Piedmont Chamber Orchestra Records

The Piedmont Chamber Orchestra (PCO) was the first professional affiliate of the North Carolina School of the Arts. Established with a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation in 1968, the PCO was a part of a larger organization, the Piedmont Chamber Players (PCP). The PCP included smaller musical ensembles as well as dance and theatrical groups that may have formed the origins of the North Carolina Dance Theatre and Festival Theatre, Inc. The Claremont String Quartet and Clarion Wind Quintet, existing professional ensembles recruited to the North Carolina School of the Arts by Vittorio Giannini before his death, formed a part of the orchestra. They were joined by the Ciompi String Quartet, in residence at Duke University; professional musicians from the NCSA faculty; advanced music students from the school; and professional musicians hired to play in the Orchestra.

The Claremont String Quartet included Marc Gottleib, 1st violin; Vladimir Weisman, 2nd violin; Scott Nickrenz, viola; and Irving Klein, cello, when they began their residence at NCSA in the school’s first year. Weisman left after one year and was replaced by Philip Ruder. Nickrenz was briefly replaced by Emile Simonel, until Simonel was named manager of the Piedmont Chamber Orchestra and resigned from the Quartet in 1969. The same year, Jerry Horner and Vartan Manoogian joined on viola and violin, respectively. The Clarion Wind Quintet counted among its members clarinetist Robert Listokin, bassoonist Mark Popkin, flautist Philip Dunigan, oboist Stephen Adelstein, and Fredrick Bergstone on French horn when the school opened in 1965. The original ensemble performed together until 1974, when Roger McDonald took the place of Stephen Adelstein. Another ensemble, the Razumovsky Quartet, joined the Orchestra in 1973. Other faculty members involved in the Orchestra included J. Massie Johnson, percussionist, and Anne Woodward, violist, among many others.

The Piedmont Chamber Orchestra typically toured in October and March of each year and visited cities throughout the southeast, with some tours taking them much farther. Igor Buketoff was the group’s first conductor. In June 1971, Hungarian-born Nicholas Harsanyi was appointed Dean of Music for NCSA, succeeding Dr. Louis Mennini. At the same time, he became conductor and musical director of the PCO and the NCSA Orchestra. That September, through a collaboration with the Moravian Music Foundation, the PCO participated in the inaugural festivities of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. A Contemporary Performance Ensemble was added during the 1975-1976 season that later became the Kaleidoscope program. In the early years of the school, faculty participation was mandatory, but that requirement was lifted in 1976. ‘Import’ or ‘extra’ players were employees of the Orchestra unaffiliated with NCSA that supplemented the faculty players; these were not always included.

As the organization grew, it required its own leadership and decision-making body. The first meeting of the Orchestra’s Board of Directors was held on 9 October 1977, and the organization was incorporated in March 1979. That same year, the Orchestra’s longstanding conductor, Nicholas Harsanyi, retired. A special performance was held in New York City to honor his retirement. Chancellor Robert Suderburg composed ‘Concerto: Voyage de nuit d'apres Baudelaire’ for the orchestra in 1978, dedicating it to conductor Harsanyi. His wife, Elizabeth Suderburg, sang soprano in the piece’s first performance in 1979. After Harsanyi’s retirement, the Board of Directors searched for his replacement and eventually offered the position to George Trautwein, who served until the Orchestra’s final season. Correspondence shows that the organization was placed into a ‘dormant’ position by school administration pending the approval of a graduate music program during the 1982-1983 season.