The Portland Youth Philharmonic (PYP) is the oldest youth orchestra in the United States, established in 1924 as the Portland Junior Symphony (PJS). Now based in Portland, Oregon, the orchestra's origin dates back to 1910, when music teacher Mary V. Dodge began playing music for local children in Burns, Oregon. Dodge purchased instruments for the children and organized the orchestra, which would become known as the Sagebrush Symphony Orchestra. After touring the state, including a performance at the Oregon State Fair in Salem, the orchestra disbanded in 1918 when Dodge moved to Portland. There, Dodge opened a violin school and became music director of the Irvington School Orchestra.
Hoping to create a permanent youth symphony, Dodge approached Jacques Gershkovitch in 1923 to serve as music director of the Portland Junior Symphony. The ensemble performed for the first time in 1925, and by the 1930s, PJS concerts were being broadcast nationally. Following Gershkovitch's death in 1953, alumnus Jacob Avshalomov became the orchestra's music director. The ensemble's name was changed to the Portland Youth Philharmonic in 1978.
The PYP has had five conductors and music directors during its history: Gershkovitch (1924–1953), Avshalomov (1954–1995), Huw Edwards (1995–2002), Mei-Ann Chen (2002–2007), and professional clarinetist David Hattner (2008–present). The PYP's umbrella organization, the Portland Youth Philharmonic Association, consists of four ensembles, including the Philharmonic Orchestra, the Conservatory Orchestra, the Wind Ensemble, and the Young String Ensemble. Participating musicians range in age from seven to twenty-two years and attend dozens of schools within the Portland metropolitan area and surrounding communities.
History
Mary V. Dodge and the Sagebrush Symphony Orchestra
Mary V. Dodge (birth name Mary B. Thompson) was born in Arkansas in 1876. When she was five years old, her father died, causing her and her sisters to be placed in an orphanage while their mother finished nursing school. Mary Thompson became interested in music while attending a Catholic boarding school, and later became a musician and teacher in Boston and New York City. After moving to Portland, Oregon, where her aunt owned a boarding house, she met and married civil engineer and double bass player Mott Dodge. Soon after they married, Mott was transferred to Harney County for a work project.
In 1910, they settled in Burns in an engineering camp known as the "Boston tents". Mary and Mott had one child, Glen, who learned from his mother how to play the fiddle starting at a young age. A classically trained violinist with a "love of children and ... a deeply democratic view about making music", Dodge began teaching local children how to play string instruments, first in resident tents then in a photography studio. With assistance from parents and a professional flautist from Italy, who taught the children how to play wind instruments and conducted, Dodge assembled a small orchestra. According to former violin student Ruth Saunders, "All of the sighing, tooting and drumming soon made the citizens aware that something was going on, and due to her powers of persuasion, they found themselves devoting their time, talents, money and children to the creation of the Sagebrush Orchestra."
The orchestra's first concert was held in 1912 at Tonawama Hall in Burns. With funds provided by rancher Bill Hanley, lawyer and artist Charles Erskine Scott Wood, and additional Burns businessmen, Dodge purchased musical instruments for the children and expanded the orchestra to between thirty and thirty-five members. By 1915, the orchestra was touring throughout eastern Oregon on a Chautauqua circuit. With $2,000 in funds raised by the aforementioned businessmen, the ensemble visited western Oregon in September 1916 and performed seven concerts in a two-day period. By that point known as the Sagebrush Symphony Orchestra, the ensemble won $100 at the Oregon State Fair in Salem and performed several concerts in Portland, including one at the Imperial Hotel and one for opera singer Ernestine Schumann-Heink at the Portland Hotel. During the symphony's week-long tour, one Oregonian reporter wrote: "The journey of the little people is considered one of the finest exhibitions of community spirit ever shown in this state." Schumann-Heink planned to support the orchestra's efforts to tour, and promised to host a benefit concert the following year. However, the nation's involvement in World War I interrupted plans for additional tours. The orchestra disbanded in 1918 when Dodge relocated to Portland.
Establishment of the Portland Junior Symphony Mary Dodge initially returned to Portland with her husband when he was transferred there for work, but when his job fell through, the couple separated and Mary remained in Portland. Now a single woman, Dodge changed her name to Mary V. Dodge, with the "V" standing for "violin". She opened a violin school and became music director of the Irvington Grade School orchestra. With the hope of creating a permanent youth symphony, Dodge began hosting rehearsals in her attic. However, due to gender inequality in the United States at the time, Dodge knew that a professional male conductor would need to lead the orchestra.
Dodge approached Jacques Gershkovitch, a Russian immigrant in Portland who was guest conductor for the Portland Symphony (which would later become the Oregon Symphony), after seeing him conduct. Though Gershkovitch first explained that he did not teach children, Dodge insisted that he listen to the youth ensemble she had assembled. One orchestra member recalled: "I well remember the excitement of that night when Gershkovitch climbed the stairs to Mary Dodge's attic, where we had assembled to play for him. He listened as we played our hearts out. He applauded us and said that if we got the missing instruments, he would take us on." In an attempt to hand over the baton to Gershkovitch, he simply said to Dodge, "I take." Initially, Dodge remained as associate director of the orchestra; she also assisted with sectional rehearsals, appointed a board of directors, and renamed the ensemble to the Portland Junior Symphony Orchestra in 1924. The original board of directors established the mission of the orchestra: "to encourage appreciation and rendition of orchestral music by young people, to give public symphonic and popular concerts, to discover and develop latent talent among the children of Portland". Six years later, the orchestra was financially sound, and Dodge resigned to focus on teaching. She also became increasingly dedicated to a scientific approach to bowing. Dodge died in 1954.
Jacques Gershkovitch (1924–1953)
Born in 1884 to a Jewish family in Irkutsk, Russia, Gershkovitch grew up listening to chamber music and was sent to Saint Petersburg in his late teens to study at the Imperial Conservatory. Gershkovitch arrived with "17 rubles in his pocket and his flute under his arm"; he auditioned and was awarded a scholarship. At the Conservatory, he learned from respected Russian composers such as Alexander Glazunov, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Nikolai Tcherepnin, and completed coursework in opera and ballet production. In 1913, he graduated with honors in flute and conducting, and was awarded the Schubert Scholarship for a year of study under German conductor Arthur Nikisch in Berlin. However, World War I forced Gershkovitch to return to Irkutsk and enlist in the military. Gershkovitch began his conducting career as head of the Imperial Russian Army's military symphony orchestra, a position he held through the 1917 revolution. In 1918, Gershkovitch married in Irkutsk and established a successful fine arts conservatory and symphony orchestra, which continued under the Bolshevik regime. Gershkovitch and his wife left Russia in 1921 for China, where they befriended composer Aaron Avshalomov. Ballerina Anna Pavlova offered Gershkovitch an assistant conductor position with her orchestra, which was touring throughout the Orient. Gershkovitch settled in Tokyo to lead the newly organized Tokyo Symphony Orchestra until the Great Kantō earthquake of 1923 "disorganized all the business and musical interests of the city". The couple fled Japan and arrived in San Francisco in November 1923. They eventually made their way to Portland in 1924; it was here that Gershkovitch was approached by Dodge to lead the Portland Junior Symphony. Gershkovitch taught flute and conducted the Ellison-White Conservatory's student orchestra, at the time directed by Jacob Avshalomov, until his new PJS duties required his full attention.
The symphony performed for the first time on February 14, 1925, at Portland's Lincoln High School Auditorium (which later became Portland State University's Lincoln Hall), performing Schubert's Unfinished Symphony. At the ensemble's first rehearsal, Gershkovitch introduced the composition and said, "You play, or I keel you", in his heavy Russian accent. Concert attendees reportedly rushed the stage after the debut concert to congratulate the musicians, Gershkovitch and Dodge, who was present and was called to the stage. One reviewer for the Oregon Sunday Journal wrote the following day that the "audience that almost filled the auditorium to capacity broke into storm upon storm of applause". According to Ronald Russell, author of A New West to Explore (1938), the audience "had experienced a new emotional thrill, and forthwith became strong advocates and supporters of the junior symphony cause."
In spring 1925, the orchestra gained national attention by performing at the convention of the National Federation of Music Clubs in Portland. The Sunday Oregonian reported that convention attendees were "so deeply impressed that they declared it unhesitatingly the most wonderful organization of its kind in the entire country". The symphony's second season premiered to a capacity audience on November 25, 1925, with the 75-member ensemble performing Mozart's Symphony No. 40 in its entirety along with "In the Village" from Ippolitov-Ivanov's Caucasian Sketches, the waltz from Rebikov's The Christmas Tree and the march from Wagner's opera Tannhäuser.
Early in the organization's history, the Portland Junior Symphony consisted of a full symphony orchestra, a choir, and a ballet unit. According to Wither Youth (1935), approximately 350 young artists participated in these groups each season (about 100 in the orchestra, 150 in the chorus, and 100 in the ballet). Membership was granted on "merit, ability, seriousness and interest", and there were no tuition fees for participation (this has since changed). Orchestra members were also encouraged to take private lessons. The minimum schedule for participants included two rehearsals during each week of the eight-month season, along with dress rehearsals prior to performances. Three or four concerts were presented each season, many at Portland Public Auditorium (now known as Keller Auditorium). The organization was sustained financially through concert admission and donations—instruments, funds towards scholarships and the general endowment, and music for the association's library were also accepted to ensure the symphony's continued viability.