A deep look into the Pasadena Symphony's history

By Robert D. Thomas
Music Critic
Pasadena Star-News/San Gabriel Valley Tribune/Whittier Daily News/
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/San Bernardino Sun
This article was first published today in the Pasadena Star-News/San Gabriel Valley Tribune/Whittier Daily News.
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Pasadena Symphony Orchestra, Jorge Mester, conductor; Jamie Chamberlin and Shana Blake Hill; sopranos; Randall Billis, tenor; Jinyoung Jang, bass; The Occidental Chorale
Sat., Jan. 12; 8 p.m. Preconcert lecture at 7 p.m.
Pasadena Civic Auditorium; 300 E. Green St., Pasadena
Tickets: $20-$75. Children ages 5-17: $10. Rush tickets are $10 for students and seniors (65+) on Saturday at the Civic box office.
Information: 626/584-8833; www.pasadenasymphony.org
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While thousands of people are celebrating the Pasadena Symphony's 80th anniversary season, for at least one person the festivities are highly personal. Roberta "Bobbie" Groninger first played in the orchestra in 1934 at the age of 17 and met her husband, Ray Nowlin (the PSO's first bassoonist) there, one of several musicians who wooed and wed their mates in the PSO down through the decades.

Equally significant, her tenure of nearly 40 years began in the orchestra's formative years under founding director Reginald Bland, continued through the 28-year reign of its second conductor, Dr. Richard Lert, and ended under the latter's successor, Daniel Lewis. The only conductor she didn't play with is the orchestra's current leader, Jorge Mester, who came on board in 1984.

(The PSO's record of just four music director/conductors in 80 years is a noteworthy, albeit little-recognized achievement. By the contrast, in the same time frame the Los Angeles Philharmonic has had nine music directors, with a 10th, Gustavo Dudamel, slated to take over in 2009. In the same span, the New York Philharmonic has employed 12, with its 13th, Alan Gilbert, already named).

Now a resident of Alhambra, Roberta Nowlin remembers how she got started with the Pasadena Symphony. "Reginald Bland needed musicians to augment the orchestra during a concert in 1934," she recalls, "so he called my teacher, Mr. Scott, at Monrovia High School and asked him to send his most advanced string players to see him. I was one of those chosen."

After that concert, Bland wanted the 17-year-old to continue in the orchestra and offered to teach her as a tradeoff. A few years later, she auditioned for and won the position as concertmaster. "I was used to auditions all through grammar school and high school," she explains. "At that time, this was just another one."

The orchestra was moving from an all-volunteer ensemble to a mixture of professional and amateur musicians by 1940. As remains the case today, many of the orchestra members played in other orchestras and at Hollywood studios.

"I can't begin to count the number places I played," she says with a chuckle. Among other ensembles, Groninger auditioned for and won a spot with Leopold Stokowski's All-American Youth Orchestra, which toured South America during the early 1940s. She later toured the United States three times with the Klebanoff String Orchestra and was also the only woman in the orchestra at Melodyland, a 3,200-seat musical theatre in Anaheim across Harbor Blvd. from Disneyland.

Groninger's tenure with the PSO wasn't unbroken. After marrying Ray Nowlin, she stopped playing for more than five years to raise three children. "Finally, Dr. Lert called me," she says. "He had a very heavy, but charming, accent and I can remember him saying, 'Bubby, we want you to come back.'" She did.

Nowlin remembers Lert as "quite a taskmaster. We weren't under any union rules then, so he would keep us in rehearsal until 11 at night working on a particular part of a piece." She also remembers the courtly Lert as "a purist. I had been exposed to the music of Prokofiev and Shostakovich under Stokowski, but Dr. Lert always preferred to play classicists like Beethoven and Mozart."

Among Nowlin's memories are a concert with Harpo Marx, appearing as soloist in Beethoven's Romance in F, and summers spent at Asilomar Conference Center on the Monterey Peninsula where Lert held conductor-training schools. She also taught violin for many years using the Suzuki Method, including a stint at USC, and traveled to Japan with five of her students to meet the famed pedagogue.

When Lert finally retired in 1972, the orchestra turned to 47-year-old Daniel Lewis, who is credited with raising the PSO's standards significantly during his 12-year tenure as music director and conductor.

"I didn't find him a pleasant man," said Nowlin, "a complete change from Dr. Lert. I don't think he felt that any of us were worthy of playing in 'his' orchestra." Moreover, in a note of fine irony, Lewis' penchant for programming contemporary music didn't catch Nowlin's fancy. "Both Ray and I had put in our time," declared Nowlin, "and we knew it was time to leave."

With her three children (son Stephen, vice president and director Art Center College of Design's Alyse de Roulet Williamson Gallery, lives with his wife, Anne, in Altadena; daughter Lynn Miller lives with her husband, Bob, in Alhambra; and daughter Annette Hauth lives with her husband, Russell, in Newbury Park), 10 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren (with two more on the way), "Bobbie" Nowlin has plenty to keep her busy. But she looks back on her "other" life with genuine affection. "It was," she acknowledges, "a wonderful life."
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(c) Copyright 2008, Robert D. Thomas. All rights reserved. Portions may be quoted with attribution.