The Community, Connections & Commerce Podcast, presented by OUE & St. Clairsville Chamber - Community and Connections Season 2 Episode 5 with the Wheeling Symphony

Episode Date: October 31, 2025

Welcome back to Community and Connections. I'm your host, Drake Watson, along with Sam. Glad to be joined today. And we have two great guests from Wheeling Symphony Orchestra, John Devlin and Sadie Varlis. Thank you guys for joining us this time. And we're excited to talk about the Wheeling Symphony Orchestra. Yeah, thank you so much for having this today, Drake. So how about this?

Let's kick off with a little bit about some history. when did the orchestra begin the symphony do you know offhand the first year well we just finished our 95th year and the orchestra was founded in 1929 we're just two years younger than the capital theater we're sitting right adjacent to the lobby here and we feel very privileged we connected to such a long history of over nine decades of beautiful orchestral music here in the ohio valley that's wonderful 95 years and it's a gem here in the valley that we have been lucky enough to have, you know, it's a great thing. Yeah, no doubt about it. So talk to us a little bit about your guys' involvement in the community. Obviously, we're all about community and connections and playing such a large role in the community. Describe your involvement in your role in that. Absolutely. So community is very important to us at the Wheeling Symphony. I mean, that is our tagline is your community in concert. It's what drives us. It is what is in the back of our minds when we are programming our seasons. So we are always trying to create concerts that

we think our community would enjoy and show up for. And so we have our seven concert series throughout the year. And then we also provide free community concerts around holidays. So coming up soon on July 4th, we have our big July 4th tour where we will go around West Virginia and provide free patriotic concerts to different communities around there. And then we also have our music under the Stars concert up at Ogilby, right around Labor Day, which is another free concert. We're also always looking for ways to engage with community musicians in the Ohio Valley. So just recently, we started a community choir. So the Wheeling Symphony Community Choir, it had about 40 members and their musicians from all over the valley who got an opportunity

to perform on stage with the Wheeling Symphony Orchestra. So that was a really special thing for us to be able to do because a lot of these local musicians don't have an opportunity to perform in something like this. So those are just some of the ways that we try to engage with our community and get out there. That's good stuff. So when you go to different, for different holidays, for example, what does that look like when for somebody in the community, maybe somebody who hasn't been, I may or may not be speaking about myself? What's that process like, especially where where they could find all the information, and then whenever they go and enjoy the music. Yeah, absolutely. So you can find all of our concert information on wheelingsimphony.com,

and we are, you know, we want to open up our doors to everybody that might be interested. You don't have to have any background in classical music. You don't have to wear a certain outfit. You know, a lot of people ask, well, do I have to dress up to come to the symphony? And no, you don't. You can, but you don't have to. You can show up in jeans and a t-shirt. It doesn't matter as long as you were there to enjoy music. and enjoy the community, we would love to have you there. Wow, good stuff.

And part of the community is introducing folks to classical music that may think that it's not part of their world. Sure. So one thing that has the symphony has done over the past couple years is increased more, like, movie themes. Like, the movie night has turned into,

huge. So, Mr. Devlin, what was the first one that you got to be a part of? And why did the symphony decide to go this direction? Sure. Well, as Sadie mentioned, we have a variety of concert series, and those are divided into those free community concerts, largely centered around holidays, and then the seven concert classical and pop series that takes place right here in the Capitol Theater. But what was missing to me was something designed specifically for families because we've been thinking a lot about that, right? Classical series is a little bit more for the aficionados in town. We're trying to make that feel a little bit more open because we focus on new American music in those series and we found that that's drawn about 30% more people

over the last five years. But also the family series has kind of developed the space within our pop series. And for the movies, as you mentioned, we decided to start with John Williams and we haven't felt the need to change because he's so iconic. So we started with Jurassic Park. Then the next two subsequent years, we went Harry Potter movie one, Harry Potter movie two, and next year we're going with the original 1977 Star Wars Episode 4, A New Hope. We found that the Capitol theater sells out, that we have lots of first-time attendees to our concert series in the Capitol, and that lots of families have come. We're trying to facilitate that by making that movie series a matinee, so it's at 2 p.m. in the afternoon. It's a great time for people even with

younger kids to give them their first experience at the symphony. And the other thing that we found with those concerts is that there's an intergenerational interest in these concerts because Star Wars, Harry Potter, these are things that keep recurring in pop culture. There are new products being made. We've got this new HBO show coming with Harry Potter, and even further generation is going to become invested in that story. So we love that aspect of it, and this is something that we're increasing not only to families that attend the concerts, but we have a tuition-free youth orchestra where students in the Ohio Valley that play instruments can get professional level instruction for free from members of our conducting staff and members of our orchestra,

as well as perform side by side with the WSO at the Capitol Theater, which is something that we introduced into our programming for the first time just last year. Well, it's a great way when you tie in such iconic music by Mr. Williams, and you take Star Wars, for example. I mean, that was one of the first films I ever watched with my dad. So everybody has like a personal connection like that, but it also introduces young people, even little kids, to say, oh, yeah, there is music in that. Like, it's just part of a film and you don't really put the connection between there's people behind those instruments that is

making these worlds come to life. Absolutely. And I would say it's not just limited to kids as a grown-up sitting in the audience watching it. You don't realize, you know, you don't always notice the music when you're watching the movie. But when the musicians are sitting right in front of you on stage playing at live, you get a whole new appreciation for the soundtrack. It's a really, really cool experience. One of the things that I've noticed is, you know, listening to things like that when you're younger,

you don't really get a grasp for the level of difficulty it takes to pull something like that off. And then the order you get, you kind of, you look at every single face that's performing and you're like, how difficult must it be for them to perform the job that they have? And obviously, you know, they're very good. But the level of focus it takes,

you know, especially if you've got to be the one to play that one dissonant note and you might not be able to hear, you know, everything else. But I think the order you get, you develop an appreciation for the high level of skill it takes to perform. Well, and speaking in the musicians, how many musicians in total make up the Wheeling Symphony? We have about 60 core musicians who have won an audition and are officially members of the ensemble. Those people go through a tenure review process over the first two years of their involvement with the orchestra, and if they get that third contract after the first two probationary years, then they are official lifetime members of the orchestra with tenure.

So I am the ninth music director in the Wheeling Symphony's 95-year history, so there's about a new music director every 10 to 15 years, but the musicians, many of them who you will see on the stage, have been in the orchestra for decades. They come to Pittsburgh typically and attend Carnegie Mellon Pitt or Duquesne, and then at some point auditioned into the symphony. And for the most part, we share players with the Pittsburgh Ballet and Pittsburgh Opera orchestras.

We stagger our schedule intentionally so most people can play in all three, and they form a beautiful musical life with the Wheeling Symphony right at the center. The design of having those two initial years and then finally being locked in, so to speak, in that third year, is that to prevent so much turnover? What's the thought process behind that? There are very few professions where tenure is granted. You know, typically that's reserved for an academic setting. But the reason that that works for an orchestra is because they need to be able to feel free as artists to express themselves.

And that kind of unionization of the orchestra helps protect them as an ensemble against any changes that may happen at management over the course of nine decades that threaten the sanctity of what is a jewel, which is the symphony orchestra. So they are protected for very, very good reason. Now, you talked about the two probationary years. That's because we don't know them very well on the audition day. We may have heard them play behind a screen to preserve anonymity during the audition process for 10 to 15 minutes, and then they get a place in the orchestra. Then over the course of those two years, we learn who they are as people, how they are as colleagues. Do they prepare without fail for every single time they need to be on the stage with us? We think about them, are they good fits with our musical culture?

And then in the orchestra, within each section, we have a player called the principal player that is de facto the captain of that particular team. And that person and I collaborate very closely in determining the tenure decisions that the orchestra needs to make every single year. So it's a process that has stood the test of time. It's effective in making sure that the culture of the symphony is what we want it to be, and it ensures musical excellence. Well, talk to us, we've talked a lot about the symphony orchestra. Talk to us about your guys' backgrounds and how you got started.

You said, how long have you been in the director, by the way? Okay. I'm about to start my seventh season. I started in the fall of 2019. Okay. So based on average, you've got a few years left. I hope many more than that. But, yes, I'm very excited because the future is so bright here at the WSO.

And you can imagine that as soon as you finish your 95th year, you start looking forward to what year 100 is going to be. I can't wait to be here for that year and many beyond. So talk to us about how you, what was your inspiration to kind of draw you into this world and into the roles that you guys each play? Sure. So I have always had a life that's been very involved in the arts when I was in school, high school, and before that, I was very musical in the band, in the orchestra, jazz band, steel band, pretty much anything that you can do musically I was involved in. And then I was also very involved in theater and other sorts of performing arts. So I've always had that as sort of my foundation. And then when I went to college, I changed my major about four different times and ended up getting an English degree and then going on to get a master's degree. So I also have a very big background in writing. So this job as the marketing manager and communications manager for the Wheeling Symphony really combines that foundation and my love for the arts and for music with the skills that I developed in college as a writer.

So that is sort of what led me here. It's a really great fit so far. And for me, you know, I work with the team that Sadie is in charge of to develop what you see. We all have a brochure for the Wheelig Symphony's next season in hand. And I have a lot of musical ideas and create concerts that I work on in response to the surveys that Sadie's team elicits from our audience members. And we take that feedback very seriously. We think about what has been performed recently and has worked and we want to keep going. And we think about what hasn't been seen on the stage recently.

And also we look at the national conversation. In fact, last week I spent the week in Salt Lake City where there was a gathering of all of the orchestral leaders from around the country to talk about the trends in our industry and where we see the most important work being. And so what you see when we announce a season as a result of a deep collaboration. In fact, the theme of the season is one that Sadie and her colleague Adam generated that directly connects to the state of West Virginia and the type of feeling we want people to have when they come to concerts at the Capitol.

So, Sadie's background in music and storytelling, and mine in concert design kind of come together. And you asked about what drew me to this is that, you know, when you play an instrument in an orchestra, which I did as a clarinetist for a long time, you have a very specific role to do one thing excellently. What I like about conducting is that no two days are the same. I spend about 5% of my time conducting and about 95% of my time being an ambassador for classical music in the community doing things like I'm doing right now, talking to people that we want to bring closer into the family of the orchestra and make them feel like classical music is for them

because one of the things that Sadie mentioned, we get asked, okay, what do I wear to a classical music concert? Sure. And what if I don't understand anything about the music? And we want people to know that either of those things should not be a barrier to you coming. I explain every piece from the stage. We carefully pick things for our Masterwork series that we think will be a great introduction for first time concert goers, as well as satisfying for the people that know classical music deeply for their whole life. So that kind of combination of approach is what drew me to this. And I love speaking on behalf of the relevancy of classical music and what the future of an orchestra should be like in a place like Wheeling. And being part of the community is, you know,

a huge part of what we're doing with this podcast. And the community steps up for the symphony also. I am aware of like farm to fork, the different events that you guys do for fundraising. I know Alicia Jordan very well is very much involved. So not only are you part of the community, but a part of the community is part of the orchestra. A hundred percent. We have such a supportive community here. And we have several organizations that exist just to support us with volunteer work. So we have a very large board of directors that helps guide the symphony as we grow.

And then we have the Wheeling Symphony Auxiliary. That's what you mentioned, Farm to Fork. That's their summer fundraiser, a little. you know, farm-to-table situation. But that consists of a group of about 40 to 60 people, I think, that are entire, they're all volunteers and they exist just to support us in different ways, whether that be raising money or volunteering at concerts. Basically, whatever we need help with, they are quick to step up.

So we are so grateful for those different organizations that help support us. Well, there's also the purse event also that they do. Yes, snag a bag. Yes, snag a bag. That's it. You got a few of my dollars out of snag a bag before. Yes. Yes. That's a fun one too. Absolutely. Yeah. And that's great because those events, too, even though they support our mission at the symphony, they're social events. So it's a great opportunity for the people that are avid wheeling symphony supporters to be able to go and talk to each other in a non-musical setting. So that way they can socialize a little bit while also enjoying great food, bit on. some purses and then usually there's some musical element there too so it's like the perfect combination of everything that we stand for and that's building the connections again our show is you know community community and connections and you know right there with those events you tie in the two most prominent words in the title of the podcast yes absolutely i was just about to touch

on the connection aspect of it obviously that is a big part of what we're all about here and specifically when it comes to the connection between the youth in the community in the musical world, and then how that is connected to what you guys are doing, what's that process like of maybe a student at a local high school who maybe has aspirations of one day performing next door? And then they go, they go get a degree, they do it all through college. What's that process like? We support music education starting at very young ages and provide a pathway all the way through pre-professional training. So every year we play 8 to 10, free concerts in three different states for fourth graders that are just picking their first

orchestral or band instruments so that they get a sense of what the goal is when they pick up their first musical instrument. Then we offer the tuition-free youth orchestra system where we can train those types of players to be ensemble members of the highest level. We have free and discounted student tickets all the way through the university system that we support here in close partnership, especially with West Liberty University, that is a major artistic and cultural partner for us. I serve on a board over there. Their leadership serves on a board here, and many of their professors perform or write music for the symphony. And then the other thing that we have are pre-professional training program.

So, for example, we have a conductor fellow at the symphony who went through our youth orchestra system, got, like you mentioned, a master's degree in orchestral conducting, and is now a professional member of our conducting staff, and I mentor that person. And over the years, we've had many, many, many emerging professional musicians perform a soloist with the symphony. And if you see this year, you'll look towards Symphony on Ice and Amanda McGovern, a local talented singer who wants to become a Broadway star, is going to be performing with us for the third time over the last two years. So these are the types of ongoing relationships we have with people at different levels, hoping to provide a platform for their art to be amplified, but also for their career aspirations to be helped by the symphony. So you guys are very hands-on in the process of helping young musicians, you know, in their aspirations of becoming, you know, professionals. Right. We want two things to be true.

We want, if you want to be a professional musician, the WSO has a pathway to help support you in that endeavor. But probably even more importantly is that we're building people that feel like classical music is a part of their life as a citizen in the Ohio Valley. And that if they become a doctor, a lawyer, a scientist, or a politician, that they will subscribe to this infinity. prioritize music training in their kids' lives, join a board, donate, these types of things because so few people will become professional musicians, but so many people have an opportunity to support arts and culture here in West Virginia.

That's a great point. I hadn't thought of it that way before. To kind of shift gears, you just talked about somebody who you hope kind of weaves classical music into the fabric of their life, whether it be with their kids or anything else. What if there's somebody who comes along

this is just a hypothetical and that's not the status quo for them and you have to sell them on classical music i don't know if you've thought about this before but you know what were some of the things that you would say if you had to sell somebody on classical music um well i think one of the things that i always say is that you don't have to have any foundational knowledge right as long as you enjoy live music and experiencing live music then you will enjoy a wheeling symphony concept And more than that, we do such a wide variety of pieces. You know, we talked about the movies earlier. And then, of course, we do like your Beethoven's and your mallors

and the really established sort of composers that people associate with classical music. So there's a really wide range of what somebody might be interested in that we offer. I mean, two of our most recent performances, we did a show that was all Broadway music. And then we did a show that was all soul music. So we were playing works by Stevie Wonder, Whitney Houston, music that everybody seems to know, but you get to experience in a whole new way when you come to a symphony concert. So, you know, when people say something about like, oh, well, the symphony isn't for me, I say my response most of the time is, how do you know?

Unless you have been to a concert and you told me that you hated it and you never want to go back, then even then I would say, well, maybe you just came to the wrong one and you can try again. So I think a lot of it is just trying to overcome that misconception that it's inaccessible because I think it absolutely is. You can come into the theater not knowing anything about music, not knowing anything about the pieces, and you will leave having a positive experience and a night well spent out in the Ohio Valley. That's a good point. And just kind of a personal anecdote.

You know, I'm not the – excuse me, I'm not the biggest fan of country music. Sure. But I recently got involved in Catus, Ohio. They have the mark at the park at Sallibuffalo Park, and they have live music there all summer and whatnot. And whether you like the music, you don't like the music, I think it's all better when it's played live. And whether you like it or not,

you can appreciate the attention to detail that those people have. It's something really special to be able to perform live, I think, is a sacred art. Absolutely. And, you know, I think it would be comparable. In my situation, it's sort of like that with sports. I don't really have much interest in sports, but I would love to go to a live game.

And there's something to be said about just appreciating somebody who is at the highest caliber of that particular thing. So watching an athlete who has been put in decades of work is amazing, even if you don't know a lot about football or hockey. And the same goes for music. You can have an appreciation for the years of training and the attention and the musicality without necessarily being somebody that's really well-versed to music. I think it's a coincidence as you bring that up we just had a football coach on right before you guys that's what I was thinking yeah there you know some may think there couldn't be a greater contrast one of the things I think bridges that gap so well is there's nothing better than a marching band on a Friday night or a Saturday afternoon on a campus of a high school or a college

one of the best aspects of the game of football and I think great display of all types of different music and the performance of it I think is I think it's so fascinating to see, especially when you hear like a popular song, because classical songs are written as classical songs, but when you hear a pop song or any kind of contemporary piece, and it's reworked for any kind of marching band or an orchestra, I think that's, you know, there's a level of genius that is required, I think, to pull that off. Oh, 100%. Yeah. Well, and wouldn't you say, kind of tying into the sports thing, music is used in so many aspects for emotional. reactions, whether it's at a sporting game and you hear Queen or, you know, and I think that

goes back to the conversation about the classical stuff with folks who say maybe it's not for me, they've heard it in contemporary settings and they don't know it. Oh, I know of a classical song. I can't pronounce a name, so I'm not going to try, but there's a classical song that you can hear on almost every third down if you watch a college football game. Uh-huh. Yeah, so I think that one of the things that you're referencing is the ubiquity of symphonic music. And you talk, you label it like we kind of label it classical music. But I actually like the word symphonic music better. Simply, it's played by a symphony orchestra. Because classical music has this antiquated notion to it. And it is also specifically referring in a lot of cases to music that

was written when people wore wigs and, and, you know, walked around sipping Viennese coffee. For me, the relevance of this music goes beyond just what happens on the stuff. stage. It is the fact that 80 people come together, put aside all of their differences and create something beautiful that the community can share in. And in a time like this one that feels so divided, like there's two different societies living together in our cities that we can all put aside those differences and come celebrate what makes us the best as humans, which is our creativity and our ability to perform together. That to me is what makes the orchestra so special. It's a gathering place. And we talk about different things throughout the year. We'll come

together and gather and discuss current events. We'll discuss historical connections to the pieces we're about to perform. And so whether or not you're performing a score to a well-known symphony by an American composer that's still alive, or we're transporting you back to Vienna in 1770, that ability to develop empathy by imagining what it's like to be somebody else at a different time, in a different place, and then living that out together through an examination of liberal arts together. That's why I think we develop people through education and through musical experience is to be better understanders of the world we live in and be able to put ourselves in somebody else's shoes. And so that I think is the single greatest power of an

orchestra is that it's a community that teaches empathy. And so whether we're playing music that you recognize like Queen or we're going all the way back to Mozart, there's something that we can be experiencing together and getting better as people together. And I love that power of the orchestra. Hans Zimmer, good stuff as well, great composer. Oh yeah. Is that the one you could think of off the top of your head? Yeah, he's great. And you just had a print. announce his name. Well, good, because I couldn't think of one besides Beethoven. Oh, yeah, Beethoven, Mozart, all good stuff.

Sam, do you have anything else to add? Just real quick, you know, we're close to the 2025-26 season. What is on tap? We mentioned the Star Wars Night, but besides that, what else can we let people know about? Sure. So I'll talk a little bit about our pop series, and then I'll pass it over to John. So we open the whole season with Prohibition, which is going to be a really fun night to think 1920s glamour, flappers, that kind of thing. All of the music is music from the 1920s.

And so it's going to be giving lots of great Gatsby vibes, you know, things like Boardwalk Empire, too. That was really popular. So that is going to be a really fun night. That starts on September 20th. We open up the season. And then we will have endless love. February. So this is a tribute show about love songs. So we'll have lots of soul-inspired pieces, and we have two amazing guest vocalists that will be in town for that performance. And then in

April, we have Star Wars A New Hope, which we are, of course, really looking forward to. Yeah. And so that's our pop series. And then on the masterwork side, we'll begin that in late October on the 25th. And the thing that people should look forward to that is the visit to town by a director and designer named Doug Fitch. Doug thinks about the future of orchestral concerts and how we can provide visual and lighting elements that enhance what's happening with the music. So we talked about community a lot before,

and in this partnership, we'll be teaming up with Ogilby Institute and their dance company to provide a live setting of theatrical elements that go along with a piece by the great English composer, Benjamin, Britain. So this story comes for an opera, and it's actually a tragedy with there's someone that drowns,

and then there's a mob that hunts down somebody that they think is responsible for the child's death, and it's incredibly dramatic. And there's a suite of pieces drawn from the opera that the orchestra will perform, and all those theatrical elements that normally you would miss if you're not presenting it in the operatic setting will be delivered through lights,

through enormous banners that are hanging from the ceiling of the Capitol, and then the dancing component that is delivered by the young artists from our community. So that's going to happen in October. There's lots of other great music on that program as well. Next, we'll fast forward to January for Masterworks 2, which is called All My Memories. And here the highlight is going to be the return to Wheeling of the young phenom pianist, Maxime Lando. He joined us for the first time three years ago, and he's the first artist I ever called the next morning and said,

you're coming back to Wheeling as soon as possible. He made such a stir. He was just 19 years old when he made his debut here. And he was so popular that the symphony family was just ecstatic to welcome him. back, and his return to Wheeling will take place in that first month of 2026. Two months later, in March, we have a concert called Her Voice, which is centered around the week-long residency of vocalist Chera Nova. Chera collaborates with the very best living American composers, and in this case, she's

collaborating with four different ones, Unhelequin Negroen, Caroline Shaw, Sarah Kirkland-Snyder, and Rachel Grimes. All of those composers combined movements from a huge song cycle that will be presented on the Capitol with our strings from the Wheeling Symphony Orchestra, and earlier in the week we're doing a special project talking about community connections at the Towngate Theater with a concert that also features Chera with a smaller version of our orchestra specifically designed for young adults. So we love the fact that we're going to target some young adults and then try to get them to feel comfortable coming to the concert hall that Friday. And then last but not least, we'll end our season in May with an incredible concert that's going to feature the electric violinist Tracy Silverman. Not many people have seen an electric violin concerto before, but we love being at the cutting edge of what's happening again in the orchestral industry. This piece is a world premiere commission, meaning that we paid for the composer to write this piece. It will be the first time that it's performed right here in Wheeling, West Virginia, and you're going to see something unlike anything you've ever seen on the stage with somebody performing American style music with the electric violin,

a loop pedal effects. We're combining elements of electronic music with classical music, and we think it's going to be a really wonderful way to end the season. wow that's all fascinating there's something for everybody yes literally no doubt about it absolutely well if you want to get in touch with us owee podcast at ohio dot edu more importantly wheeling symphony dot com to get in touch with the wheeling symphony orchestra your community in concert we really appreciate the time of john devlin and sadie varlis you guys have been great for sam and myself this has been community and connections thank you for listening and have a good one