Independent Arts News Reporting 
Pictured Above: Aubrey Haines, Michelle Pirone Lambros, J. Robert Hillier, Marc Uys, Charlie Yedlin, and Stephanie Wedeking. Photo Credit: PSO Staff.
Princeton Symphony Orchestra: Harmony Behind the Stage
By Louise Feder
Enter the harmonious hum “behind the stage” of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra with Features Writer Louise Feder, where every staff member – many musicians- plays a crucial role in bringing extraordinary performances to life. Experience how music, passion, and community unite to create unforgettable memories in the heart of Princeton. Read on to uncover the story behind the music and why your next visit to the PSO might be more meaningful than you imagine.
Walking into the new offices for the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, there is a pleasant buzz of busyness in the air. A staff member waves hello, while simultaneously chatting with a patron on the phone about their ticket order. The copier just off of the kitchen is churning out copies of sheet music. Boxes of glasses, napkins, programs, and other essentials are stacked neatly in a collapsible blue wagon, while two other staff members discuss event photography. There’s a concert tomorrow, and it’s all-hands-on-deck.
It’s worth noting, however, that none of this preparation feels at all stressful. Instead, it is (appropriately) like watching an orchestra take the stage, tune their instruments. Everybody knows their role, knows the details not immediately obvious to others, but vital to a successful performance.
“It’s the staff of the PSO that make the experience of going to the performance very special.” Executive Director, Marc Uys tells me as we sit at the circular table in his office. “We are all completely committed to removing any stress from that experience in any way that we can. And I think that really does make a difference, and that people have less between them and the music. We hold up, on a highest pedestal, the music that we are presenting, and we want to present that to the audience.”
Pictured Above: Princeton Symphony Orchestra staffers in new office space. Photo Credit: PSO Staff.
Uys has been on staff at the PSO for ten years now, first as manager of artistic operations and then, swiftly after as executive director. But before either of those roles, he was a full-time violinist. Now, in discussing his work at PSO, it is readily clear how much he values the work of his administrative staff and understands the level of work and of commitment they each bring to their respective roles, due in large part to the first half of his career spent on the stage.
“As a violinist I led a string quartet, and I managed and ran it myself – that’s really a tiny version of what we do, because it has all the different departments and all the things that go into running the orchestra….and to some extent, every musician certainly orchestral instrumentalist has done a lot of those things.”
As we listen to the staff bustle away with concert preparations outside his office door, he remarks that most of the staff are or were musicians at some point in their background. It is this level of personal connection to their work that be believes makes the organization’s work feel personal and intimate, while operating as smoothly and efficiently as it clearly does.
“If we’re going to talk about staff, this organization is what it is because of the staff we have here. And especially over here, there are a number of staff members who have been here for nearly 10 years; the core of the senior staff is like that,” he says fondly. “And they are absolutely amazing – the collaborations [with other local institutions] work because they are excited about the things we do personally…They all care very deeply about what we do and they are very responsive and love working with other people.”
It is a special thing, working at a non-profit. The hours are often long, the reasons for being there based more in deeply held personal beliefs and values than in anything else. Everything poured in to the organization by development associates, marketing managers, box office attendants, and countless others – all of it is for an end result that each person on the team believes matters. I ask Uys what he personally would perceive as a successful experience at the PSO for an audience member, and he holds up a cautioning hand.
Pictured Above: PSO Staff at Richardson Auditorium – Spencer Bautista, Olivia Coackley, and Lindsay Kopp. Photo Credit: PSO Staff.
“This answer should not create pressure on anyone. Because the expectation is not that this happens at every performance – but it is my hope, it’s what I work for,” he says, qualifying before diving in. “I work for helping and trying to influence in any way I can for somebody in that performance to have one of those few moments that people have in their lives. Where something just shifts and there’s a connection. And you can’t make that happen. You can try to make the right conditions for it to happen in. It’s not like I’m an expert and can make it happen on command for myself. When I think through my life, I can think of a handful of moments that have been like that for me. But I think that the thing about music is it’s a medium in which people can have those experiences. And so, that’s not always the goal. And we’re not going to concerts in pursuit of that; there are many other reasons to go to concerts. But what I see as an especially unique opportunity I have, or responsibility that I have, is to create conditions so that those moments might happen.”
As I walk across Princeton University’s dark campus in front of Nassau Hall the following night, I can’t stop thinking about what Uys said. Were the conditions right for me? Were they right for any of the other attendees preparing for the Beethoven’s Triple concert that evening?
Popping into the Maclean House for PSO’s reception before the concert, I can’t help but smile. So many of the staff members from the previous afternoon have shifted seamlessly into their event-night roles. One staff member who was helping in the development department yesterday is now taking photographs of the crowd, another tends to the hors d’oeuvres, while even more help check in guests and move the drinks line along. Remarkably, every single one remembers me – and clearly know many of the patrons by first name as well.
It is a warm, intimate reception with the usual crush for cheese and crackers and that particular desperation that always seems to set in among attendees to get a drink and a plate as quickly as possible. But all that stops immediately as Uys and PSO’s Maestro Milanov step into the middle of the crowd to discuss the concert, the works being performed, the soloists, the crowd hangs on each and every word, snacks long forgotten. It is like Uys told me yesterday – the music comes before anything else.
Before long, it’s off to Richardson Auditorium, to join the crowd streaming into the curved concourse. More familiar faces pass by as I wind up, up, up the circular stone staircase in the turret to the Balcony, Left Row. I lived in Princeton for ten years as an adolescent, and the first “real” concert I went to was here, in Richardson as a seventh grader. So, take this with a grain of nostalgia-tinged salt when I say that the space is a special one. It’s easy to feel a part of the audience as a whole thanks to the curved seating, and from high above in my balcony perch, I can see the faces of everybody walking in and finding their seats. The excitement and anticipation are palpable.
“I think an important goal is to go,” Uys told me the day before. “It is a social occasion, and this is very much why live music matters. Because you experience it differently in a group, in a group of strangers, with a group of friends, acquaintances. All of those can be valuable experiences. And all of that is before you start talking to other people about your experiences. Just sitting next to someone. The music, because it’s not an absolute language in so many senses, it allows people to be a little freer in how they connect…The musicians are just so incredibly gifted at what they did, and it’s the full package to see them live.”
Pictured Above: Pianist Steven Beck, cellist Alistair MacRae, and violinist Basia Danilow thrilled audiences with performances of Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, led by Maestro Rossen Milanov in Richardson Auditorium. Photo Credit: PSO Staff.
Conversations hum all around as I hear exactly those kinds of connections taking place. Friends chatting about past performances, seatmates bonding over the program. As the orchestra begins to file in, a couple near me gestures at an empty seat next to them. They cheerfully offer it up as a place for my coat – their son usually comes with them, but he’s studying tonight. For a split second, I am convinced I spot my high school orchestra teacher, sitting in the back row. But there’s no time to go over and chat – the performance is underway.
There is something particularly challenging about writing about the experience of a live performance. I could tell you about the way the woodwinds moved as they played, obviously enjoying each other’s company and talent in the extreme. Or the way waves of heads below in the orchestra ground floor seating leaned in and bopped to the beat as the tempo picked up. The sound of the orchestra members stamping their feet in appreciation for the evening’s soloists. The crew nimbly moving a harpsichord on and off stage. I wish I could tell you about the immediate, easy way I slipped into the joy of the night, the way I let go and listened, and wasn’t tempted to look at my phone even once. All of that is true, each bit of it apparently effortless and incredibly special. But I know none of those details will take you, dear reader, to that evening, or even come close to standing in for the PSO concert itself.
So, I suppose there’s only one thing for it – I think you’ll have to go yourself.
The Princeton Symphony Orchestra is a cultural centerpiece of the Princeton community and can be found online at princetonsymphony.org, on Facebook, X, Instagram, and Flickr. Their next performances are the Holiday Pops, a Princeton Holiday Tradition on Saturday, December 14 at 3pm and 6pm. More information about the rest of the PSO’s season can be found on their website.
