William R. Rogers' 50th Reflection

William R. Rogers, Ph.D.

William Rogers is president emeritus of Guilford College, having served as president from 1980 to 1996. He has remained involved with EMF, and his wife, Beverley, has served on the EMF board and several committees. An accomplished musician, artist, sculptor, and Quaker leader, Dr. Rogers resides in Greensboro, NC, and summers in Islesboro, ME.

The Eastern Music Festival and Guilford College

A Retrospective and Affirmation

This brief essay is intended as one in a series of reflections on the interesting history of the Eastern Music Festival as this organization celebrates its 50^th anniversary. This history is intimately tied to the people and the purposes of Guilford College, which has housed and encouraged the work of EMF through all these years.

The story really starts with the musical excellence and organizational vision of Sheldon Morgenstern (Shelly), who developed an early and passionate love of music, especially classical and to some extent jazz. He heard fine classical music in his early childhood in Cleveland, and he went on to study and play at Florida State and Northwestern universities. As a young musician he played the French horn in the Atlanta Symphony. But he quickly realized his particular fascination with the overall composition, phrasing, and interpretation of musical performances and their technical and emotional power, and he went on to study conducting at the New England Conservatory.

His specific inspiration was to learn how young musicians develop and to open their vision and aspiration for genuine excellence. He became familiar with the creative educational model at Interlochen in Michigan and worked for a time with the fine summer program at Brevard in the North Carolina mountains. But he yearned to develop a superior program that would attract some of the most talented musicians in the country, if not the world, as instructors – and some of the most promising young students – to refine and produce some truly exceptional music together in a supportive, not a competitive, artistic community.

In the summer of 1961, encouraged by friends in the Greensboro area, Shelly came to talk with Dr. Clyde Milner, president of Guilford College, about the possibility of using the Guilford campus as a setting for his dream of an Eastern Music Festival. The beauty, reputation, supportive climate, academic excellence and community commitments of this college and its Quaker roots were very attractive. Guilford, though it had a few other small programs in the summer, was glad to examine the possibility of a first rate educational and musical program that could benefit the entire community with exceptional concerts and open master classes while utilizing dormitory and dining facilities that were under-utilized in the summer.

Plus, 1961 was the year that Clyde Milner had persuaded Charles Dana to fund and begin construction on a striking new auditorium that would comfortably seat slightly over 1000 people. Little did Shelly and Clyde realize as they walked around the construction site in rain and mud one day that summer that this chapel/concert hall would have some of the very best acoustic properties of any building in the region – still an uncertain architectural challenge. The next summer as the professional orchestra as well as the student orchestras came into being, even the most refined pianissimo notes could be heard perfectly all the way to the back row of the balcony!

The first few years of EMF – indeed all the years – took enormous work. Shelly and his friends literally travelled the country following leads and seeking promising students. It took broad-ranging professional contacts to locate and persuade outstanding musicians to form the fledgling faculty and orchestra. It took patient and supportive staff to eat and talk with students, building extraordinary professional and personal relationships. It took supportive community friends and marketing to assure very appreciative audiences at chamber and orchestra concerts. And it took creative fund-raising.

But it worked. In 1962, 72 students came and most of them went on to achieve very noteworthy careers. Think for instance of Eliot Chapo from that year who at age 26 became the youngest concertmaster in the history of the New York Philharmonic.

When Dr. Grimsley Hobbs succeeded Clyde Milner as president of Guilford in 1965, the support of EMF continued and broadened. This was in spite of the somewhat humorous tension between Grimsley’s support of a Scottish bagpipe summer school and the needs of the classical musicians. The bagpipe school did not last.

In 1980 I came from Harvard to Guilford, attracted by both the Quaker roots and the educational quality, including the outreach in art and music. Imagine our delight within a few weeks of our arrival in July when friends from Cambridge called to see how we were adjusting, and we could take the phone to our patio outside the President’s House and let them hear Leonard Rose preparing beautifully for a concert!

I had a long personal history of enjoyment in choral and instrumental music, having sung in Bach festivals, madrigal groups, opera choruses, and especially in the Tanglewood Festival and Boston Symphony choruses. I admired every phase of EMF. It pleased me very much when Shelly and I explored the possibility of inaugurating and endowing a Guilford String Quartet to support both EMF and the college’s educational and community service mission. In 1984, EMF developed an International Scholarship Program and continued a pattern like that of Guilford in seeing incredible talent and friendships thrive from global and cross cultural relationships. The outstanding character of musicianship and the personal student and faculty relationships continue to be supported in an excellent way by Gerard Schwarz.

In short, the relationship between EMF and Guilford College has been a great blessing to both. I am grateful for the hard work and the sacrifices that were made by many staff members and donors to help this colleagueship thrive and keep both parties strong. Among the many who helped, I want to single out for thanks Jim Newlin who so quietly and diligently worked from the inside with both Shelly and me to see that knotty administrative and financial issues were carefully addressed over many years.

Here’s to the sheer exhilarating joy that comes from the outstanding music of the EMF concerts! And here’s to the passionate commitment and lasting professional friendships that have inspired many generations of talented young people to become leading musicians around the world.