Oboist thrilled to be the first to play in Milwaukee Symphony's new concert hall

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Oboist Katherine Young Steele will play the first notes in the Milwaukee Symphony's new concert hall on Feb. 6.

When the Milwaukee Symphony performs its first concert Feb. 6 in the new Bradley Symphony Center, principal oboist Katherine Young Steele will play the first note.

And the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth …

In a playful nod to the orchestral tradition of the oboist sounding an initial A note for other musicians to tune to, music director Ken-David Masur has programmed a solo by Steele to open the new Allen-Bradley Hall. Standing alone on stage, Steele will play Telemann's Fantasia No. 1 in A major.

The MSO is spending some $90 million to transform the former Warner Grand Theatre on W. Wisconsin Ave. into its new concert complex, believing a home of its own with controllable scheduling is essential to its survival. Before COVID-19 struck, the opening concert was planned as a major public celebration of the orchestra's connection to the city.

But for the time being, due to the pandemic and city health regulations, audiences will see the new hall through their computer and phone screens.

Nonetheless, Steele is thrilled about being able to play for subscribers again, and chuffed about being the first.

"It's a tremendous honor," she said in a recent interview over Zoom. "Usually it's not an oboe that gets a glamorous situation like that thrown at them."

"After all of this silence and despair that we've all been in during the past several months … it's even more meaningful to me at this point," Steele said.

She picked that specific Telemann fantasia because it begins with an A major note, and because it's "more of a fanfare."

An Ohio native and the daughter of two music teachers, Steele joined the MSO in 2012. She flew from Florida to Milwaukee on a cold and snowy day for her audition, calling audition coordinator Rip Prétat "100 times that day" to say she was on her way. At the end of that day, music director Edo de Waart congratulated her on winning the job. Steele felt "overwhelmed and exhausted … in the best possible way" — then had to call her husband, to whom she had been married less than a month, to tell him they were moving to Milwaukee.

Her parents, who played flute and trombone, encouraged her to play "a challenging instrument." An early teacher fostered her love of the oboe until it became a commitment. "Once you hear the oboe in the orchestra, and you hear the melodies and the sound of the instrument, … it penetrates your heart in a way that many other instruments do not," Steele said.

That love means she's had to learn another skill — how to sharpen the knives she needs to cut the reeds for her oboe.

De Waart, who hired Steele, was an oboist himself. "I always knew that he supported me, he understood my role," she said. When he conducted Steele in the demanding Strauss oboe concerto, she felt an extra layer of comfort. "He knew when I would breathe, it was his instinct."

Like de Waart, current music director Ken-David Masur also brings a strong love of vocal music to his work as an orchestra conductor. That's music to an oboist's ears.

"I actually think that the oboe is an instrument that extraordinarily represents the voice," Steele said.

She also bonds with Masur offstage — as fellow parents of young children. When public performances shut down in March, she turned into a stay-at-home mom, housewife and home-school supervisor.

As a musician, the pandemic has been "really hard" for her. "It's been almost like a death … the unknowing, the uncertainty, the unpredictability of all of this … it's led to a lot of anxiety for musicians."

She said some musicians have taken the unexpected time to embrace technology, learning new apps for teaching, or figuring out how to edit their own videos. Steele has reached out to college classmates and old teachers she hadn't spoken to in years.

Still, playing music with a friend for a Christmas service at her church reminded her of what she had missed and stirred her emotionally. "We both were just … tearing up and cry(ing) … it was just so heartfelt."

Steele said she will never take playing in the orchestra for granted again. "I think I will have a renewed vigor for this job," she said. "To see a full audience again … I think there won't be a dry eye in the orchestra at all."

During the opening performance Feb. 6, the MSO will have no more than six socially distanced musicians onstage at a time. The MSO plans a season of 12 Classical concerts, hosted by music director Masur, and four Pops concerts, performed on Saturday evenings and made available to subscribers virtually. Virtual subscriptions are on sale at mso.org.

Contact Jim Higgins at jim.higgins@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @jhiggy.

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