For
Sylvia Samis, 40-year veteran violinist with the
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the
One City, One Symphony initiative has provided the opportunity to share stories of the personal connections she has with the music she plays.
“I think so many times, when people come see us on stage, the guys wear tuxedos and we’re formal. So this is an opportunity to have a more close-up relationship and be able to talk to each other and have a discussion and maybe to see that the people involved are just the same as the people in the audience—that we’re together on this,” Samis says. “And I think the idea is just to make the music as important to the community and worthwhile so that they see it as part of their everyday lives.”
For the two years One City, One Symphony has been in existence, Samis has participated as a speaker in various
listening parties across the city, where community members come together to listen to recordings of the pieces the CSO will play at the One City, One Symphony
culminating performances November 14 and 16.
Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 and Mozart’s David Penitente are the focus pieces for this year’s initiative, so the CSO will explore themes of love, fate and redemption.
“I knew right away what I wanted to talk about,” says Samis, who says she connects closely to themes of fate and destiny.
“As it turned out, my husband and I—his mother and my father were next door neighbors in Poland before the war in the 1930s,” says Samis, who did not meet her husband Charles until 1969 when they both took jobs in New Orleans, arriving just three weeks apart from each another.
“From being possibly boy and girl next door had the war not come, we still wound up together all those miles and years later,” Samis says. “And at the listening parties, many times they want to know more personal things. So once I’ve opened up my life to them, they’re really very interested in hearing more and I’m happy to share that with them—they ask almost anything—and I think they’re just glad to know the people on the stage.”
Do Good:
• Purchase
tickets to the One City, One Symphony performances November 14 and 16 at Music Hall.
• Learn about CSO
Parties of Note, and attend an event. All proceeds directly benefit the CSO.
•
Support the Cincinnati Symphony and Pops Orchestra by donating.
By Brittany York
Brittany York is a professor of English composition at both the University of Cincinnati and Xavier University. She also edits the For Good section of SoapboxMedia.