The Akron Roundtable has proudly promoted community dialog and networking for the past 49 years.

Our mission is to bring the world to Akron, and we do this by presenting speakers from diverse backgrounds who inform and educate our community, compelling us to think differently and to consider other perspectives.

I would now like to welcome Barbara Feld, director of development for Apollo's Fire and Summit County, Tuesday Musical Director Emeritus, and Emeritus Director of Akron Roundtable to the podium to introduce Jeanette Sorrell, founder and conductor of Apollo's Fire in conversation with Doctor Jamie Wilding, professor of instruction in composition and theory and academic coordinator at the University of Akron School of Music.

Jeanette will be talking with us on the topic.

Rising from the ashes a refugee's daughter becomes a Grammy winning artist.

Barbara.

Thank you Barry.

And hello, fellow intrepid roundtable attendees.

Thank you for joining us today.

I know some of you traveled from the North.

Some of you traveled from the South, but we're all here today gathered to listen to Jeanette and Jamie as Jeanette tells her story.

Her 33 year journey with Apollo's fire, and a hidden story that none of us knew about, not even Jeanette, until a few years ago.

I have to say that I've known Jeanette for many years, and I still remain.

And all of her artistry, her vision, and what she brings to every performance Apollo's fire is 33 years old, but we have the distinction of celebrating the 30th anniversary of Apollo's Fire, performing in Akron and Summit County, and we're so proud of that.

Thank you.

Jeanette.

I promised I would not do an infomercial because when I was on the Akron Roundtable board, we always grimaced when somebody actually did an infomercial and began talking about their product.

This is not an infomercial, but I just have to share with you when I attend an Apollo's Fire performance, and I see the vision of Jeannette's programing and how she engages with the musicians and the synergy that is on stage.

There is such joy in my heart, and I leave that concert hall filled with joy and with a resounding belief in the power of arts and culture in our country.

So thank you, Jeanette, and thank you, Jamie, for moderating what is going to be a really thrilling, thrilling, discussion.

Thank you very much.

Jeanette Terrell, welcome to Akron.

Right.

Thank you.

Jacob.

We know all about your artistry.

Today we get to learn more about you as a person.

Let's start with your upbringing in San Francisco and what brought you to Cleveland and northeast Ohio?

Sure.

Well, yes, I, I was born in San Francisco, and my earliest memories are, listening to afternoon of a fan on, what was called a record.

Right.

An LP record in those days.

And because my parents loved music, my father was always singing opera.

Mostly in the shower.

And in particular, we always sang a lot of, French folk songs, things like the marches, celebrating Bastille Day.

My father was incredibly, obsessed with being a Francophile.

So those are the childhood memories.

And then you ended up here in Cleveland?

Yes.

And what brought you here?

And what kept you here in northeast Ohio?

Well, I did a degree in harpsichord at Oberlin.

And after that, I had the very great honor of, getting to study for a year in Amsterdam with the great patriarch of the early music revival, Gustaf Linhart, who was a great harpsichordist and just, scholar and, really brought the whole, brought early music back into the world after it had been sort of lost for a couple hundred years.

So I studied with him for a year and, by then I was 26, and, running out of money.

And, so I went back to Oberlin, and I was just housesitting for a former teacher, former professor.

And I was actually living off of the prize money of a harpsichord competition that I had won.

But, you know, the thing about prize money from a competition is that it's eventually going to run out right?

And I was vaguely aware of that at the age of 26, but there were no jobs for harpsichord, you know?

And, but I had just been in that house housesitting gig for two weeks when I got a call out of the blue from the Cleveland Orchestra.

And it was their artistic administrator, a lovely British fellow named Roger Wright.

And he was in charge of their search for a guest conductor.

And I had not applied for their guest conductor job or.

Excuse me, assistant conductor.

That's what I meant to say.

I had not applied for that.

But, it turned out that they were working with a list of the 15 young, up and coming conductors in the country.

And unbeknownst to me, I was on this list because I had been spotted by a talent scout and, and so he said to me, well, you know, you didn't apply, but wouldn't you like to come and talk to us?

Because the other 14 people on the list applied and auditioned and were rejected by Mr. Van Dike, nanny.

So I think.

The last one.

Yeah, this poor fellow Roger was a little bit desperate.

And you know that a major symphony orchestra, of course, has a very tight schedule, and they had already by far used up all of the time that was allotted for these auditions for the assistant conductor.

They had really used more time than was possible already.

You would never normally audition for 14 people.

It's usually like three.

So they were in a crisis too.

So a couple days later, I went, to Cleveland from Oberlin.

And, so this British fellow, Roger.

Right.

And, maestro from Berkeley and I sat down at a little table, in the in the backyard of his house.

Nanny's house by the side of the pool.

This was summertime, and he chatted with me very nicely for about 20 minutes about politics in Germany and a little bit of German history.

And his uncle was Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who tried to assassinate Hitler.

And I did fairly well in this conversation, because my father had taught me a lot about European history.

Your father knew a lot about European history.

He.

We may come back to that.

Okay?

Okay.

Yeah.

So.

But he didn't ask me anything about music.

And after about 20 minutes, he said, well, my dear, I'm very sorry, but I don't think there's any point in trying to find time for you to audition with the orchestra.

The orchestra was very busy.

Yeah.

And unfortunately, the audience in Cleveland, and I imagine he also was thinking of Akron as well.

Would never accept a woman as a conductor.

This was in 1991.

It was not in 1491.

And, you know, I probably could have sued him.

It was actually stating in front of a witness that the reason I was not going to be able to have an audition was because I was a woman, but I'm not interested in suing people.

So I just blurted out the truth.

I said, well, sir, that's fine.

Actually, I didn't apply for this job.

You all contacted me and I'm honored that you contacted me.

But frankly, my first choice would be to work with a period instrument Baroque orchestra.

That's really my dream.

Which is a crazy thing to say to one of the great music directors of one of the top five symphony orchestras.

But maybe it's a lesson in the value of just being true to yourself.

And so, Roger.

Right, took me aside afterwards and he said, I'm so sorry.

I had no idea that Dohnanyi felt this way.

I think it's ridiculous, but I love early music, and I've always wanted to see a baroque orchestra happen in Northeast Ohio.

And if you like, I will help you, because I think you are the person to do it.

Which was amazing because I had never met him before that day.

Well that's fantastic.

You love baroque music.

Tell us about what drew you to Baroque music and what is it in the passion of baroque music that makes audiences enthralled?

Yeah.

So Baroque composers in the early 17th century were trying to recreate the mysterious emotional power that they knew the ancient Greeks had had in their music.

Because, of course, in the early 17th century, everyone in in Italy was basically trying to rediscover, all of the great arts and literature from classical Greece and Rome and, and so what they tried to do composers in the Baroque times, was to use rhetoric and drama to move the emotions of the listener.

And for example, they were trying to imitate great oratory.

The Roman orator Cicero had great powers to move the emotions of a crowd right.

I think a modern day example is a great Baptist preacher, perhaps like Martin Luther King Jr, who, addressing a crowd, could build up excitement and maybe even whip up the crowd into a great frenzy if that's the goal.

And then leave you to quiet contemplation.

That's rhetoric and action, and that's what baroque music was meant to do.

And I felt that there wasn't really a baroque group that was focused on this.

So that's what I wanted to do and to create with Apollo's Fire.

And you created that and your determination to create it.

Perhaps we can come back to your story now with your father, who himself was somebody who had to be very determined to survive against the odds, as you were to be determined to, to show those people, like Doctor Ani, that you could make it as a conductor.

Let's start the story now.

It's, Maybe.

Does it begin?

Perhaps when you were a little girl.

And what was your impression of your father?

And how did that gradually change?

Sure.

We were a very close knit little family.

It was just my parents and my sister and me.

Just the four of us.

And my sister and I were told that there were no other living relatives on my father's side.

We were told he was an only child, no siblings.

And we were a very churchgoing family.

And, so we every Sunday, I loved going to church because I was in so many different choirs and hand bells and everything.

I was really into it.

And, my father was the leader of the what they called the Adult Forum discussion class.

So the whole family was very engaged in church and after church we'd always go out for brunch and but then I was obsessed with wanting piano lessons and, kept whining, begging for a piano, begging for piano lessons.

There was no piano.

And frankly, there was no money.

When I was a child.

And I had never thought to ask myself why there was no money.

But, finally when I was, I think maybe ten years old, they offered free piano lessons in the public schools after school.

And the only requirement was that you had to have a piano.

And so, I lied and said that I had a piano, and I made a little paper, paper keyboard practice on that.

And then once a week, I went over to my friend Tracy's house because Tracy had a piano.

And, so we would go in the piano room and close the door, and I would practice.

And Tracy's parents thought that she was practicing.

And everybody was happy.

So after a year, my parents, got me a used upright, and I was so thrilled.

And then the piano recitals began, and my sister also took lessons, and my parents would always take us out for ice cream after piano recitals.

So we were a very close knit family, and as far as we knew, there were only four of us.

But when I was maybe 12 or so, my father, started teaching me, European history.

He would give me assignments in the encyclopedia that I had to read about World War one, and then World War two.

So 12 years old.

I'm sitting there, you know, with my pencil making notes about Archduke Archduke Franz Ferdinand, starting World War One and this kind of thing.

And it was I didn't know why I was really, learning this, but my father wanted me to have an understanding of European history.

And our house had more books than the public library.

And it seemed that half of the books were about World War two and Nazis.

And so it was like a wallpaper of the house.

These books, and daddy never talked about it, really, but the books were ever present.

And what did you think of that?

Did it start to dawn on you that there must be some story here?

Yeah.

So when I was maybe 14 or 15, I began to wonder a little bit because my mom had told my sister and me that, daddy's parents were killed in a plane crash when he was 14 and that we should never ask him about it.

And then when I was, I think 16, we all, my, my choir went on tour to Europe and my parents came along.

We all went to Europe.

We had to get passports.

And I noticed on the plane very exciting plane trip to Europe, sitting next to my dad and his passport said place of birth, Romania.

And you had always thought it was Switzerland.

He gave us the impression he was from Switzerland.

And so I said, well, why does your passport say you were born in Romania?

And he said, well, he was born prematurely and his parents were traveling in Romania, and they weren't expecting him to arrive yet.

And as I got a little older, I thought that story was very strange.

And then the story of the parents being killed in a plane crash.

I figured out that that would have been in 1944 during World War two.

So why would these Swiss parents be flying around over Europe during the war?

So I kept asking my dad questions, and particularly I wanted him to find his immigration papers because I wanted to get a Swiss passport.

And he always said, I don't know where the papers are, forget about it.

It's not going to work and you have the best passport that money can buy.

You have an American passport.

So the Swiss passport, of course, was not ever going to materialize.

No, it never did.

No, no.

And so what happened next?

You had some doubts about Daddy's Roman Catholic background and Swiss heritage, you know.

Where did it go from?

Well, you know, eventually my mom mentioned one time that she was surprised when she had met my dad in their first couple of dates in San Francisco.

My mom was only 22.

And so, you know, here's a young man was clearly a European accent.

He's learning English.

And she naturally asked him, you know, tell me about your family in Europe.

What was your life like in Europe?

Where where did you live, exactly?

And whenever she asked him something like that, she said that he would just shut down and give like a one word answer.

But the rest of the time, as long as she didn't go to that topic, he was talking, talking and talking, talking about literature and drama and theater and history.

He was drama critic on the side.

And when I was, a toddler in San Francisco, my father was working full time at a kind of clerical job to support my mom and me and going to night school, to get his college degree in German and French literature, which he did in a year.

And a half because he challenged a bunch of the courses and just took the final exam without taking the class.

And so then later he went and got his PhD on a fellowship.

And, the fact that you know, that we were this little family with all the books about World War two, it just seemed normal to me.

I thought every family was like that.

Oh, right.

Yes.

Okay.

It didn't strike you so.

But decades later, because I wanted the Swiss passport.

Finally, in 2018, I joined Ancestry.com because I heard that you could look up documents there.

And so I typed in my father's name and date of birth and immediately his, naturalization certificate citizenship came right up.

It was his name was his street address in San Francisco, 1962, where I knew.

Yes, that's where my parents met.

And then at the bottom of the page it said, name changed from Tibor Polgar.

And I was completely shocked, and I knew enough about languages to realize that Tibor Polgar was a Hungarian name and likely to be Jewish.

And so I showed it to my mom.

I said, mama, did you know that daddy changed his name?

She was completely shocked.

And you can imagine a close marriage at that point, over 50 years, suddenly finding out that your spouse had hidden his identity from you.

And that's really, really shocking.

So then we started peppering my dad with questions, but he claimed he didn't remember anything, which we didn't believe either, because my father has always had a very powerful memory.

But finally, then I did the DNA test, which came back 50% Ashkenazi Jewish, Eastern European.

So then my mom and my sister did the tests.

My sisters came out the same as mine.

My mom's test came out 0% Jewish.

You say you knew with it, then we knew.

Yeah, yeah.

So then we knew, so in in 2018, just a month before Apollo's Fire and I were making our Carnegie Hall debut, and I was supposed to be playing a big solo on the harpsichord, so of course I should be practicing a lot.

But about a month before that, we received a message through Ancestry.com, from a young man in New York City who had just taken his DNA test, and it told him that we were cousins of some kind.

This was connected because of that science.

If notice that when two people have the same.

Yes.

And if there's a DNA match.

Yes.

This was a young man in his early 30s.

His name was, Andrew Pollack, which turns out to be the Romanian version of Paul Gardner, which is the Hungarian version.

And in fact, my father was from the Transylvania region of Romania, which was bilingual Romanian and, Hungarian.

So this young man didn't know why or how we were related.

Really?

He didn't know much more than I did, but he put me in touch with his aunt Elena and Elena.

Lives in San Francisco.

Your cousin.

She turned out to be my first cousin.

Yes.

I had no idea that I had such cousins on my father's side.

So the next day, Elena and I talked for two hours on the phone, which was amazing.

And I learned that my father, in fact, had two brothers and a sister, which we never knew before.

She was able to tell me the names of my grandparents.

And so I went into Ancestry.com and looked up my grandparents and learned first that my mother was killed at Auschwitz.

My grandmother was killed at Auschwitz, and that my father grandfather was killed at Buchenwald.

And then I spent about a week just crying, and I couldn't do anything else.

And I couldn't practice.

And you had to play Brandenburg five in some weeks time?

In a couple of weeks.

It's when she said it's, somewhat of an exposed harpsichord part.

It's like the concerto for harpsichord from the Baroque period.

Yeah.

But the fact, you know, that I had never met my grandparents was devastating.

And also, I now understood that there was an uncle and an aunt who I had never met either.

And in fact, they had lived in San Francisco.

But my father had hidden all of that.

He didn't want us to know that he had relatives, because he didn't want us to know that he was Jewish.

So how did your mother feel?

Well, telling my mother was the most terrifying, one of the most terrifying things I had ever done.

Because I felt such a sense of responsibility.

They had such a close marriage.

My father had always referred to my mom as his guardian angel.

And in fact, the year when they met in San Francisco, 1962, or 1963, was he everything before that?

He called the bjt era, which meant before Gene, the BJT era was something that's not worth talking about.

Sweet.

Yeah.

Yes.

Because really, life just didn't matter until my mom came on the same.

But I told her, and I'm so proud of her because she.

She took it so well.

But she decided that we should tell my dad, particularly because, the young man in New York City whose name was Andrew and his brother Jonathan.

They wanted to meet my father very much.

And in fact, my parents already had tickets to New York City because of the Carnegie Hall concert.

So in a week's time, we were all going to be going to New York for this concert.

And so my mom and I got up her courage one night and told my father that we knew his story, which was really one of the scariest things I've ever had to do.

And at first he denied it.

He said it wasn't true.

And then he was quiet for a while, and then he said, okay, I was not born in Switzerland.

I was born in Romania.

I left Romania when I was 13.

I arrived in Switzerland when I was 14, and that's when I learned French, because being French was such a big part of his whole identity.

And I said, daddy, that you're okay.

You left Romania when you're 13, arrived Switzerland 14 that year.

In between.

Where were you then?

And he said that year was a blank.

And so I didn't push that.

But later my partner Jeff and I went to visit the Holocaust Museum in New York, in Washington, and they gave me a huge dossier on my father because the Germans kept incredible records.

And there's his ID card as a 13 year old child prisoner and book.

And that, but yeah.

And he originally was sent with his parents to Auschwitz and then book and vote.

And so from the dossier, we know what happened during that year that he called a blank.

What else did you find out when you went to the Holocaust Museum?

Well, so, as many of you may know, Buchenwald was liberated by the American army in April of 1945.

And by that time, my father, who was 14, had tuberculosis, as did many of the, the prisoners.

And so, there was a Jewish chaplain in the army who made it his personal mission to persuade the Swiss government to take the orphan boys who had TB, because in those days, the, the therapy or the healing for TB was to send the patient way up high in the Alps, in Switzerland, in a sanatorium.

That was the only way they had to try to cure TB.

And so my father was sent with 250 other orphan boys to Davos.

And can you imagine going from the horrors of Buchenwald to Davos, Switzerland?

I must have been an incredible shock.

A beautiful mountain, yes.

Town was.

Yes.

Took it well, I mean, today we think of it as the picture of wealth, I think.

Yes.

Luxury probably.

But there, there was a whole community of sanatoriums there.

And, so my father was there.

The Swiss agreed to take these boys for only five years, but he was there for five years, and they saved his life.

But as you as you said, Jamie, he had incredible determination and overcame so many obstacles.

Never had, I think, any kind of a counselor or a therapist in Switzerland.

They did not provide that.

But he was determined to leave that behind.

I don't think he really ever expected to forget it.

But he wanted to protect us from knowing it.

He wanted us to just have a life full of laughter and singing and arts.

And that's what he gave us.

During those five years in Davos.

What happened with his schooling?

Well, according to this dossier that I was giving, he was he was not in school because he was sick.

He was lying on a balcony, in the sanatorium.

But there must have been books there.

And he must have read a lot because, he's he was incredibly knowledgeable about literature.

German, French, Italian, Russian, Soviet history.

And eventually he became a professor of French and German.

How many languages did he speak?

Five.

Kind of six.

Yeah.

And he ran a foreign film festival and was a drama critic on the side.

And, but yeah, I he did he had basically finally one year of school in his final year in Switzerland when he was 18.

That's when he was well enough to go to school.

Apparently.

So what happened when you all arrived in New York and played your recital and make your relatives, you know.

I'm sure you know, Jamie, if you have to work out for a big solo performance and you haven't been able to practice and you feel unprepared, then there can be a mentality that sets in that you just don't care because it's hopeless, right?

And sometimes if you just don't care, that can be a good thing because you're not nervous.

And I was super relaxed and it turned out to be the best performance of Brandenburg five that I had ever played.

We can hear a little bit of your Brandenburg five on the website.

I think of, Apollo's Fire.

It's not that exact performance, but.

Or on YouTube, but definitely yes.

There's a video of a performance from the Tanglewood Festival.

Yeah.

And how about the relatives?

Did you meet them before the concert or, The plan was to meet them the next day.

The concert was sold out so I could not even get them tickets.

By the time that I knew they existed.

But we met them the next.

Well, the plan was to meet them the next day for lunch, at the Red Eye Grill, which is across the street from Carnegie Hall.

And my father had reluctantly, very reluctantly agreed.

However, at 1130, we're in the hotel room getting ready.

We're going to walk over there.

And he said, I'm not going.

I didn't want to go.

So then we had a 20 minute family crisis, and eventually my mom started crying and she begged him to go for her sake because she had always wanted to meet his family, and she had missed the chance to meet his brother and sister.

She wanted to at least meet these younger relatives, and my father could never say no to my mom.

And so he came to the lunch and, so we met these lovely young relatives and, and eventually, my partner Jeff and I had to leave and go to Boston to play another concert.

But, my parents stayed there, and Jeff and I received eventually a photo of my father holding a little baby who was the youngest member of the family.

And so, in fact, they had, spent some time together and eventually brought the baby out.

Oh, sweet.

Yeah, it's.

So how do you think it affected your parents relationship now that this information was out?

And how did it affect your father in his personality?

My father had always been so distrustful of strangers.

And so, just sort of tight, like there was something held in, but we never knew what it was.

He was always very warm with our little family, but he wouldn't let anyone else in except for Jeff.

He did let Jeff in, which was fascinating because, Jeff is Jewish, and the two of them had already formed this wonderful bond long before we knew that I'm half Jewish.

But no one else could get in.

And, but after, you know, my dad's secret came out, he did relax.

And, just become more warm and sunny, and he still didn't want to talk to anybody else, really.

But he became much more open with us and began remembering Romanian songs from his childhood and singing them, you know, speaking some Romanian and eventually some Hungarian, which was really surprising.

And I think he was glad that the story came out in the end.

And what about you?

And you were saying to me that you have never really told anyone this story, although it is out there, there's a written version, but perhaps it is today, the first time you are speaking it to.

Us in this kind of a setting.

Yeah, I've I've told the story to a journalist and spoken about it maybe to some smaller groups, but, yeah, this is the first time speaking to, something as, large and important as the icon round table.

And and how do you feel that, you know, this and that?

Everybody else knows it now, or is it too much to ask?

Well, I decided to talk about it now because we're in such a moment of debate about immigration and how to treat migrants and refugees.

And if the United States had not welcomed my father as a penniless refugee at the age of 27, then I would not be here.

And presumably Apollo's fire would not be here.

Likewise, if at some point they decided to, you know, deport the recent arrivals or something like that, then we would probably not be here.

I think my father and his determination and overcoming so many obstacles was in some ways a rather typical immigrant.

And, Jamie, you also are an immigrant.

And you have also achieved a very a winning a faculty position as a musician is very extraordinary.

It's incredibly competitive.

I know that, but immigrants are typically the highest achievers, the most determined, the bravest because of everything that they have have had to overcome, to even managed to escape from wherever they came from and to come here.

So I think this is a time that can be useful for us to just think about my dad's story.

Thank you for that.

No questions.

Perhaps there are a ton.

Should we segway over now?

Yes.

Q and A. I hope we haven't answered all your questions already.

Oh, actually, we have some more coming in right now, so, please keep on asking if you have more.

Jamie.

Jeanette, thank you so much for being with us today and sharing the story.

Our first question is Apollo's fire has made many achievements thus far.

Billiard placements, international and national tours.

What are future goals for your orchestra above and beyond those outstanding accomplishments?

Sure.

Well, the first one might be on Sunday, February 2nd.

If you all could perhaps root for us.

We are up for a second Grammy Award.

And thank you.

This time in the category of, best choral performance for our album is handles Israel and Egypt, which, curiously, is an Old Testament Jewish story.

But, whether or not, you know, we win the Grammy, at least we have been nominated for it.

And we won a previous 1 in 2019.

So, but yeah, I mean, we have a lot of goals in, outreach and education.

Bringing music, bringing classical music to new audiences is a really big focus.

And Apollo's Fire, which is why we have quite a lot of YouTube videos, which you could be free to check out if you like.

I think we have over 18 million views on YouTube now.

And the videos have comments from people in foreign languages all around the world, which is really fun.

But, we would love to bring our music, to more diverse audiences regardless of, ability to pay for tickets.

So that involves seeking a lot of funding.

Of course, I would love to do a free concert in a park in Akron, and in Cleveland and things like that.

So.

The next question is, have you continued doing genealogical research, and if so, what more have you learned?

Well, I learned that my father was from a very large family, actually.

He had three siblings, but then, he had many aunts and uncles and, a bunch of them, after the war went to Australia.

There are quite a few Jewish refugees who went to Australia after the war.

And so I have these cousins in Australia.

I've never been there.

But I was able to make contact with them, through Ancestry.com.

And one of them is a wonderful writer and scientist.

And we, developed a beautiful friendship through correspondence and zoom calls.

She has passed away now from cancer, but, I'm so glad that I got to know her in the last few years.

So how has the new perspective on your family history affected your your current musical work?

Well, the first, program of Jewish music that I did was called Sephardic Journey.

And at that time, I did not have the faintest clue that I had any connection to Jewish culture.

I really did it as a kind of labor of love for, Jeff and a friend of mine, soprano.

Who like to sing Sephardic music.

And, so that was a wonderful learning experience because I was completely unfamiliar with that music until I worked on that album.

However, by the time we did the second, Jewish album, which is called Old Jerusalem Crossroads of Three Faiths, by that I knew some of the story at least, and, working on that music, knowing that I do have a connection to it, made a huge difference.

And there are certain harmonies, and the kind of scales that they use and released her music, which first time around felt so foreign to me.

And, but I, I grew to love it now.

One part of the story, one of the questions is, were your father's siblings also imprisoned?

Yes.

So his sister was sent to a different concentration camp, which was also horrible.

My understanding is that the two brothers, who were old, they were the oldest.

Instead of being sent to concentration camps, they were conscripted into the Hungarian army.

And so they had to, work in the army.

My, my oldest uncle apparently was a carpenter, and he was assigned to build coffins for the, fallen Nazi soldiers.

So how challenging is a career in non-mainstream music discipline?

Well, you know, you don't go into early music for the money, or for fame, you know?

I mean, you go into it because you love the music.

And I think that that probably radiates from my fellow musicians and Apollo's Fire.

We love the music, and that's why we're there.

But, in the last, ten years or so, somehow I have fallen into this, business of being invited to guest conduct with mainstream symphony orchestras.

Next week I'll be with the Detroit Symphony.

A couple of weeks later, I'm with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.

I've conducted the New York Philharmonic a couple of times now, and I'll be back with them again next year.

And so it's in the last ten years, it's been interesting to learn how to, bring my love of early music to mainstream classical musicians who are trained in a very different style.

And discover with them together how to make this music work on normal classical music instruments, modern instruments, which are somewhat different than the Baroque period instruments that we play in Apollo's Fire.

But it's fun, a fun challenge.

Can I just ask a follow up?

Because that in freaks me, is the repertoire that you're doing with these orchestras or Baroque or or is it more recent or or would you be open to conducting classical, romantic, modern?

I go kind of up through Beethoven and Schubert.

So I do Baroque with these orchestras and early classical, a lot of Mozart.

And I've occasionally been asked to do something later, but I have declined because there are so many conductors who could do that better than me.

It's just silly to try.

We had a question.

If you could share also a little more of your mother's background with the audience.

Yeah.

So my mom, grew up in a small town in Michigan.

And German heritage, but her quite far back.

She was American, very American.

And, she, I think was, you know, not so many women of her generation went to university, but she did.

She went to the University of Michigan, got a nursing degree, and at the age of 22, 22, she got in her car and drove out to San Francisco because she had gotten a job at the hospital in San Francisco to begin her career as a nurse.

And apparently, I think she met my dad within 2 or 3 weeks of arriving in San Francisco.

And so it was meant to be.

So does Apollo's Fire need volunteers?

And if so, how do we get involved?

Hahaha.

We always love to have volunteers.

We always need ushers at the concerts.

Which is a nice way to hear the concert for free.

We probably could sometimes use, people to help with receptions, but I think the best way actually is Miss Barbara Feld, who's sitting there, is our director of development for Summit County, and she and Tom Clark, who I think I saw, there's Tom Clark.

Tom Clark is the president of our Akron advisory board of Apollo's Fire.

And so Barbara and Tom lead this Akron support group called the advisory board, which hosts receptions and, occasionally does fundraising events.

Every few years, a small gala.

And so I'm sure they would love to have, some more volunteers joining their group.

And I've got a few more quick questions here.

I think we have time for, a quick structure question.

Our Apollo's fire, and these are Apollo's Fire musicians affiliated with the Cleveland Orchestra.

Or is it a totally independent group?

Is totally independent.

And so, yeah, the Cleveland Orchestra, I mean, they play on, on modern instruments, which are louder than Baroque instruments.

So they work well on a big hall.

The instruments that we play on and Apollo's Fire are really meant for a room more like this size.

And so our concerts we play always an intimate venues, but with a lot of, spontaneity and emotion in the music.

So with all of this learning and discovery, do you think there's an autobiography in your future?

No.

But, I am going to be collaborating with a wonderful, writer in Chicago who's also a, retired music critic, Howard Reich, who's written some wonderful books about, his mother, who was a Holocaust survivor.

Another book of his his conversations with Levy's owl, which is a beautiful read.

I'm going to be working with him on creating a theatrical concert that tells the story of my dad, which I hope will be ready for performance in maybe a couple of years.

And we'll probably take it on tour as well.

No.

Please, definitely question.

I do have one last quick question for you.

Do you have any advice for young musicians who want to pursue a career in performance?

Sure.

So my parents always brought me up to believe that I could do anything that I wanted to do.

And if someone tries to discourage you, don't talk to that person anymore.

You keep.

And and I, you know, now that I'm older, I understand why my father had this attitude.

You can do anything you want to do because that was how he had to convince himself also.

But, I would just say for young musicians, you know, look for the best teacher you can find, the teachers so important, and, you never know when you might be given an opportunity suddenly to perform something or stepping in, you know, as a substitute, perhaps playing in an orchestra or whatever.

It's likely that the opportunities will come suddenly and unexpectedly.

And so it's you want to learn as much music as you can and just be ready when that moment might come.

Jeanette.

Thank you.

Thank you for sharing your very personal and powerful story with us today.

Akron Roundtable is honored that you would you choose this forum to to share that.

So thank you so much.

Delight to be here.

Thank you.

And Jamie, you you were the perfect moderator.

So again, thank thank you very much for leading the conversation.

Appreciate it.

I could I could invite Michael the to the senior vice president, president of Gardens Wealth Management to the podium.

Michael Michael will present our signature contemplative son.

This art, this work of art was designed to slip through.

This piece of artwork was designed exclusively for the Akron Roundtable by Akron artist Don drum, and is sponsored by Gardens Wealth Management.

Beautiful.

Thank you so much for this.

Kind of resembles the Apollo's Fire Sun logo a little bit I love it.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

You're very welcome.

Thanks to a new partnership with Idea Stream, Public Media, PBS Western Reserve, and the University of Akron TV.

Today's program will be aired on January 23rd at 6 p.m. on PBS Western Reserves Fusion Channel.

Sunday, February 2nd at 2 p.m. on Ideas Stream.

Public media visit and broadcast on Thursday, February 6th at 8 p.m. on KSU 89.7.

So if you have any friends who were unable to be with us today, hopefully you can encourage them to tune in and hear Jeanette story once again or many times.

The series will be available to stream on demand on the Akron Roundtable, PBS, Western Reserve and Idea stream websites and the PBS app.

Thank you to the University of Akron and its Excel Center for Community Engaged Learning for sponsoring our podcast series.

Please mark your calendars now for our next program.

On Thursday, February 25th, Thursday, February 20th, 2025 for our next speaker.

Linda.

Linda Nageotte, President and Chief Operating Officer of Feeding America.

Her topic is food insecurity is pervasive.

It doesn't have to be.

Be sure also to make reservations for our Bring It Home program on Thursday, March 6th for a pantry simulation navigating the charitable food system, which will be held at the Akron Canton Regional Food Bank.

This immersive experience will include a pantry simulation, in which guests will gain a better understanding of the emergency food system and the hurdles and hardships local families often face while attempting to secure food.

For those of you on social media, please follow us on at Akron Roundtable on Facebook and LinkedIn to continue the conversation.

From today's lunch.

So thank you again for being with us today.

Drive safely on your way home and we look forward to seeing you next month.

Have a great day.

This has been a production of Akron Roundtable, PBS Western Reserve, the University of Akron, and Ideastream Public media.