For anybody familiar with the city of Cotati, a
small wine-country hamlet 50 miles north of San Francisco, the thought
of a full-size symphony orchestra squeezing into a tiny city hall
across the street from grazing sheep brings a smile to the face.
For those who have actually heard the Cotati Philharmonic, the smile
grows wider and deeper.
With a population of 6,500 people,
dozens of sheep, and a reputation as a hub of mellow counterculture,
Sonoma County’s smallest city doesn’t seem a likely spot to find
a full-fledged orchestra offering better-than-respectable renditions
of Stravinsky, Copeland, Brahms, and Beethoven.
Returning for their third season,
70 musicians—professionals and amateurs, some commuting hours for
rehearsals and performances—offer four concert sets each year. The
musicians, soloists, and conductor all are volunteers and all concerts
are free (and usually full).
"We think of it as similar
to other professionals—lawyers and doctors—who donate their skills
. . . sort of a pro bono publico orchestra," says Gabriel
Sakakeeny, music director, conductor, and driving force behind the
Cotati Philharmonic, which is funded with a $13,000 grant from the
city coffers.
"Our mission is to present
the beauty of these works for everybody—including ourselves—without
the distractions of money and without the nose-in-the-air approach
so prevalent in most orchestral communities. We really are doing
this for love of the art and for the sake of community. And I think
both are richer for it."
Community orchestras are not all
that unusual in a nation that churns out thousands of college-trained
musicians each year, most with little or no chance of landing a
full-time job with a professional orchestra. But the Cotati Philharmonic
is not your typical community orchestra. In keeping with the city’s
reputation for progressive politics, the Cotati Phil (as the symphony
is affectionately known) was born in a spirit of democracy and shared
decision making, something of a break from the traditional autocratic
nature of most orchestras. "There is an effort to do things
differently, maybe a little more democratically," violinist
Peter Wehausen says. "We share responsibilities and roles and
we have committees to work on issues—and sometimes we’re more successful
than others," he adds.
Wehausen’s role as occasional concertmaster
is an example of sharing. Evan Craves and Damien Ting also have
served as concertmaster in an unusual approach to a post often fraught
with competition, conspiracy, and consternation in other orchestras.
Wehausen serves on a committee charged with helping to set up guidelines
for recruiting new musicians. But struggling with questions pitting
the level of musicianship against the inclusive quality of a community
orchestra has led to some fallout and at least a few defections.
"This was presented as a bottom-up
organization at first," says a former orchestra member who
asked to remain anonymous. "A big selling point was that we
would all have a say in the direction the orchestra would take.
I don’t think that’s really been the case and that’s a big reason
some of us left."
As many as a dozen musicians have
left over the three years of the orchestra’s existence, some for
philosophical reasons, some due to scheduling, work, and family
conflicts.
"This is a young organization
with a very idealistic framework," Wehausen says. "That
sort of idealism sometimes has to be tempered in order to make the
whole thing really work."
But fractious politics aside, there
is a sense of a higher purpose when orchestra members come together
for rehearsals and performances. "We’re trying to do something
bigger than just putting on a few concerts," says Dennis Dorch,
violinist by night, Cotati’s assistant city manager by day. "There
really is a sense of trying to save this as an art form."
Part of the orchestra’s existence
can be attributed to a void left when two other local classical
outlets fizzled—first Sonoma State University’s orchestra, in the
late ’80s, and then the neighboring Rohnert Park Chamber Orchestra
in the ’90s—leaving the region with only the well-established Santa
Rosa Symphony under the baton of acclaimed conductor and pianist
Jeffery Kahane.
But the simple absence of relatively
affordable classical music doesn’t explain how the Cotati
Philharmonic came to be. That requires an examination of the orchestra’s
raison d’etre: Gabe Sakakeeny.
Sakakeeny, video communications
manager for Agilent Technologies, earned a bachelor’s degree at
the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in 1985 and a master’s in
orchestral conducting from Rice University two years later. An active
participant in the music community of Houston before heading to
California, Sakakeeny served as principal conductor of Campanile
Orchestra and music director of the Houston Youth Symphonies and
Ballet Opera. He also has conducted the Colorado Philharmonic, the
Auburn Symphony, the San Francisco Youth Symphony, the San Francisco
Waltzing Society Orchestra, the Opus One Ensemble, and the Houston
Composers’ Alliance.
Sakakeeny is keeping his hand in
teaching and composing as well as conducting: He recently taught
a five-day intensive course at Oberlin Conservatory of Music on
dealing with performance anxiety.
Last year, the Cotati Philharmonic
played "Romance for Flute, Bassoon, and Orchestra," written
for his wife Ilse, an accomplished flutist, and brother George Sakakeeny,
a professional bassoonist who teaches at Oberlin. The piece is dedicated
to his parents, both of whom have roots in the eastern Mediterranean—his
mother is Croatian and his father is Lebanese. His Lebanese grandfather,
also named Gabriel Sakakeeny, was new to the United States at the
turn of the last century when he invented and patented an edible
holder for frozen confections—the ice cream cone.
"That’s the kind of legacy
I have to live up to," Sakakeeny says with an engaging grin.
The motivation for the long hours
and hard work, he adds, is a simple appreciation of something beautiful—making
it and sharing it. "I think people are hungry for what we have
to offer and I know that we’re hungry for the opportunity to perform
these pieces of art," Sakakeeny says.
After drawing capacity audiences
approaching 1,000 for each of its concerts the first two years,
the orchestra has moved recently from a borrowed church to the Spreckels
Performing Arts Center in neighboring Rohnert Park. The first offering
during the 2001–02 season, "The Power of Goodness," was
a response to the September 11 attacks and the new consciousness
they spawned in this country. The program included an excerpt from
Sir Edward Elgar’s "Enigma Variations" written for a friend
who died in battle, Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with soloist James
Potochny, and Stravinsky’s "Firebird Suite," a musical
battle between good and evil.
Part of the strategy for revitalizing
the genre in the community is a conscious effort to make the work
relevant for people and to avoid the elitism often associated with
classical music. "We’re really trying to get away from that
image," says violinist Dorch. "If we’re ever going to
get string programs back into schools, we have to move beyond that
environment of elitism. This is truly beautiful stuff and should
be available for everyone."
So far, the sheep have not been
invited.
On
a Mission
What distinguishes the Cotati Philharmonic,
aside from the relatively high caliber of performance for such a
small town, is a larger goal of revitalizing classical music and
perhaps, through a recently created nonprofit business entity, getting
classical music back into public schools. The American Philharmonic
Association, created this year, is a dual-purpose corporate umbrella
for the Cotati Philharmonic. First, it will act as the business
representative for the orchestra, allowing the city of Cotati to
step away from the potentially high-insurance risk associated with
the group. And secondly, it will try to establish an educational
component that will give the orchestra a way to recruit talent and
get classical music into high schools at the same time.
"The goal is to raise money
to hire musicians to go into public high schools and instill classical
music programs, and also be our principle players, usually section
leaders," Gabriel Sakakeeny says. "There are so many fine
musicians out there struggling to make a living, I don’t think we’d
have a hard time finding people if we offered $50,000 a year, say,
and they were positioned as mentor teachers and tutors in schools."
Get the latest on the Cotati Philharmonic
at www.cotatiphil.org.
