Portland
Festival Symphony Concerts
Haydn's
Toy Symphony
Laurelhurst
Park, 6 pm Saturday, Aug. 12.
Viva L'Opera
Washington
Park, 6 pm Sunday, Aug. 13.
Grant Park,
6 pm Saturday,
Aug. 19.
At one of his first Portland Festival Symphony concerts,
nearly two decades ago, Lajos Balogh was unpacking the podium
and music stands he'd borrowed from Marylhurst University.
It was the early '80s, and at the time the conductor and
Albert Einstein look-alike managed his outdoor summer concerts
on a shoestring, lugging equipment to the orchestral gigs
in his van.
"There were two boys slumping there," says Balogh in the
thick purr of his native Hungarian accent while his hands
circle the air. "One of them had a big boombox that he was
just blasting. I thought, 'How do I compete with this?'"
But he shouldered his gear past without a comment, setting
up the stage and conducting his ragtag troops through an
evening of sweeping symphonic music to an audience of thousands
sprawled out on the lawn of one of Portland's public parks.
Which one, he can't quite recall--but he does remember this:
As he dragged the podium back to his van after the concert,
the kid with the now-silent boombox sidled up to him. "Hey
man," he said, "we loved your music."
"That," says Balogh, "is the power of music."
Since arriving in Portland from Hungary in 1967, the soft-spoken
musician--who has HAYDN emblazoned across his license plates--has
established himself as a musical force in his adopted city.
He's taught conducting and violin at Marylhurst University
since his arrival and conducts the school's orchestra. In
1996, after 25 years with the Oregon Symphony as principal
second violinist, he left the organization to devote himself
to his teaching and conducting roles. In 1974 he established
the Metropolitan Youth Symphony with just 16 player-students.
Today the MYS has grown to 480 and has toured Europe and
Japan.
But perhaps the most lavish gift Balogh has given to the
city is the Festival Symphony's summer concert series, which
began in 1980 with a pair of Washington Park performances.
What's become a 20-year tradition was originally imagined
as a one-off to celebrate Balogh's U.S. citizenship.
"Growing up in Hungary we had many outdoor concerts," he
remembers. The Portland Opera performed in Washington Park
at the time, but there was no symphonic equivalent. (The
Oregon Symphony didn't begin its "Symphony in the Neighborhoods"
concerts until much later, in 1996). For the first concert,
Balogh received a nod of approval from the City of Portland's
Cultural Arts and Special Recreation program, though no
funds were available from the Parks Bureau's budget for
such an extravagance. Balogh charged ahead and raised the
money necessary to match what the Music Performance Trust
Fund had donated, and the show was on.
The first concerts offered Shostakovich's Festival Overture,
a brass fanfare by Gabrieli and Dvorák's "New World"
Symphony. For the newly Americanized Balogh, conducting
the Czech composer's hundred-year-old homage to the United
States was an orchestral "thank you" to his new home. The
performances were wildly popular, with audiences of 8,000
or more each night.
In typical something-from-nothing fashion, the concerts
soon grew to an annual series roving throughout the city
with stops in Washington, Laurelhurst, Grant and Cathedral
parks. "We felt that there were so many beautiful parks
in Portland that it'd be good to take the music to the people,
to their neighborhoods so they can bring their families,"
says Balogh. "It builds communities."
Twenty years on, the under-the-stars "Symphony in the Parks"
has a big corporate sponsor in Qwest, with support from
others like Fred Meyer and the Collins Foundation. Today
the series is a fixture on the city's artscape. Balogh frequently
invites guests like his son Bela's band 3 Leg Torso, trumpet
king Thara Memory and pensive pianist Michael Allen Harrison.
The musicians are still a hodge-podge of professionals from
the Oregon Symphony, Portland Opera and various freelancer
realms. But to bring things full circle, the conductor includes
young musicians whenever he can.
"I want young musicians there because those who want to
become professionals have to get that experience. They need
to know: How does it work? How does it feel? Is it really
what I want to do?"
Balogh sees the passing of the torch as a duty. Not that
he's ready to hand off his mantle any time soon. "I'll never
retire," he says, "unless I can't move."
Since Balogh can still outrun a team of 20-to-30-year-old
soccer mates, that shouldn't be any time soon.
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