Music bridges gen gap

The conductor gives his cue, and his musicians dig into “The Pink Panther” theme.

It's Sunday afternoon at First Christian Church, and the Intergenerational Orchestra is rehearsing for its next concert. The players give Henry Mancini's famous score a sleek, slinky reading. Still, conductor Chuck Penington isn't satisfied.

“You have to pull back on the sound of that last note,” said Penington, who hums the theme with a convincing decrescendo to prove his point. The musicians play again, this time with more nuance.

Omaha's Intergenerational Orchestra may sound like any other community ensemble. But it definitely looks different.

The orchestra, celebrating its 25th season, is composed only of musicians who are younger than 25 and older than 50.

Christine Gillette, the orchestra's project director, started the group in 1985 as a musical and sociological experiment.

At the time, she was director of community recreation for the Eastern Nebraska Office on Aging. Gillette and a co-worker, Cora Lee Bell, wanted to try something new.

“Intergenerational projects were very popular in the mid-1980s,” said Gillette. “But as far as we could tell, no one had ever tried to create an intergenerational orchestra before.”

Those kinds of ensembles are still rare. In fact, only a few other states have similar orchestras, most notably the New Jersey Intergenerational Orchestra and the Florida Intergenerational Orchestra.

The purpose of these groups is twofold: to provide young musicians with the opportunity to learn from seasoned players; and to expose senior musicians to the rejuvenating influences of youth.

So young musicians with body piercings and tri-color hair play next to wizened musical lions with gray manes — or no manes at all. Music may define and separate the generations in the rest of American society. In the Intergenerational Orchestra, it's a bonding agent.

“Music is our common language,” said Penington.

Penington is the orchestra's common denominator.

Musicians young and old say they joined the orchestra so they could play for the popular 64-year-old maestro.

“I joined because Chuck is such an outstanding teacher,” said Sister Anna Wolfe, one of the orchestra's second violinists and its oldest member.

An 84-year-old nun and retiree, Wolfe knows what's she talking about. She earned a degree in music education from the University of Minnesota and spent a career teaching music in schools.

Violinist Laura Baumgartner, 21, has also learned a lot from Penington. Yet she wanted to play for him for a different reason.

“Chuck writes a lot of our music,” she said. “So we don't really sound like any other orchestra because most of the time we're playing original music and arrangements that are exclusive to us.”

Penington already was a busy pianist, composer and conductor when Gillette contacted him 25 years ago.

The Columbus, Neb., native had performed with such pop icons as Tom Jones, Wayne Newton, Engelbert Humperdinck and even the great Mancini himself.

He also spent eight years as music director and arranger for Gordon MacRae, the late Nebraska-based singer best known for his starring role opposite Shirley Jones in the 1955 film version of “Oklahoma.”

Penington immediately agreed to conduct Omaha's Intergenerational Orchestra, considering it at the time to be a “fascinating experiment in gerontology.”

His first order of business was to decide what sort of ensemble he would lead. He decided on a pops orchestra.

“There were no other pops orchestras in the area at the time,” Penington said. “Being a pops orchestra separated us from the rest of the pack.”

For the first year, Penington and the orchestra made do borrowing scores from the Omaha Public Schools. But the ensemble quickly ran through most of the system's pops arrangements.

Penington then began writing and arranging the orchestra's music.

One of his first pieces was “Second Wind,” the orchestra's theme song.

“That song defines our sound,” Penington said. “It has real rock 'n' roll vitality to it.”

As Penington was developing the orchestra's musical profile, Gillette worked on its financial portfolio.

A grant from the Peter Kiewit Foundation got the orchestra up and running its first two years. It has continued with sponsorship from the Eastern Nebraska Office on Aging — which pays Gillette a salary — along with grants, donations and, in an unusual twist, tuition from the musicians.

The orchestra has a pay-to-play policy. Musicians pay $100 each year to perform. A $50 discount is available to players who sell tickets. Scholarships are available to musicians who can't afford the tuition.

Penington, who receives a small stipend, holds auditions every spring. To be considered, musicians must play one prepared piece of their choice for Penington and then sight-read one piece.

All of the orchestra's 60 or so players — who now range in age from 12 to 84 — must re-audition every year.

“Yearly auditions allow me to see what level they're playing on,” Penington said. “I don't want to give them music that's too hard, but I also don't want the music to be so easy that they get bored.”

Rehearsals take place once a week in August and for three hours once a month during the orchestra's regular season, which runs September through April — the group takes a break during the Christmas season, since Penington is conductor of the Mannheim Steamroller Christmas show.

The orchestra performs mostly at retirement and nursing homes. It presents an annual public concert in April — this season's concert is April 18 at the German American Club.

Penington usually plans the orchestra's seasons around a theme.

The music of Mancini — Penington's hero — was the theme one year. Another season was devoted to music of great American cities, with songs such as “New York, New York” and “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.”

This year, the orchestra is surveying all of its past themes to mark its 25th anniversary. That means the musicians have little time to waste during rehearsals.

During that recent practice at First Christian Church, Penington moved quickly through the orchestra's thick songbook, reviewing one song after another.

He begins with “Second Wind.” The orchestra then takes up Thelonious Monk's “Round Midnight,” giving it a wonderfully off-kilter performance.

Penington stops the orchestra for only brief moments to shape a phrase here or tighten an ensemble there. Otherwise, he's quick to move on.

“Chuck is the only conductor I've played for who never slows anything down during rehearsal,” said Autumn Pruitt, a 21-year-old violist. “We're expected to practice the music at home and know it cold when we come to rehearsal.”

That said, Penington will still stop rehearsals to lavish attention on favorite composers, especially Mancini.

As the musicians practice, Penington wants more rhythmic spring in the Pink Panther's gait.

He taps his music stand with his baton and the players start the tune. But the musicians have a hard time synchronizing the score's tricky triplets.

Penington sings the triplet passage to the players so they can hear what it's supposed to sound like. Then he starts the orchestra again. The second time, Mancini's cat seemingly purrs with rhythmic attitude.

“Now that's what Mancini had in mind,” Penington said.

Contact the writer:

444-1076, john.pitcher@owh.com

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