Grabbing the baton
New orchestra director hits the group running with July 4 concert
Lisa Lipton
By Gretchen Ammerman
Oregon Coast TODAY
If it could only be bottled. The lovely combination of youth, enthusiasm for a new job and the joy emanated by the few lucky enough to be doing what they love and, even luckier, getting paid to do it.
In lieu of a bottled elixir, you can just stand next to Newport Symphony Orchestra’s new executive director, Lisa Lipton, appointed in late March. “I’m still splitting my time between here and Portland,” said the busy clarinetist, who is also still the executive director for Opera Theatre Oregon.
“I have an interesting background of being an artist myself and also working to get people in the community invested in the arts.”
The first performance under the new director will be the annual free Independence Day Community Concert at Newport High School, conducted by longtime NSO Music Director Maestro Adam Flatt.
“I want it to be the biggest Independence Day celebration it can be because it’s the best way to show people what we can do with the least amount of risk,” Lipton said. “The cool thing about the program is it has recognizable music, but also some that people won’t already know.”
With a background that includes developing and producing works of all varieties including orchestral, opera and avant-garde, Lipton has worked with her new crew to create an exciting schedule for the coming season.
“People don’t want to see the things they saw 20 years ago,” she said. “I’m interested in artists that you wouldn’t normally see working with the symphony. I also want to do shows that cross pollinate with other groups and organizations in the community like surfers, Oregon State University and Hatfield Marine Science Center.”
Stepping in with ambitious goals to an orchestra with a treasured role in the community, Lipton is undaunted.
“I don’t see it as a scary thing,” she said. “I love change, I love innovation, but I also love the things that worked in the past.”
Upcoming concerts will include, in September, a selection of works featuring soprano MeeAe Cecilia Nam and conducted by Maestro Flatt: Aaron Copland’s “Appalachian Spring,” Joseph Cantaloube’s “Songs of the Auvergne, Glenn Griffith’s “Out of the Oceans” and Alicia William Grant Still’s “Symphony no.1, ‘Afro-American Symphony.’”
In the new year, the schedule will debut a composition inspired by the Yakona Preserve, a private property that allows visitors in south Newport.
“Dr. Sara Graef is an environmental composer,” Lipton said. “She mentioned she had come to a NSO Ernest Block festival and was really interested in working on something for us. She’s actually going to write it while she is at the preserve. It’s an historic land in which there was an event important to the native people of the area.”
Kind of a big deal, Graef’s music has been performed around the US as well as in Canada, Turkey and the Czech Republic. She was awarded the inaugural Northridge Composition Prize for her orchestral score, “night shows to my eyes the stars” and won the Premio Citta’ di Pescara Composition Competition in Italy for her piano solo, “Nottanosti.” She was the recipient of the Sadye J. Moss Endowed Musical Composition Prize and the Hans J. Salter Award for Composition.
With the number and quality of musicians in the NSO, Lipton feels confident that even a new work will be given it’s due.
“Often when art is made it's a small group of people,” she said. “But this orchestra is 45 to 65 players, that's an impressive orchestra.”
Prior to her position as executive director for orchestra, Lipton performed in it as one of many visiting musicians that make up those numbers.
“Not everyone can live here,” she said. “But everyone wants to play here.”
The Independence Day concert begins at 4 pm at Newport High School, located at 322 Eads Street. For more information, including the upcoming concert season, go to newportsymphony.org.