Grace C. Howden

1947 - 1949

Daniel N. Snell

1949 - 1951

B. Franklin Dixon

1951 - 1954

Leon Minear in 2006

1) The Spirit of the Community: The Founding Conductors (1946-1953)

The Monterey Symphony began at an afternoon tea held in the Carmel Woods home of Grace Howden, a local resident who was devoted to music and who became the first president of the newly formed Monterey County Symphony Association. Mrs. Howden was born and raised in Seattle. She was a professionally trained singer with a profound interest in classical music. Business opportunities drew her from the stage and placed her back in Seattle as the manager of her family's business. After assisting that community in founding its orchestra in 1903, they moved to Oakland, California where they spent most of their professional life. In 1934, she assisted conductor Orley See in founding the Oakland Symphony Orchestra. She and her husband retired to the Monterey Peninsula, purchasing a home in Carmel Woods with a spectacular view of Point Lobos. She soon met other music lovers and was soon called upon to use her influence and know how in getting an orchestra up and running again.

Grace Howden's commitment to bringing music to Monterey County residents was profound. She was the catalyst who pulled together musicians and music lovers from Salinas and the Monterey Peninsula, and augmented their talent with individuals stationed at Fort Ord, the newly formed Naval Postgraduate School, and Defense Language Institute. On November 7, 1946, Howden agreed to the chairmanship of this effort. An announcement published on December 14, 1946 in The Monterey Herald invited anyone interested in helping to start a symphony orchestra to her organizational meeting. It was held on December 15 in the Carmel High School and her long-time friend, Orley See, music director of the Oakland Symphony Orchestra, explained how best to create a regional symphony orchestra. Mr. John B. Morris, head of Del Monte Properties, was one of the featured speakers. He urged Monterey Peninsula residents to get behind this project.

The following uncredited caption appeared below two photographs of the orchestra rehearsing in the Pacific Grove Tribune on January 31, 1947. "The most exciting news to hit the peninsula in some time was the announcement of the formation of a Regional Symphony Orchestra. This dynamic group of musicians, composed of young and old, of different races and nationalities, speak through the common language of music, and through that medium they hope to bring to peninsula residents the finest that music has to offer. Under the direction of Leon Minear, who is acting as conductor, pro tem, the orchestra which is now in its fourth week of rehearsal, has made old timers, who heretofore have spoken of the cultural glories of the peninsula in the past tense, sit up and take notice. . . patterned after the Oakland Symphony, a Regional Symphony Association is in the process of being incorporated, with Peter Ferrante acting a s chairman pro tem. Frank Young, Clifford Anderson, Raymond Washburn, Lorell McCann, and John Farr are acting as a committee until completion of the organization, at which time the basis of memberships in the association will be announced publicly. The purpose of the Association is to support this orchestra. From the current comment it looks as though peninsula residents will be well proud of the opportunity to do just that and do it handsomely."

The first concert of the Carmel Regional Symphony Orchestra (the orchestra's name wasn't firm until the second season) took place at Fort Ord on April 28, 1947 with Leon Minear, Carmel High School's assistant principal and a talented violinist, conducting. It was repeated one month later in Carmel's Sunset Theater and Salinas Union High School Auditorium. Three individuals served as conductor, each leading a portion of the program. Lorell McCann was on the music faculty of Hartnell College in Salinas, Clifford Anderson was head of music at Monterey High School, and Mr. Minear was at Carmel High School.

On May 14, 1947, the Monterey County Symphony Association was incorporated as a non profit musical organization devoted to serving the residents of Monterey County by producing concerts of the orchestra. The first directors were: Leon P. Minear, Carmel; Lorell McCann, Salinas; Dr. Howard Clark, Monterey; Eben Whittlesey, Carmel; Mary B. Whittlesey, Carmel; Grace C. Howden, Carmel; Fritz Wurzmann, Carmel; Peter J. Ferrante, Carmel; Clifford Anderson, Monterey; Daniel N. Snell, Pacific Grove; Muriel Simpson, Monterey; Hal Garrott, Carmel; Carmalita Benson, Carmel; Franklin Dixon, Carmel; and Noel Sullivan, Carmel Valley.

Originally, three conductors held co-conductor status: Leon P. Minear, assistant principal at Carmel High School, Clifford Anderson, head of Monterey High School's music department, and Lorell McCann. The Monterey County Symphony's second season was comprised of four concert programs performed in Carmel and at Salinas.

Leon P. Minear left the Monterey Peninsula and returned to Stanford University to receive a doctorate in education. During his long and successful career in education administration, he held the following positions: Superintendent of Schools for the State of Oregon and Director of the Division of Vocational and Technical Education in the U.S. Office of Education. He worked with three different United States presidents and was crucial in creating a separate, cabinet-level "Department of Education" in the Federal Government. Minear was the author of numerous vocational education-related articles including one entitled "The Singing Superintendents." He was asked by Ronald Reagan to join his cabinet as Secretary of Education, but declined. In August 2007, Dr. Minear was living in a retirement community in Wyomissing, outside of Reading, Pennsylvania.

Lorell McCann was a trained violinist and sat as concertmaster while Minear and Anderson took the podium. Mr. McCann was born in Utah on August 27, 1899. He studied at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. He worked for many years with school and college orchestras, including Ventura Junior College and Hartnell College in Salinas. He was also a composer. On November 23, 1948, Norma Wiley, a soprano residing in Salinas, sang excerpts from Carmen, The Marriage of Figaro, and a song composed and orchestrated by McCann himself entitled "Awakening." In 1950, McCann led the orchestra in his own "Tone Poem in D major." He left the orchestra in 1953, but continued teaching at Hartnell College for several years. He died in Monterey County on June 3, 1967.

Clifford Anderson was born in Fort Bragg and taught at Monterey High School from 1945 until 1961. He conducted the orchestra throughout the 1953-54 season and returned to Fort Bragg in 1963. He was a Goodwill Ambassador to Indonesia and spent time in Jakarta. In December 1965, then music director John Gosling organized an "Old Timer's Night" at which Anderson, McCann and Harold Bartlett, Robert Nagler, and Keith McKillop were honored. Anderson conducted Purcell’s Trumpet Voluntary He died in Fort Bragg in 1987.

Most of the musicians were local residents; many were teachers, many were professional musicians who selected Carmel as a place to reside; many were faculty or students at the newly created Naval Postgraduate school based at the old Del Monte Hotel in Monterey, the Defense Language Institute located at Monterey's historic Presidio; some were soldiers stationed at Fort Ord, then one of America’s largest army bases.

From its inception, the Monterey County Symphony Association was created to serve the communities of the Monterey Peninsula and the City of Salinas. As there never were a sufficient number of orchestra musicians residing locally to perform most of the larger works in the symphonic repertoire, professional players had to be recruited from outside Monterey County. String players were always in demand. The orchestral repertoire during this early period included many short pieces appropriate for an all-volunteer, community orchestra. For instance, the final concert program of this period in June 1954 had Clifford Anderson conducting Granados' Intermezzo from Goyescas, Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with local pianist Wade Parks, Morton Gould's American Salute, Eric Coates' London Again Suite, and Johann Strauss' Emperor Waltz.

Then two strong factors led to a change in artistic direction. The Monterey Herald's music critic, Hal Garrott, who was also a founding member of the Association board of directors, printed a devastating review of a performance which featured mezzo soprano Eva Gustavson. In 1947, Ms. Gustavson sang Amneris at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City under the baton of Arturo Toscanini. A recording of this spectacular performance is still available. Ms. Gustavson was living in Salinas with her newly born son. As she did not wish to travel with her infant son in the winter of 1952-53, she organized a benefit recital and offered her services to the Monterey County Symphony. Her performance must have been electric, but the contrast between her artistry and what musicianship the volunteer orchestra could muster was more than the audience could bear. Although praising several individual players, Garrott lambasted the orchestra. He had nothing good to say about Lorell McCann's artistic leadership.

Garrott, by the way, thought the community deserved a more professional sounding orchestra. As he said in his January review of Lorell McCann's accompaniment of Miss Gustavson. In addition, deep artistic disagreements arose between the two music directors and between each of them with the orchestra and the Association board. Tensions ran high.

McCann offered his resignation to the board of directors complaining that he did the best he could with what he had to work with and that many of the principal players had deserted him for the performance. The board met and unanimously accepted his resignation. Clifford Anderson completed the remainder of the season and the next, but an important decision had been made which affects the entire mission of the Monterey Symphony to this day. The Association board of directors decided that the Monterey Symphony's mission was to perform music at the highest level possible. They felt that the future of the orchestra would be built on the quality of the product and not providing local community members to have an opportunity to play their instruments.

Mr. McCann resigned in 1953 and Mr. Anderson, who led the orchestra for one year as the sole conductor, resigned in 1954.

The orchestra's first Christmas concert was produced at Sunset Theater in Carmel on Sunday, December 20, 1953. Eben Whittlesey, Symphony founder (and eventual Mayor of Carmel and first completely blind mayor of a U.S. City), wrote a description of it which appeared in the Monterey Herald on Christmas Day. "The orchestra has never been better, even though ten musicians in the brass department had to be imported from San Jose at the last moment because soldier members of our orchestra were off on maneuvers for Uncle Sam. . . But the audience was the largest the orchestra has ever faced across the footlights, and for this the newly-formed Women’s League deserves much of the credit . . . Conductor Clifford Anderson was carried away by the inherent generosity of his nature in planning the program. All in all, it was a bit long, and would not have suffered in the least had the rather tedious second movement of the Schubert (Fifth Symphony) or even the first two movements been omitted. The final attraction of the program, perhaps the most welcome to the many children in the audience (and well-behaved children they were) , was the Tchaikovsky Nutcracker Suite. . . When the orchestra performs such familiar works as this, it runs the risk of damaging comparison with performances we all hear on records or the radio. In this case our players came off with flags flying."