A Completely Different Picture

You've done it again, this time with your article, "Measures of Excellence," about Kirk Trevor and the KSO [Vol. 7, No. 46]. What did you do, just go up to the symphony office and say, "I want to write an article about you," and let them decide whom you talked to? Because your list of interviewees reads like a list old Kirkie would have hand-picked himself. (Except maybe for Norris Dryer.)

I am a singer with the Knoxville Choral Society, I date a KSO principal player, and I am friends with a large number of the orchestra musicians. In this position, I have a unique perspective. I get the music-scene scoop from a lot of sources, not the least of which (as far as I'm concerned) is my own observant self. I do know from my experience in the Knoxville musical community that your article completely ignores a lot of people with relevant things to say about Kirk Trevor. First of all, I find it amazing that for an article about the growth of the KSO, and the role Trevor plays in it, you declined to interview even one core symphony musician. (Or question why none of them appeared on the list of potential interviewees you were apparently handed.) These 22 string musicians are the ones who come almost exclusively from outside of Knoxville, who graduated from some of the finest musical conservatories in the country (like Indiana University and Juilliard) and who know an "adept and industrious conductor" from a hole in the ground. Not one of these people did you interview. Come on. These people have studied with some of the finest musicians in the world and have played under some of the world's greatest conductors. Their opinions of Kirk's conducting and musical direction ought to be the most well-informed of anyone in Knoxville. Sure, their opinions might not support some of the theses in your article, which might make it necessary to rewrite it, gosh-darn it, and I know how that sucks when it's 12:30 in the morning and a deadline's coming up, but please. Real people form real opinions based on what you write. You have a responsibility. If you're not going to report the whole story, don't report it at all.

For example, I know that a comprehensive survey of the opinions of the core musicians (when taken in anonymity and without fear of losing their jobs, which is a real possibility should they offend the conductor) would include opinions on issues such as Trevor's coming to rehearsals completely unprepared. Issues like his inability to tap any musical passion from the players in his sections. Issues like his defensiveness. In other words, things that paint a completely different picture from that of the lovable little musical rebel that you wrote about.

Which brings up another point: You said that Trevor is "widely recognized as an adept and industrious conductor." By whom? Whom did you ask? What fine music-conservatory faculty did you interview? Indiana's? Juilliard's? Eastman's? Did Kirk give you that phrase actually on the spoon, or did you have to come up with those adjectives yourself? Those are some pretty big words and some pretty big assumptions, and you don't bother to defend them or to back them up with musically worthy sources.

You also didn't interview anyone (like me) who sings in the Knoxville Choral Society, which Trevor courageously led to the middle rungs of mediocrity during his tenure as music director, which ended in 1995. The KCS, besides being an independent musical entity which produces its own quality programs, is the KSO's companion chorus for big works such as the Mozart Requiem, which a lot of people don't know about, because I guess that Trevor's boundless enthusiasm for promotion and the pursuit of excellence and all that junk didn't extend to us. Anyway, I sang under his direction, and it was a miserable experience. He could wave a stick around, but if he had a musical idea relating to us that he actually cared about, he never bothered to convey it.

For example, when we performed Puccini's Turandot with the KSO in the spring of 1995, it was a total disaster. The Choral Society is a nonprofessional group of auditioned singers which only rehearses for two hours on Monday nights. In other words, to expect us to prepare for as demanding an opera as Turandot in fewer rehearsals than I have fingers on my hands was unrealistic enough, but to spend an entire precious rehearsal learning the finer points of Italian pronunciation was downright stupid. (Trevor got Stephen Dubberly from the UT Opera to come over and spend an evening teaching us to speak and sing like the Godfather, which was an incredible waste of time considering the sheer number of notes we had to learn in the span of three months.) The rehearsal time we did have was handled poorly and without prioritizing according to the demands of the upcoming performance. When the night of dress rehearsal came, and the production fell apart in front of the professional soloists Trevor had hired, he proceeded to berate us (the KCS) in front of them as if it couldn't possibly be his fault that we were so dreadfully unprepared. It was humiliating, disappointing, and typical of him. (We now have a new and gifted leader, Dr. Eric Thorson of Carson-Newman College.)

Is this behavior the mark of someone with an "infusion of youthful energy, a herculean work ethic, and a boundless enthusiasm for educational outreach"? (Again, who told you this stuff? The symphony office?) It strikes me as the mark of someone who really doesn't have much to say musically but has entrenched himself in a cushy position and protects that with meanness when people question his musical ability. The trouble is, Knoxvillians seem to think that waving a stick around with panache equals musical talent. They think that jumping around on the podium until you're red-faced means the musicians are hanging on your every movement. And since you're not going to go to the trouble of interviewing people who think otherwise, that worthless myth is again perpetuated and Knoxville remains musically stagnant. Thanks, Metro Pulse.

Karen Beuerlein
Knoxville

Four-Way Tie for Ninth

Perhaps Pulse readers would be interested in a factoid I came across recently while browsing The Universal Almanac 1997, which I am surprised has not been mentioned in media coverage of the City Council's "emergency" approval of a $25,000 raise for the mayor of Knoxville in 2000: in 1997 the mayor's now-reapproved salary of $110,000 would put him in a four-way tie for ninth-highest-paid mayor in the United States, along with the mayors of Boston, Philadelphia, and Tampa; these are also virtually tied with the seventh- and eighth-highest, the mayors of Jacksonville and Newark, at $110,922 and $110,455, respectively. Knoxville would not only have a better-paid mayor than Memphis (at $108,000, as noted in the News-Sentinel) but also Seattle ($105,850), Milwaukee ($102,543), and Atlanta, Honolulu, and St. Petersburg ($100,000) among the nation's 20 highest-paid mayors. Admittedly, it may be somewhat misleading to compare the mayor's salary for the year 2000 with 1997 salaries of top-paid mayors, but I feel fairly comfortable with the assumption that most of these other mayors will be receiving pay raises of substantially less than 30 percent over the next few years, and a salary of $110,000 should put the mayor of Knoxville pretty high on the list even in 2000.

Since his current annual salary of $85,000 is only slightly more than that reported for his new assistant Gene Patterson ($80,000), perhaps one may understand why Mayor Ashe feels his current salary would "only be attractive to the wealthy, the inept or the unemployed." But even though, as Joe Sullivan argues in his commentary ("City Council's Penchant for Emergencies," Dec. 4), the council's tendency to treat anything it wants to go unnoticed as an "emergency" is an equally important issue, making Knoxville's mayor one of the highest-paid in the country still seems extravagant, and is certainly worth noting. Granted, as many Metro Pulse articles suggest, Knoxville could use at least 30 percent more intelligent leadership from its mayor and City Council, but does anyone honestly believe that will be brought about by giving the mayor a 30 percent raise? I'm just glad I live in the county.

George Roupe
Knoxville