Hal Weller, Las Vegas Sun, April 30, 2000

Q&A: All’s Weller Lisa Ferguson Sunday, April 30, 2000 | 10:34 a.m. There's more to life than music. Harold "Hal" Weller knows that all too well. That's why the co-founder/music director/conductor of the Las Vegas Philharmonic got to know the cultural lay of the land in all of the cities in which he has previously worked. And the list is long: As a college sophomore, Ohio-born-and-bred Weller took control of Ohio's Miami University choir as music director, a post he maintained from 1964-70. He also spent several years in the late '60s as part of an elite group of conductors who studied with master conductor Richard Lert of the Berlin State Opera, as part of the American Symphony Orchestra League's Conductor's Study program. Then it was off to Ashland College in Ohio to direct its orchestra for seven years, followed by a two-year stint at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., to build its university community orchestra. In the late '70s he served as a conductor for the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. It seemed Weller had put his vagabond days behind him when he settled in for what would be a 15-year career as the music director and general manager for the Flagstaff (Ariz.) Symphony. But then he set his sights toward Las Vegas and spent the 1997-98 academic year as a visiting professor at UNLV conducting its orchestra -- and ended up staying in town. "I really have a belief," he says, "that young orchestras cannot exist without a resident conductor, without somebody actually living in the town and taking in the whole scene (rather) than just doing the music part." During his teaching stint at the university he says he got a feel for the challenges the local arts scene faced -- including the Nevada Symphony Orchestra, which he says was in "arrears with payments to their musicians. They would announce a program and cancel it. It just wasn't a healthy situation." In June of 1998, when NSO canceled its scheduled July 4 concert, Weller co-founded the Philharmonic to fill the Independence Day-performance void just days before the show was set to go on. (NSO met its official demise last fall.) The group went on to make several commercial engagements, including performing under the direction of "Star Wars" soundtrack conductor John Williams during the annual ShoWest movie theater industry convention here last year. Following its performance of Gustav Mahler's Second Symphony last spring the Philharmonic embarked on its premiere season this year, which wraps up Saturday with a performance of the classic "Carmina Burana." Weller recently spoke to the Sun about the upcoming performance, as well as the state of Las Vegas' cultural health. Las Vegas Sun: What can we expect from this performance of "Carmina Burana"? Hal Weller: Excitement. It's a piece that is readily accessible to an audience. It's a perfect piece for springtime because the text has to do with the rejuvenation of the year, the renewal of love, the rejuvenation for exuberance, for living and life. I think it's a perfect way to close the (Philharmonic's) season. Sun: It's been said that Las Vegas has too many cultural institutions and events, but at the same time the city has been called a cultural wasteland. How do you view the local cultural scene? HW: I can't help but see it as a consumer because I've been that here in Las Vegas. And I guess I'm disgruntled at the number of high-flung plans that are announced and never carried through. Sun: What are some examples of those? HW: For example, there's an opera company here in town that this year announced four productions and hasn't done one yet. The old Nevada Symphony (Orchestra's) history, they announced a season, sold tickets and had to cancel the season halfway through. That was (in) about '94, about the time I came here. And there's nothing for the consumer worse than buying something that doesn't happen. So I can't call it a cultural wasteland. I place the blame on the institutions that don't follow through on their promises. Sun: Do you have any thoughts on the demise of the Nevada Symphony Orchestra? What happened there? HW: I really don't know because I was never very close to that (organization). Everything I heard was secondhand from the musicians. All I know was there was a great deal of discontent between the musicians and the management of the orchestra, and it just was not a healthy situation either morale-wise or financially. Sun: Does the loss of the NSO put any additional pressure on the Philharmonic? HW: We've always put pressure on ourselves to produce a good product and to do what we say we're going to do. I don't feel, personally, any more pressure than I did when the other orchestra was in existence. My mind-set was that we weren't competing against the the Nevada Symphony; we were competing to create real quality music for an audience here, and to build an audience in Las Vegas for Philharmonic concerts. It's a marketplace scenario that people will choose the best product, and I think it's been proved ... that the Philharmonic is really a quality music organization, that we can produce concerts that are really quite exciting and that reach an audience and engage an audience. That's the whole thrust. Sun: What specific challenges, then, do you think Las Vegas faces from a cultural standpoint? HW: It's a balancing act between being financially able to realize the dreams of an institution and artistically being able to realize those dreams. In so many instances, the people in this city who can support and contribute to the success of an arts institution are somehow shy of doing so, maybe because of past negative experiences. But (the Philharmonic is) finding in our fund-raising efforts that we're making real headway, that people are saying, "Yeah, this organization is here to stay. They're not going to disappear next year." ... I think that people will support real quality, and funding is available for a high-order endeavor. archive