of them. Carver is home to the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame and features a more intimate auditorium that can still accommodate a mid-sized ensemble.

Concertmaster Daniel Szasz programmed an excellent series during the season at Brock Recital Hall on Samford University’s campus. This is another great facility for performance. From a volunteer perspective, it is open seating, and concerts are approximately an hour long, so it is a slightly different experience., You get to appreciate the individual musicality when there are only two or three musicians, which provides a nice contrast to concerts featuring the whole orchestra.

I was able to volunteer at one of the season’s educational events, also on Samford University’s campus. This helped me understand even more what a tremendous asset ASO is to our local arts community. World-class musicians can inspire students from our public schools. I was also able to volunteer for one of the season’s Tunes on Tap events, which offer free performances at various local brew pubs for audiences who may have never had the opportunity to hear the symphony.

The season began with a performance at the Botanical Gardens. It concluded with the traditional Memorial Day Weekend performances at Birmingham’s Railroad Park, which always draws a large crowd to the city. The SuperPops! performances at the BJCC are always fun for casual musical fans, giving them the opportunity to enjoy the symphony from the perspective of popular music and music from their favorite movies or musicals.

Those were the experiences of the music. As a volunteer, I had the opportunity to meet several like-minded music lovers and individuals who are passionate about contributing to something bigger than themselves. For some performances, I held the door as people walked in. For others, I scanned their tickets. Some people get dressed up, so I might take their photo with their cell phone. Or I might help them find their seat. I may not be able to play music at the level of the orchestra members. Still, I hope I was able to play a small role in providing that experience to members of my community and making it an enjoyable one.

So that was my season volunteering with the Alabama Symphony Orchestra. They offer diverse programming at different venues so that everyone can find something they might enjoy. I enjoyed the musicianship enough to become a subscriber for the next season myself. It was a tremendous blessing to me, exceeding any expectations I might have had at the beginning of the season. However, I also intend to continue volunteering so that others may have the same experience. I invite you to join me as a volunteer and patron!

 

-Billy Sanford, ASO Patron Experience Volunteer, 2024/2025 and 2025/2026

Read more articles by ASO and other contributors here.

 

In a new series of Alabama Symphony blog posts, cellist, writer, and musicologist Nicky Swett interviews ASO musicians about their summer activities.

 

On May 25, 2025, the Alabama Symphony Orchestra rounded out the 2024-25 season with the rousing fanfare at the beloved annual free concert series “Symphony in the Summer” at Birmingham’s Railroad Park. The musicians don’t start rehearsals for the first concert of 2025-26 until the end of September. Four months might seem like a long pause, but musicians are never really off the clock. “It’s quite a long break,” assistant principal flutist Tessa Vermeulen said to me when we spoke earlier in the summer. “What always ends up happening to me is that I think I’m going to have all this free time, and then I fill it with a bunch of stuff and end up being really busy.”

She spent the first half of the break preparing for a solo recital in Chicago at the end of July, part of the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series. “They let me pick whatever program I wanted, 40 minutes of my favourite music,” she told me. It included pieces by Tchaikovsky, Samuel Barber, Robert Schumann, and also a sonata that she commissioned from a friend and colleague from Juilliard, Colby Kleven. She presented this last piece again in August at the conference of the National Flute Association in Atlanta—“The biggest gathering of flute nerds in the world” as she put it. “There are performances, panels, and master classes covering everything about playing and professional development. It’s a great chance to try instruments, because they’ll have a huge area where all the flute makers are represented. It’s also an opportunity to network with various flutists. At the end of the convention, they have a gala performance, where they bring in some of the most high-profile professionals from around the world to play with an orchestra.”

For Boyu Li, who joined the symphony as associate concertmaster in January, this was a relatively laid-back summer. “Usually, I have a lot of things to do in the summer—I go to festivals, or I head back to my home country.” He told me that since he was transitioning from a student visa to a work visa, he mostly used the time to study for upcoming exams at Boston University, where is finishing up a Doctor of Musical Arts degree, and to settle into life in Birmingham. “I’m trying to work on my driver’s license,” he explained. “I have lived in the States for 10 years and it never came to my mind that I would need to know how to drive! Now I need a car to go to work.”

I shared with Boyu that I had to take the road test three times before finally getting my license. “People always say it’s so easy to get a driver’s license here,” he commiserated, “but I failed the first time because of a very stupid mistake! The judge wanted me to show her the lights. She said to turn on the ‘emergency light.’ I was like, ‘What does that mean? Do you want the emergency brake or the hazard light?’ She didn’t really say yes or no, just kept saying ‘emergency light.’ It was off to a bad start, so even though we went through the rest of the test, I think that was the reason I didn’t pass. But it doesn’t matter! I will make another appointment to take the test again.

All the musicians I spoke with mentioned that they enjoyed having more practice time during the summer break. Trombonist Masa Ohtake described how “when you don’t have a whole lot of high stakes responsibilities with your playing—like next week I have to perform this symphony or that recital—you can isolate your weaknesses and spend time working through problems. I’ve been going back to basics and taking care of some loose ends in my playing that I have neglected the last three years or so.”

I asked Masa what specifically he was working on in his playing during this period. “Very nerdy, trombone things like control in a specific register of the horn,” he answered. “I am going back through some solo pieces that I haven’t played in a while. We’re not required to do much of that in the orchestra, but I want to make sure that I’m still pushing my technique outside of what’s required on a regular basis.” He also mentioned devoting time to repertoire on the coming season—Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Aaron Copland’s Third Symphony both have major brass parts that need woodshedding.

In addition to practicing and preparing, Masa spent the summer doing some festival teaching and house hunting. But he told me he was very excited to get back to concerts with the ASO and his main teaching job, even though the season can get very intense and busy. “I think it’s because in a sense I don’t find it to be work,” he said in a reflective tone. “I get to do this crazy thing. Playing in an orchestra full time and also teaching kids how to be musicians and human beings—it’s insane. It’s the best.”

 

Nicky Swett holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge. He works as a program annotator and editorial contributor for concert presenters across the US and UK, including the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the New York Philharmonic, the BBC, and Wigmore Hall.

Read more articles by ASO and other contributors here.