- Will you consider this?

You've traveled the world and it's not only been music to your ears, but you've shared your love of that music with others in a very non-conventional manner.

I'm Christine Zak.

Stay with me to hear this fascinating story.

(upbeat music) He's a conductor, a performer, an adjunct professor, a teacher, and he shares his love of the performing arts in so many engaging ways.

He's the founder, and artistic director, and conductor of the Heartland Festival Orchestra, Maestro, David Commanday.

Thanks for being here.

- Great to be with you.

- What a story you have.

- It's a story I'm living and sharing.

And, I love your intro, because sharing is really what my life has been about.

It's about music as a performer.

And, then I discovered a second passion, which is the teaching.

And, although I never want a performance to seem educational, I do hope that every bit of musical experience and performance enriches the lives of those who listen and experience it.

So, then that other layer underneath is where and when I have a chance to share my passion for that great art form with younger people, so that they go on and share it with more, more people.

- That, fascinating fascinating.

You are from out east.

You went to school out east and then you began with the Boston Ballet.

- [David] That's right.

So, I'm a born Californian actually.

- Oh, okay.

- But, you could say, adoptive New Englander and definitely an adoptive Peorian in central Illinois right now.

But, so yes, in kind of in that order, I went to college at Harvard, and then I took my training in Vienna where my training as a conductor, and continuing training as cellist, but my first, first gig, so to speak, in the United States, was three months as assistant conductor and then immediately becoming a music director of the Boston Ballet, which was a great experience.

And, the early years of my professional activities as a conductor were all about dance and ballet.

So, that love of the dance, that experience, that's kind of a one layer added to the pure music that comes naturally to me.

And, it continues to this day.

- Did you ever expect when you were studying music at Harvard, what... Oh, you studied... Did you study psychology also or... - Psychology and languages, and music was maybe not a least, but on that list, my major was psychology and then I did languages, which was part of an inheritance, my family also, and that served me well.

But, in any case, I didn't specifically target dance.

What happened was, in college, I just discovered that the passion, in spite of my strong other interests, the passion to make music was so powerful that I felt compelled to go into that career and through, well, a number of connections having also to do with my musician father, that led me to Vienna, and that training there was very traditional and standard.

And, it has always informed my work as a conductor, but the traditionalism that I admire and was part of there has been expanded to go unexpected places in the concert hall.

- A little more avant garde, yes.

- [David] Yes, I think that's true.

- You are... You like to kind of mix it up.

- [David] I do.

(orchestra playing) I don't want an audience member experiencing the music we're making as an object or something to admire or, heaven forbid, aspire to understanding.

I think great music making, and real, and it doesn't have to be the greatest, but real music making brings the message of the music immediately to the audience.

And, it does require a certain level of ability.

It also requires a freely direct connection to the music and just the means to share that across the footlights.

So, sometimes, it just means you need to sing this song really convincingly, metaphorically speak, or sometimes it means you have to help people relax.

So, I remember one HFO performance, we were doing a Dvorak string serenade, and we were about to play a very, very beautiful, slow movement.

And, I kind of paused.

And, the orchestra was looking at me and I turned around to the audience, and I say, we're about to play this very beautiful music.

If your neighbor starts to nod off, don't be irritated.

It's very beautiful, it's very relaxing.

And, it takes us to a different kind of a place.

So, just the comment that I wouldn't be outraged by somebody getting sleepy in the middle of a bit of music, it helps relax people's attitude about being there.

And, I think they enjoyed it more.

- Right, and you get involved, it's practically come up on stage with us.

- Well, that's my goal.

And, the other part of a conductor's job is to...

There's this idea of the conductor as this demigod, who represents Beethoven or whoever, and then imposes Beethoven's will, or his will on the musicians.

This is such nonsense, because our real job, conductor means, that literally the word means to lead through.

- Okay.

- So, as a conductor, I am leading through the musicians and also helping to make a connection between them, and the music, and their instruments.

So, I'm a facilitator.

And, then when they're better connected to one another and to the music, then that connects with the audience better.

- So, just because you tap that baton, doesn't mean that everybody has to just sit still in their seats and be preached to.

- Right.

Absolutely.

Because, I'm in service, I'm in service to the composer, to the orchestra, and to the audience, not in any sense of the word, except in a way that purest kind of service.

I wanna do good.

And, I wanna share.

- Now, you founded Heartland Festival Orchestra, HFO.

It's easier to say, because why?

- Well, I mean, I appreciate it and that that's nice to say, but it was we founded it.

So, there were a number of... Music supporters who felt very strongly that they would love to see me remain active in the central Illinois, musically.

There were a number of professional musicians I had worked with for about a decade that felt equally passionate about making that possible.

And, the idea was explored, well, how about a chamber orchestra?

Could this one coexist well and bring something to central Illinois.

And, that's been our goal throughout.

So, I'm truly grateful.

We found a way to explore new ways of making music, mix it up, sometimes the orchestra is larger, sometimes it's smaller, sometimes we're in a different place, so that we can add to what's already here.

- But, your musicians come from where?

Here.

- Well, they come from here and they come from Macomb and Bloomington Normal, and Champaign Urbana, small number will... A small number from Chicago or St. Louis.

But, really within central Illinois, we have really fine resources.

And, Bradley has a number of wonderful music faculty, but it's not a huge university.

So, absolutely local, that's never been enough of a pool for a professional orchestra.

That was... That's true of the Peoria Symphony.

And, it's true of the HFO.

- Right.

Getting back to the chamber orchestra, you're also working with Eureka College and you have, I don't know, you've developed a chamber music program there, is that correct?

- Well, that was true.

That's a step in my life that actually moved to another institution beyond Eureka College.

So, I had a great experience at Eureka College and then things evolved there.

And, so now I'm actually Eastern Illinois University.

So, I'm a professor of conducting and of cello there at EIU, and I do a two and a half, three day stint in Charleston every week.

So, my passion for teaching and my activity continues there.

So, the work at Eureka College also continues just because, not literally at Eureka College, but this reaching out to young people, because I'm a music director of Youth Music Illinois, which used to be known as Central Illinois Youth Symphony, CIYS, and that's a great institution.

And, I adore making music with young people and sharing that... - [Christine] Love and passion.

- Conviction, yes, yes.

- Exactly.

How about your children?

How many children do you have?

- [David] We have three.

- And, are they musically inclined or have they pursued it?

- Yeah, they all had, had and have real musical talents, but they've explored them in differing ways.

And, I came to Peoria, with Carla, my wife, and our youngest star was three months old, and her brothers were five and seven years older than her.

Okay, so, Bo, our first, first born, is a wonderful graphic designer, who's also a cellist who studied with me, and plays at a professional level.

So, he does that on the side.

His career is graphic design with Semantle actually.

It's wonderful.

And, our middle son, Lark, became a dancer, a ballet dancer, with great talent there, but he was also brilliant.

He did great in school, Summa Cum Laede from Wesland while teaching at Wesland.

He's gone to law school, but he's also become a Marine, I'm proud to say.

And, just here in August, he passed officer candidate training, and he's now a second lieutenant while he finishes his law degree.

- [Christine] His law degree.

- [David] Yeah.

- Interesting.

Let's talk about your upcoming performance.

Your...

It's going to be an invitation to the dance.

And, it is going to involve many, many different components.

So, please describe that for me.

- That's right.

These components come literally from around the world, but they actually start here in town, because we have a pair of dancers coming to perform with us, with the orchestra.

And, they'll be, for those of you who are wondering logistically, how does this happen?

They will be dancing downstage.

And, so then from your point of view, in front of the orchestra, on dance flooring, and that, there's plenty of room there.

One of this couple is Lauren Sheerer, whom I know.

She was... She is an alumna of Peoria Ballet.

- [Christine] Correct.

- And, here, in Peoria, conducting for many Nutcrackers, she was there on the stage, and... - And, her grandfather is John Bierse.

- That's right.

- And, she is, she's a local girl, Canton, Peoria.

- And, now she dances in the Smuin Ballet Company in San Francisco.

So, she is living the dream.

She's a wonderful professional dancer and... - [Christine] And, a wonderful person.

- And a wonderful person.

And, one of the things about Smuin Ballet, it's ballet, but it also includes modern dance.

(orchestrated music) So, our program will include her dancing partner, Mung Zhun Chen.

He's very athletic.

So, Lauren was always very quick, and sparkly, and Mung Zhun is all that and quite athletic.

So, they're gonna be dancing a mix, which goes to what you were saying about the HFO.

They're not only dancing something from Chaikovsky's Swan Lake Ballet, the Spanish Dance.

They're dancing to Sinatra's I've Got You Under My Skin, sung by our dear Lee Wenger, by the way, in this performance.

- So, there we are adding another element.

- Another local element there.

Also, Apada Du from a ballet called the Three Musketeers and it's music of variety that was arranged by a British composer, into a full length ballet called the Three Musketeer Story.

But, this is Apada Du from that ballet.

So, I'm bringing in the music from London.

Literally, it's on its way here right now.

We're gonna also have some dancers from the Peoria Ballet dance some divertissements from the Nutcracker, 'cause the Heartland Festival Orchestra has collaborated with the Peoria Ballet for many Nutcrackers in recent years.

So, we're adding that to the mix and, drum roll, yes, we have a world premier on our program, and it's been a while since Peoria had a world premiere... - Very exciting.

- On the concert stage and the dance stage.

So, this is a piece we're calling Popcorn Hat and it's based on the fantasy and ideas of Carl Sandberg from Galesburg, Illinois, native of Galesburg, Illinois, brilliant poet, brilliant author, great man.

He wrote children's stories called Rootabaga Stories, spelled R O O T. So, sometimes that's R U T. Rootabaga Stories, and these were very fanciful stories that I actually heard as a little boy being read to me by my mom, to me and my sister.

- [Christine] Really?

- I've loved these throughout and these characters are wonderfully fanciful.

This is gonna be five minutes.

It's newly composed music by Jeff Bealle, who's the composer who wrote for the series House of Cards.

He's an internationally known multimedia composer who writes high brow, middle brow, low brow.

It's, he's a brilliant man, great imagination.

And, a choreographer from San Francisco named Amy Seiward.

And, this is gonna be original choreography made for Lauren and Mung.

- [Christine] And, Mung Zhun, okay.

- And, so our audience is gonna see this for the very first time on the earth that it ever happens.

- Wow, how did it... How did you get him involved?

How did you get Mr. Bealle involved in that whole thing?

- Well, that's a fun question.

We had Grammy winner, winning guitarist, Jason Vio, who is a brilliant player, musician, classical guitar, except that he can shred.

I mean, he's, one of those people who mixes it up.

He's from up Michigan Way.

He was a soloist a couple times with the Heartland Festival Orchestra.

And, the last time he came, he played a piece by Jeff Bealle, called 616, and 616 is actually for the six strings on a guitar, and the four times four strings on a string quartet.

So, it was for a guitar and string quartet.

- Interesting.

- And, he arranged it for chamber orchestra.

And, that's what we played with Jason.

So, I have been thinking about Rootabaga Stories for more... For more words than years that I can describe.

So, I chatted with Jason and I said, I love this piece by Jeff.

Do you think he might have an interest in a commission like this?

And, he said, well, man, I think that'd be great.

So, he gave me Jeff's contact information.

I shared the idea, I created a scenario for this.

And, actually the Rootabaga Stories is gonna become a longer piece for chamber orchestra.

So, this five minute apoda is kind of a tease teaser for the bigger storytelling.

- Really?

And, do you have any idea what the timeline is for that then?

- I think it's gonna take us another year and a half to get there and that'll be a consortium with some other chamber orchestras that are interested in the project also.

- Just really exciting.

- [David] Yeah.

- You just really get into it.

- [David] No halfway.

- [Christine] And, why?

At this age, at this stage of your career?

- Yeah, this age, whatever, I mean, older is what we get while we're alive and we're glad we stay alive, right?

So, my plan is to stay youthful, if not young.

- I like that.

I'm starting to go backwards in my age.

I'm counting down rather than counting up.

So, the performance and invitation to the dance will be October 22nd.

- [David] That's right.

- And that's at Five Points, Washington.

- Five points, Washington.

And, as always, people can get tickets, they can go to heartlandfestivalorchestra.org, and there are always links there for information.

You can also find a phone number to call if you have a question, and they can buy tickets for this original, the special concert, or also naturally buy subscription for the whole series.

So, we're about to launch a season.

The first program is called Going for Baroque.

- [Christine] Baroque.

- Baroque.

And, we have a wonderful baroque violin soloist.

She's a specialist who's also concert master of the Omaha Symphony.

So, she plays modern romantic music on another kind of violin, but she's also toured the world with Apollo's Fire.

And, that's a small baroque chamber orchestra that's renowned.

And, I heard them last up at Revinia.

So, and Susanna Perry Gilmore's our soloist.

October, we have Invitation to the Dance, February 4 or 5, West Side Stories.

Now, there's a string quartet concerto, which is a piece written for a string quartet to play with full orchestral accompaniment.

And, it's based on themes from the West Side Story.

It's a brilliant piece.

The Harlem Quartet is coming to play it.

They are amazing.

And, we have William Grantstill's Afro-American Symphony on this program.

It's another one of those mixed up things, right?

In April, we have a group called Empire Wild, three guys, two cellists plus, I think, actually, I think the third is a cellist, but he plays percussion and does vocals.

And, it's kind of like Time for Three that visited with the Heartland Festival Orchestra.

It's a really hip young group and they cover lots of songs, classical and otherwise, and they're developing some of their tunes to play with orchestra.

That's April.

And, then we finish up with another visit from Classical Mystery Tour, which is the preeminent Beatles Cover Band, but they play from original charts.

The Beatles, everybody, we experienced their music, right?

We hear the recordings.

A lot of that was done in studio and over mixed.

They were very sophisticated in creating sounds that hadn't been heard before, but not just as a straight band, just the four of them in front of the orchestra, or the audience.

- [Christine] The audience, right.

- They never toured playing music that had orchestral backup live in front of audiences.

So, since these guys look and sound like the Beatles, this is like it what it would have been if... - [Christine] Had they done that.

- Had they done that.

So, 'cause it's their charts, it's their original music.

- So, you just kind of have your fingers in every pot that you can possibly get 'em in.

- I guess that's right.

Finger fainting.

- What do you enjoy most about this part of your life?

- I do love the multiplex quality of it.

I have to say, also, I appreciate, and this is something I had a hunch about when I came to Peoria, but I didn't know how to begin to understand in depth, over these, now over two decades here, living here, we've developed relationships with people.

Our neighborhood is big and this is our home.

Our kids have grown up here.

And, so many of the people who support orchestra are real dear friends to us.

And, there's a lot of conversation that goes on there and playing for a community deepens the whole experience.

Lots of musicians tour and that's exciting in its own way, but also making music that serves a community is really important.

And, by the way, I mean, we haven't mentioned, but the Heartland Festival Orchestra has a community partner for every concert.

And, that's a local charity that benefits in part from the proceeds of the performance.

- [Christine] Ticket sales, right.

- So, the National Multiple Sclerosis Society is our partner in October.

The local chapter is our connection.

And, it happens that Jeff Bealle, our composer, is living with that condition.

So, it's... And, it's serendipitous.

So, we also try to thank our community by helping connect them with worthy causes.

So... - And, do you also get some input from them of what they would like to hear, or what might be interesting, or what is their connection to what you are doing?

- Well, it has rare...

It has happened, not frequently, that a community partner will be part of the reason, and the how, and the why we put things together.

Last May, we had a wonderful... We had a wonderful soloist, Melissa White, a violinist, African American.

She also... She's coming back.

She's in the Harlem Quartet.

She happens to be a yoga enthusiast and... - [Christine] Will she be performing yoga while she's... - But, the thing is, she's gonna be here in February, right?

For West Side Story.

But, our partner there is Soul Side Healing Arts Center.

And, yoga is about what that is.

- There you go.

- So, these cross connections, they end up do happening, yes.

- Right, and it is serendipity.

- [David] Yeah.

- That's the best.

- [David] Yeah.

- Just really quickly then, I like to ask, what is on your bucket list, whether in your life or with HFO?

Uh-oh.

- Bucket list.

I'm balancing a whole lot of things.

So, at this stage, people wouldn't know I love building things.

I actually had the pleasure of spending three weeks building an amazing fence with our eldest son, Bo, in Denver, where he's living.

He's working at Semantle from Denver.

It's interesting.

You can do that these.

- Exactly.

- So, I love those projects.

So, that's the side thing, but it is a counterpart or counterpoint to the stage work and so forth.

So, bucket list... Finding ways to...

In between fitting in actually quiet time, that sounds like a really small thing.

But, when you are doing three or four things at a time, you just say, I love all those things, but I'm looking for a little more of those times in between.

- Right, just some quiet time.

And, family time.

- Yeah, and family time, and it enriches.

I can say one thing I get to do that's way different that's really lucky, my wife, Carla, breeds and shows top Scottish terriers.

It's one of the greatest breeds.

They're... - They're little Scotty dogs.

- Little Scotty dogs.

And, they're very independent minded and very beautiful.

These take a lot of grooming and so forth.

And, so I get to be kennel help for her when she goes to a place like Madison Square Garden or wherever it is to show the dogs.

So, that's a great thing too.

- And, who would know by looking at you and all your performing arts and everything that you're helping with kennels.

- Saw and hammer, and, yeah.

And, moving the dogs around.

- Do you have to clean the kennels too?

- Oh, for heaven sakes, of course.

Of course, yeah.

- Alright.

So, all in all, you are really enjoying your life in central Illinois all these years, and you hope to continue for many more years to come.

- Yes, when we got here, people said, what would bring a guy like you here from Boston?

And, they asked me so many times, and the funny thing is they would say, my wife or my husband brought me here for work.

And, I said, I gotta get out of here in three years.

And, then they said, they said, now it's been 15 or 20 years.

And, I wouldn't go anywhere.

- [Christine] I'm still here.

- But, when they first said that, I said, do you know something I don't?

But, we've discovered that truth.

It's a wonderful place to be.

- [Christine] It truly is.

- Yeah.

- Well, we're so glad you're here.

Thank you.

- [David] Thank you, Christine.

- And, you're exposing everybody to all of the performing arts really.

- Yeah, and the only thing to emphasize to everybody is please come back into the hall, because we went through this dreadful, confusing, disaffecting COVID time, but now it's time to celebrate.

Let's get back together.

- Exactly.

Well, thanks for being with me.

- Thank you, Christine.

- And, thank you all for being with us as well.

Please, stay safe and healthy and hold happiness.

(upbeat music)