Thulean Returns To Opera House Former Spokane Symphony Director Will Conduct Youth Orchestra Tonight

Donald Thulean led the Spokane Symphony for 22 seasons, the longest tenure of any of the orchestra’s six music directors. During the first four of those years, he held a second job, as conductor of the Spokane Junior Symphony.

Now Thulean has returned to conduct current and former members of the Spokane Youth Orchestra — the name the Junior Symphony adopted in the late ‘80s — in the group’s 50th anniversary concert at the Opera House this evening.

“Without exception, I believe the youth orchestras in this country are the training grounds for the professional orchestras of tomorrow,” says the 71-year-old Thulean.

“They represent the cross-section of America in ways you don’t see in other places — a diversity you don’t see quite yet in America’s professional orchestras.”

For example, Thulean remembers looking at the percussion section of the San Francisco Youth Orchestra: “There was an Asian kid, an African-American kid, a Caucasian kid with his baseball cap on backward and a strange haircut, and another Caucasian kid who looked straight out of the halls of the Philips Andover Academy. I thought, `There’s the American symphony orchestra of the future.”’

The almost 200 youth orchestras throughout the country today make an effort to work with inner-city youngsters as well as those from affluent suburbs, Thulean says.

“Fifty years ago, youth orchestras served the students of families who were already symphony subscribers, but they’ve grown into organizations of real social conscience and artistic responsibility.”

When Thulean came to Spokane in 1962, the Spokane Junior Symphony was already 12 years old. It was begun by Harold Paul Whelan, who also founded and led the Spokane Philharmonic, the city’s “adult” orchestra which became the Spokane Symphony.

“Conducting the Junior Symphony was very much a part of the package enabling me to eke out a meager living in my first years here,” Thulean recalls. He continued to lead the group until he was named assistant conductor of the Seattle Symphony in 1966, and his schedule became too busy.

In Spokane, Thulean developed Whelan’s youth orchestra program and helped oversee the creation of a summer music camp for Junior Symphony players.

“The idea behind the camp,” Thulean says, “was to enable us to do things with the students we couldn’t do just meeting once a week during the school year - give them some music theory lessons, work with them in private lesson and coaching sessions, and read through orchestral literature.”

After leaving Spokane for Washington, D.C. to become director of artistic affairs of the American Symphony Orchestra League in 1983, Thulean increased his interest in the youth orchestra movement.

“While I was at the league, one of the things I achieved that satisfied me most was the creation of the National Youth Orchestra Festival,” he says. “As artistic adviser to the festival, I get to go around the country and audition the orchestras that are selected for the festival. It’s the joy of my life.”

Although Thulean retired from the league last summer, he will remain involved with the youth festival through 2002.

He and his wife, Meryl, now live in an apartment overlooking downtown Seattle. He was recently named to the board of the Seattle Symphony.

“I still read the daily briefing notices from the league,” Thulean says. “And I occasionally get calls from groups and institutions that need help with some project or other. I don’t really want to get involved with consulting; I’ve come to think the longer you are out of the business, the less you know about changes in the business.”

After Thulean left Spokane, he continued to fulfill conducting assignments in New Zealand and Australia, and returned to Spokane twice to conduct the Spokane Symphony. His most recent appearance here was during the symphony’s own 50th anniversary celebration in 1995.

Does he miss conducting?

“When I left Spokane, the thing I didn’t know was whether I would be miserable because I was no longer conducting,” Thulean says.

“It turned out that the three things I wanted to do at the league - work with conductor training and opportunities for American conductors, work to advance contemporary music, and help in the youth orchestra movement - became much more important to me.

“In order to do those things,” he says, “I had to give up conducting. And it feels just fine.”

This sidebar appeared with the story:

Spokane Youth Orchestra

Donald Thulean (left) will lead the Spokane Youth Orchestra in Brahms’ “Academic Festival Overture” and Bedrich Smetana’s tone poem “The Moldau” as part of the group’s 50th anniversary concert tonight at 6 p.m. at the Opera House. Tickets are $8 for adults and $5 for students.