“What’s he doing?” Kate Eastwood asks, offering a grin, but also a tinge of anxiety. With her knitted sweater and sandy brown hair, Eastwood looks at least as much like a soccer mom as the assistant to the general manager of a performing arts organization, but in this case her maternal disapproval is entirely appropriate. There are 2,200 people and a 92-piece orchestra just beyond the door she’s holding, and they’re all waiting for a 20-year-old keyboard prodigy to walk through it.

Eastwood walks up to the ornate double doors of the “Green Room,” the vast suite backstage at the St. Louis Symphony’s Powell Hall reserved for soloists and guest conductors, and raises her hand to rap at the door. Suddenly a brilliant cascade of glissandos and descending runs-an early passage from Beethoven’s Piano Concerto no. 4, which the young virtuoso Lang Lang will be playing tonight-bursts from inside the room. Eastwood drops her hand and smiles approvingly.

A few moments later the music stops, and an unbelievably young man, dressed in impeccable concert tails, steps out and smiles sheepishly at the small crowd gathered outside his door. Ambling absent-mindedly through the stage door, Lang Lang makes his way into the dark, wire-strewn corridor, and preceded by a rattle of backstage pre-applause, strides confidently into the bright lights of the main stage.

The young Chinese native turns out to be one of the biggest hits of the Symphony season so far. At twenty, he’s already an international star, with engagements from most of the world’s top symphonies, and his playing tonight justifies the hype. After the final bang of his dazzling concerto performance, he rewards the audience’s ecstatic standing ovation by executing as an encore a virtuoso arrangement of “Stars and Stripes,” presumably in honor of the seven astronauts whose tragic death was announced earlier in the day. Powell Hall’s 2717 seats are filled nearly to capacity, and the crowd loves it.

In all, it’s a remarkable showing for an organization that, barely a year and a half ago, had drained its endowment to a scant $18 million, and months later saw its key figure, Music Director and Conductor Hans Vonk, resign because of health problems.

“It’s pretty amazing, all things considered,” says Carter Dunkin, Director of Communications at the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO). “When I go see the Blues, there’s lots of empty seats. Paul McCartney didn’t sell out, ‘The Producers’ didn’t sell out. When Hillary Hahn played here we sold out two nights in a row.”

Part of the Symphony’s success this season has been its ability, despite financial pressure, to keep bringing in top-billing guests like Hillary Hahn, Yo-Yo Ma, and Garrick Ohlsson. And the dazzling procession of guest conductors (i.e. potential suitors for the now vacant Music Director spot) has made Symphony shows more fun, more spontaneous, and definitely more diverse.

“It’s a great time for the Symphony,” says Concertmaster David Halen, who recently performed Saint-Sa‰ns’ Violin Concerto No. 3 with the Symphony. “There’s a lot of young talent in the orchestra, and there has been an incredible groundswell of support from the community that has made it very clear how much the orchestra means to this area.” And support is particularly important now as the Symphony goes through some significant personnel changes that will require time and effort to make effectively.

Besides the Music Director search, which will likely take another two to three years, Halen and newly-appointed Music Adviser Itzhak Perlman have been auditioning musicians from all over the country to fill several vacant chairs (endowed positions) in the orchestra’s ranks. Filling the chairs, which include three principle or assistant positions, will “bring new creativity, and new vitality to the organization,” says Halen. As for the more high-profile attempt to find a replacement for Hans Vonk, the task is somewhat more daunting.

The Symphony plans to bring in several dozen guest conductors over the next couple of years, but among that pool, very few will likely even meet the basic prerequisites for the job, most notably availability. “Even if we find the perfect conductor,” says Dunkin, “they could be in Hamburg or Seattle, booked until 2006.” And the standards for the position are extremely elevated. Besides being a consummate musician, a Music Director must be equally comfortable pressing the flesh and socializing with potential donors-particularly in a financially uncertain time for most major orchestras.

In any case, whatever financial troubles the symphony had of late seem to be fading into the background. In the summer of 2001, spurred by low revenues and donation levels, the administration was spending from the SLSO’s already small endowment, eventually bringing it to below $20 million (as a comparison, most equivalent symphonies have endowments upwards of $100 million). But thanks to a matching $40 million gift from the Andrew Taylor fund (the single largest gift ever made to an orchestra), $27 million of which the Symphony has already raised, the SLSO’s finances look to be on an upward swing. Within three or four years, the Symphony will likely have its endowment safely above the $100 million mark.

The SLSO is also doing remarkably well compared to its peers around the country. The Pittsburgh Symphony, which is in danger of declaring bankruptcy, has been asking its guest artists to take pay cuts, and has replaced more expensive, large-ensemble pieces on its programs with smaller, lower-budget ones, to save money. The San Jose Symphony and the Colorado Springs Symphony have shut down. The orchestras of Philadelphia, Chicago, Cleveland, and Houston have all announced multi-million dollar losses.

Most of the current crises in these organizations are attributed to the overall ill health of the economy. Concertmaster David Halen suggests that because the SLSO was already dealing with financial problems before the economy went sour, the organization may have partially pre-empted the troubles that were to come. Whatever the process, the Symphony looks to be climbing back up the financial ladder while several of the nation’s orchestras are still groping for rock bottom.

Despite all of the various upheavals in the personnel and administration of the Symphony, the experience of attending a concert has not changed. The lavish, welcoming atmosphere of Powell Hall is the same. The audiences are as unpretentious and diverse as ever. And the orchestra itself still exudes an aura of extended family.

Hanging out backstage after a show, it’s almost impossible to move from point A to B because of the solid wall of audience members blocking the narrow hallway, chatting with the musicians, inviting them out for a drink, or exchanging reports about the other’s kids. The musicians are approachable enough even for complete strangers who want to introduce themselves and offer a complement or just chat.

Darwyn Apple, a violinist who has been with the Symphony for over thirty years, says that part of the organization’s staying power has been the loyalty of the orchestra’s rank and file members, who volunteered to take a salary cut when things were looking bad a year ago. “For many musicians, whether they stay with an orchestra is pure economics, but I think a lot of the people who decide to stay with the [St. Louis] Symphony do so because they think the people here are friendlier than in other big cities, because it’s a nice place to raise your kids, because they feel like this organization is special.”

There’s plenty of action left in the Symphony season. Here’s are some highlights, with highly recommended concerts denoted by a *.

Highlights of the SLSO 2003 Spring Schedule

>> 2/7 at 10:30 am, 2/9 at 3 pm
Martin Concerto for Seven Wind Instruments
Stravinsky Suite from Pulcinella
Bartok Concerto for Orchestra
Jun M„rkl, conductor

>> * 2/14 at 8 pm, 2/15 at 8 pm
Wagner Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde
Berlioz Selections from Romeo and Juliet
Rachmaninoff Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
Ravel Suite No. 2 from Daphnis et Chlo‰
Emmanuel Villaume, conductor
Andrew von Oeyen, piano

Ravel’s Daphnis et Chlo‰ is beautiful, ethereal fairy music, and the Wagner is gushing, overwhelming, utterly romantic.

>> * 2/16 at 3 pm
Special Event Concert
Itzhak Perlman, conductor
Program TBA

We don’t know yet what the great violinist and recently appointed Music Adviser to the Symphony is going to conduct-or how good a conductor he is-but it’s bound to be an interesting program.

>> 3/7 at 8 pm, 2/8 at 8 pm
Ligeti Lontano
Bartok Piano Concerto No. 3
Brahms Symphony No. 4
David Robertson, conductor
Orli Shahm, piano

>> * 3/22 at 8 pm, 3/23 at 3 pm
Haydn Overture to Windsor Castle
Haydn Symphony No. 94, “Surprise”
Haydn Mass No. 9, “Heiligmesse”
Nicholas McGegan, conductor
St. Louis Symphony Chorus
Amy Kaiser, conductor

Nic McGegan must be the most exuberant conductor working today (he actually runs on and off stage). He’s also a master of the baroque/early classical repertoire, and this all-Haydn program will be a delight.

>> 3/28 at 8 pm, 2 29 at 8 pm
Mozart Piano Concerto No. 26 “Coronation”
Elgar/Payne Symphony No. 3
Sir Andrew Davis, conductor
Louis Lortie, piano

>> 4/ 3 at 8 pm 4/4 at 8 pm
Berlioz Le Corsaire Overture
Ravel Piano Concerto in G major
Stravinsky The Fairy’s Kiss
William Eddins, conductor
Stewart Goodyear, piano

>> 4/11 at 10:30 am, 4/12 at 8 pm,
4/13 at 3 pm
Beethoven Violin Concerto
Beethoven Symphony No. 6, “Pastoral”
Stefan Sanderling, conductor
Leonidas Kavakos, violin

>> * 5/2 at 8 pm, 5/3 at 8 pm,
5/4 at 3 pm
Beethoven Symphony No. 1
Beethoven Symphony No. 9, “Choral”
Joseph Swensen, conductor
St. Louis Symphony Chorus
Amy Kaiser, director

Everybody knows the “Ode to Joy” by heart, but what about the glistening, blissful third movement? Or the military parody in the fourth? For anyone who has only experienced Beethoven’s 9th through a recording, this is a must.

For a complete schedule and information on $10 student tickets visit www.slso.org

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