| A dream achieved: The Symphony
Louise Bailey
ALONG THE RIDGES
When the Hendersonville Symphony Orchestra begins tuning up for its Christmas concert Friday, many of us will be thinking of Chan Harbour and wishing he were there to see what has grown out of his dream of providing for the people of Hendersonville the music he felt they deserve. He came for retirement, but when he found our community markedly involved in literature and art and music, he declared, "Now we need to round out our artistic lives with a symphony orchestra." He was determined to get one started, and in one way it was no sudden decision on his part, for ever since he was a 9-year-old lad he had longed to play in a symphony orchestra.
But not in just that. Although he was a gifted instrumentalist, his ambition spent some years wavering between a symphony and a circus band, depending on which he was listening to at the moment. Then many years later he found Hendersonville and a surprising number of outstanding musicians already in residence. Among them was Joseph Falvo, who had worked with John Phillip Sousa and never failed to get the audience on its feet when he played The Stars and Stripes Forever on his piccolo. Falvo had played flute with a number of orchestras, and in Orson Welles' Invasion from Mars, and had taken part in shows starring Eddie Cantor, Fred Allen, Lucille Ball, Dinah Shore and on Popeye cartoons.
Achieving a goal
Hendersonville 's new symphony orchestra began under the direction of James Stokes, and "with musicians who never lost faith in achieving our goal," according to Chan Harbour . Comments after that first performance were highly complimentary, such as "....a great thing for Hendersonville and I want to see it continue;" "It's the greatest thing that has happened in Hendersonville in a long time...," "It fills a long vacant gap in the music life of Hendersonville and I want to see it become a part of our culture in this community."
People doubted if another town of Hendersonville's size in the entire United States could boast of such a fine orchestra by which the "numbers were beautifully performed." People were amazed that so much talent existed in a small town, and more was coming in as industries and retirement brought people from all over the country.
Chan Harbour was fully aware of the Brevard Music Center , which held performances only in summer. He kept thinking. Why not have concerts the year-round?
When Chan was 9 years old his father, who played a French horn, gave him a clarinet. Three years later Chan was playing both clarinet and trombone. He earned a place in his high school orchestra and went on to play in his college orchestra and later in an orchestra in Ohio . Disappointed over not qualifying for a place in a symphony, he turned to composing music, some of his numbers being Queen of Hearts, Weeping Willow Trees and Alone with Memory, the latter being a particular favorite of piano teachers working with students in their early stages of piano training. While Chan's compositions are no longer well-known today, they hold a permanent place in the music world, some of them having been published in foreign countries.
Chan Harbour liked to point out that it took 17 years of hard work for The Philadelphia Orchestra, now one of the world's greatest, to reach its zenith, while the first performance of the Hendersonville group was a "progress appearance to show what had been done in seven months." And the performers played for the love of music, not for pay.
|
