Monmouth Civic Orchestra succeeds once more

Sunday night, I had the pleasure of attending the Monmouth Civic Orchestra's fall 2007 concert, and, once again, came away satisfied that the arts were not being neglected in this small community.

The concert, originally slated for last month, had been reworked several times, until all the professional and amateur musicians in the orchestra could manage to work the concert into their tight holiday schedules. And, the change didn't really cost us much of the audience -- all the regulars were there again.

I was glad to see that the quality of performance did not suffer for those scheduling woes.

Donna Hauge looked downright regal as she conducted the orchestra's stellar performance...

And, now, for a little history:

Donna has been in command of the Monmouth Civic Orchestra since she founded it, more than a quarter-century ago. Her goal has always been to see that music -- the stuff not covered by high school marching band and current disc jockeys -- does not vanish from our otherwise rather isolated community.

The story begins with a music director hired for the high school, a director who promised he would keep the solidly successful orchestra program, but within five years of his settling in on the job, there was no more high school music program other than a single chorus and the PRIZE-WINNING MARCHING BAND (he always spoke of it in such glowing terms, although we at MHS were seldom anywhere near national competition material). And not that we begrudge the kids their glory, but it is rather unlikely that they will any day incorporate strings into the parade group. It was hard enough keeping our actual champeen bagpipe band going at the local college (my alma mater, too). Imagine trying to persuade a farming community that they needed to keep Latin classes and a string ensemble, but would have to cut the frosh football team from the budget....

But I digress.

Because the orchestra program was so crudely murdered at the high school, Donna Hauge took it upon herself to save young local musicians the heartache of having to abandon violin, cello, tympani, etc. in favor of the sousaphone, simply because the band director wanted it so. She created the Monmouth Civic Orchestra as a means of offering these young musicians the opportunity to play in a large ensemble. (Many of the musicians one sees in the MCO are regional professionals, paid fully for their contribution to the group's performance, but a few still donate long hours, in order to aid Donna and the MCO.) This allows the kids a chance to learn how to work with others in a semi-professional arrangement, so they will learn musical "teamwork", as well as learning the understanding of real musical dynamics beyond the end of their bows or elbows.

If they paid everybody in this merry band of rogues according to his real worth, the MCO would have been fiscally bankrupt long ago. As it is, the MCO is always teetering on the brink, for it depends heavily on donations from concert-goers, from the Buchanan Center for the Arts, and from state agencies.

I realize we're not the only community facing hard times for our arts programs -- what this is about is more than money, though. Every community needs artistic outlets such as this, or the community stagnates. The programs need interest -- musicians to play, and listeners to attend the concerts; sculptors, painters, photographers to create visual works, eyes to admire those works. And, most of all, they need people like Donna Hauge to continue to be the driving force behind the artistic communities. We really can't afford to lose the quality of performance we had this past Sunday night.


So, next MCO concert, in the spring of '08, I expect to see you in the audience, supporting Donna and the rest. They're here for all of us, after all. The least we can do is show we're there for them.


For the record, I've spent the past few years donating my time and graphic arts skills (such as they are) to creating and printing the posters and programs for the MCO. My mother donates the paper and printer inks, thereby freeing up a little more cash for the musicians. In return, I get a whopping great ego when people like my work... and Mom gets very little credit outside a mention in the acknowledgments, when, in fact, there is little I could do without her artistic input and her computer/equipment. A little art and inspiration spreads around a whole lot.