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Valley Stylemakers
Conducting Herself in Hagerstown
By Maggie Wolff Peterson
Perhaps a spirit of frivolity lies just under the professional
demeanor of Elizabeth Schulze. As the conductor of the Maryland Symphony Orchestra, last summer she sat patiently
as portraitists converted her image to a bobblehead doll for patrons of the Hagerstown Suns.
"I think I posed for several dozen photos, in various outfits, and then the Suns, the Convention and Visitors
Bureau and the MSO staff had a lot of suggestions each time we saw a mock-up," she said.
June 7 had been declared Elizabeth Schulze Day at the ballpark, and the first 1,000 fans through the gates of Municipal
Stadium received the dolls. No matter if their musical interests tended more toward Lynyrd Skynard than Leonard
Bernstein, Shulze was there to toss the first pitch after leading the orchestra in the National Anthem.
Schulze is plainly enamored of Hagerstown, where she arrived in 1999 after leaving the post of Associate Conductor
of the National Symphony in Washington, D.C. "I live a few blocks away from the Potomac," she said. "I
love the beauty."
She also loves the community. A spirit of outreach leads her to conduct the All-County Orchestra of Washington
County, as well as support arts education in the schools. She considers herself a "cultural partner"
to community leaders, and is involved in developing curricula for the Barbara Ingram School for the Arts in Hagerstown,
that will enroll its first class in September.
Kinderconcerts, offered at Hagerstown Community College's Kepler Theater, are intended for preschoolers. Symphony
Saturdays are for elementary-aged children, who learn how instruments work together to create symphonic sound.
Student musicians in middle school, high school and college are always invited to dress rehearsals, to meet Schulze
and the symphony's upcoming guest soloists. And each month, the symphony recognizes top student instrumentalists
and vocalists from the region.
"The symphony enriches the overall cultural identity of the community," Schulze said. "It's exciting
for a town of this size to have an orchestra of this caliber."
Because she can draw on freelance instrumentalists from Baltimore and Washington, D.C., Schulze has assembled an
orchestra of bonafide professionals, most of whom make a living from music. And Schulze herself stretches beyond
Hagerstown, guest-conducting at symphonies nationwide, as well as at a second musical home in Flagstaff, Arizona.
In the last six months, she has led orchestras from San Francisco to New Jersey.
She jokes that while she loves her home, it is sometimes little more than a place to perch between trips. "My
home is my haven, but it's also the place that my suitcases lay half-unpacked," she said.
In her downtime, Schulze loves hiking the C&O Canal, screening old films and reading, particularly about the
lives of the masters whose works she conducts. But you won't find her turning on the stereo.
"I rarely listen to music in my downtime," Schulze said. "I don't seek out music as relaxation.
It immediately stimulates me. I become too analytical."
But she does enjoy hearing live music, particularly in small clubs. "I love to watch other people perform,"
she said. "I learn so much. There is something exciting about watching people make music, knowing it will
never be played the same way again."
Recorded music was one of the first things Schulze heard, as her mother played it to her in the womb. "I've
always been comfortable and familiar with classical music," she said. "It was played in my house as a
child."
In fact, Schulze descends from a long line of classicists, reaching back in time through generations, and through
space to Eastern Europe. Genealogical research has introduced Schulze to a great-great uncle who was a solo cellist.
"Hhis father was a conductor," she said.
Schulze possesses the baton of her great-great grandfather. "He was from Vilnius," she said. "He
traveled to Liepzig to study."
Her great-great grandfather conducted orchestras in New York and Cincinnati, and "taught any talented child
for free," Schulze said.
But conducting orchestral music isn't the path Schulze thought she'd take. A student of violin and voice, she intended
choral music to be her profession. Particularly, Schulze loves the sound of a church choir, and imagined herself
someday leading a Christmas production of Handel's Messiah.
"I did not dream of this," she said. "It's been gradually evolving."
Schulze finds pleasure in a workweek that includes administrative as well as creative work, fundraising, and gladhanding
community leaders at service club lunches. "There is no typical day," she said.
"It's a wonderful thing to be a music director and plan an entire season," Schulze said. Collaboration,
balanced against leadership "seems to answer all the parts of my personality." |
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