Dale Bohren

When WyoHistory.org published its history of the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra in October 2021, the editors realized that there were many more people available to contribute their thoughts and memories of that organization. The American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming was also interested, and offered to contribute funding to support an oral history project to capture more information on the history of the symphony.

The Casper College Western History Center transcribed most of these interviews. In addition to being available here, at WyoHistory.org, the audio files plus transcripts are also available at the Western History Center and the American Heritage Center.

Thanks to the interviewees for donating their time; to the Casper College Western History Center for transcribing the audio files; to Kylie McCormick for transcribing some of the audio files; to the American Heritage Center for funding the project; and to the trustees of the George Fox Fund, Inc. for donating the use of its Zoom account.

Date transcribed: September 13, 2022

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Rebecca: Hello.

Dale: Good morning.

Rebecca: Okay thanks a lot for your patience here, we’re only half an hour late.

Dale: Well, it’s a tech world you know.

Rebecca: Yup. Okay so, let me collect my thoughts here. Let’s start with your name and your instrument, and how you came to play that instrument, and other sundry items of information about your musical background.

Dale: Okay. My name is Dale Dale, B-O-H-R-E-N, of course D-A-L-E. I am a string bass player and I began to play the string bass when I was in fifth grade at Park School [in Casper, Wyoming]. [Blaine] Coolbaugh was the school teacher there and he had a meeting with all the kids and he wanted everybody to play the violin. I said I don’t really want to play the violin, I want to play the bass. He said I don’t have a bass. And I said okay, well, I really don’t wanna play the violin. Anyway, later that day when we were at recess he was driving a Cadillac. And a big Cadillac. And he came in- the teachers used to drive across the playground to get to where they’d park. And so we were at recess, the place is crawling with kids like ants. And through the ant pile comes Blaine Coolbaugh in his Cadillac with a string bass neck [the neck of a stringed instrument is the narrow part that extends above the upper part of the body] out of the window and he gave me this string bass and said your mom’s gonna have to come pick you up. Anyway, [he] gave me this string bass, and my mother said uh-uh, so I had to carry that bass home that night. I was really thrilled to do it, just thought it was such a cool thing. And it was.

Rebecca: I’ll tell you, speaking as a cellist, I’ve never understood why anybody would want to play an instrument so difficult, and unwieldy physically, as the bass. You gotta be shifting ... [approximately] every two notes, don’t you? [Shifting is the string instrumentalist’s term for moving the hand up or down the fingerboard to reach pitches that are out of the reach of the hand wherever it happens to be.]

Dale: Yeah, sure do.

Rebecca: And you think that's cool, don’t you?

Dale: Well, I liked the sound. I liked the feel of it. And they were telling me I had to play the violin and I was just contrary enough to say nuh-uh.

Rebecca: Well just between you and me, I think it’s really hard to make a violin sound good because the upper registers tend to be screechy and that’s just really hard. It’s like [being] a soprano [vocalist].

Dale: Yeah. Well, it was a good decision for me. I’ve had a good life playing string bass.

Rebecca: Do you think you've had more opportunities because you’re a bass player as opposed to some other, with the exception of viola maybe, other string instruments

Dale: I don’t know, you know. I sure have had a lot of opportunity, I played you know, in country bands, and I played for the Royal Lipizzan Stallions because I could read [read music]. Other instruments played that, but I also got to play blues, I’ve been able to play jazz. Of course, classical orchestras, pit orchestras, theater’s my favorite. But I gotten to play in a lot of those styles and I don't it’s cause I’m a bass player but certainly they all have bass. And in Wyoming the pool is kind of limited and so I’ve gotten a lot of opportunity just by being here.

Rebecca: And you’re talking now about just acoustic string bass, right, not electric bass?

Dale: Right.

Rebecca: Yeah. Well, that’s really cool. Okay, so that’s some of your background, now let’s go to probably, Youth Symphony would have been your path into Civic Symphony?

Dale: No, because I ... got introduced into the Casper Civic Symphony really early. I think Blaine Coolbaugh who was my grade school teacher was also at one time the orchestra conductor. Anyway, we lived near NCHS [Natrona County High School] and rode our bikes, my brother David and I, we were, I don’t know, like a couple of mealy worms in that neighborhood, we were just everywhere and always moving. And we had gotten two Sting-ray bicycles, Schwinn Sting-rays- we worked, we worked, we worked, and we bought these bicycles and were at NCHS and I’ll never forget it because we were driving our bikes around the front of NCHS, there was a lot of concrete, a lot of open space, we’d made a ramp, we could jump our bikes and all. And there were people going into the auditorium through the stage door carrying instruments and I saw a guy carrying a string bass in. And of course like I said, I was kind of attracted to that instrument and saw some other people that kinda looked familiar. Anyway, we snuck in through that door and watched the orchestra play years before I was ever invited to play, and then so I was watching the orchestra and just thought it was pretty cool. And then I did get into the Youth Symphony through the school district when we were playing and I did get to play. But Bob Bovie was my high school music teacher and he and Rex Eggleston [head of the public school music programs at the time] got me into the symphony, I think. And I played next to, the principal [principal bass] was Joe… let me think of his name here…

Rebecca: Corrigan.

Dale: Yeah, Joe Corrigan. What a wonderful guy. Just a happy, happy spirited guy. And he was like oh it doesn’t matter if you can’t play, but you know what he said, I don’t play every [note] now and again. Anyway, so I got to play in the orchestra because they needed a bass player. And I was probably in high school at that point.

Rebecca: Yeah. So that was Youth Symphony- no, that was Civic Symphony.

Dale: It was Civic Orchestra. But I’d already been playing in the Youth Symphony some I think-

Rebecca: Right.

Dale: I mean we’d been on some tours. There was the orchestra at school, of course, it wasn’t a— they weren’t great.

Rebecca: No. We were in the same school orchestra at NCHS cause you went to Casper College a year early, is that right?

Dale: Mhm.

Rebecca: Well, I’ve concluded that playing the bass is a matter of temperament. Some people are attracted to it and some people aren't.

Dale: Yeah.

Rebecca: Okay so, that’s your background. Now let’s go into your experiences with the symphony. The Civic Symphony or the Wyoming Symphony or what- Casper or whatever it became. And if you want to intersperse your experiences as manager, that’s fine. The cool stories you have from your years as manager are really worth telling, so just go ahead.

Dale: Well I got the opportunity to play in the Casper Civic Symphony and you know it was initially way over my head but I just really thought it was…what a cool sound and getting to stand there and look at all those different sounds being made and put together into a piece and crafted. I played in the orchestra a little bit when Ed Marty [Edmund Marty, brass instructor at Casper College] was the conductor. Not so much played in it, as got to go hang out around. And I don't know if you remember Ed Marty, his daughter Zoe was a bass player too.

Rebecca: Right.

Dale: And Ed was just really… I mean he was really a fine French hornist and a good musician and I think he looked at the students as potential, I guess. Anyway, he allowed me to come and hang around there and when the orchestra was playing. Like I said, we were in the neighborhood. So I got to do that. When I started playing in the orchestra really seriously was when I was in high school, Curtis Peacock moved to town. I got to take some lessons from Curtis Peacock and it just kinda opened up the world for me of string bass playing cause he talked about concepts and it wasn’t just okay put the bow here and draw the string here. He talked about how those things worked and how you made sounds and about shapes of notes and how, making music as opposed to playing notes and all those things I just thought were really intriguing and really caught fire in me. So when he came to town I started playing much better and started paying attention, I guess, you know. Before, we were just part of a pack of people that were being taught and so maybe we played in tune and maybe we didn’t. Maybe they knew who was, who wasn’t. I don’t know but became very in tuned to how to play more musically and better and join the symphony and then became very serious about trying to play those pieces and then eventually under Curtis’s—Curtis was the- also the symphony conductor as well as the [string instrument] instructor at Casper College—and I played better and better and I did win a scholarship to go to the Congress of Strings in Los Angeles and Congress of Strings was produced by the musician’s union- nationally. The National Federation of Musicians. And they used to have meetings; it was down in the basement below the drugstore on 2nd St- the Tripeny Drugstore. They had a little office there, and a man by the name of Kelly Walsh was the leader of the union, the musician’s union, which I’ve always thought was kind of funny because of course there’s a high school here named after Kelly Walsh, and later on I came to know that he was a very strict principal, but he was also a really fun musician. I don’t know what he played, maybe clarinet or something. But anyway, he was the president of the union and I won a scholarship to go to the Congress of Strings, and you might have gotten to do that too back then-

Rebecca: I did, I was lucky enough to do it in Seattle, you guys had to get used to L.A. right?

Dale: Yeah, we went to Los Angeles.

Rebecca: Yeah.

Dale: And my dad allowed me to drive the car out there, I don’t know how old I was, pretty young. And so I took a car with a string bass out there. I was very popular because I was the only one with a car.

Rebecca: Ugh, yes.

Dale: I was pretty shy at that time in my life. But anyway, I got to study with Ring Warner from the Chicago Symphony for that period of time. Met just some incredibly good musicians. I did okay. But it was a real eye-opener to see the quality of music that people were playing, people our age. So I got to do that, and eventually I did become the principal of the string bass section in Casper with Curtis. I had a couple of life experiences in the symphony. I left for a while and when I came back I was playing in the orchestra and Curtis wanted me to be the principal again and I just had to say I can’t. My wife had contracted an illness and she was having surgery every year it seemed like. I just had to make a living and I couldn't just do everything Curtis wanted so they threw me out of the orchestra.

Rebecca: Aw.

Dale: And I felt bad about that but there wasn’t really anything I could do about it. Anyway, I rejoined again later, and have played off and on in the orchestra, you know, for, I don’t know, 40 years? Or more actually. Probably 45, 50 years. And so let’s see, who was it… The principal [bass] player then was Richard Cohen and Richard was uh…He was a good player, but he was challenged in his life by probably, I don’t know, autism or I don’t what it was he had but he could be at times very difficult because he would have outbursts and play things and say things that were certainly heard across the orchestra. But it was an interesting experience and I’ve played off and on like I say, through many, many years. And I also played in some of the periods of time when I wasn’t able to play in Casper. I became a member of the Billings Symphony and played in Billings for seven years as a regular member and then a number of other years just as an import. Again, because of the experience I got starting in the fifth grade playing music and kind of being cultivated and fostered by a number of really good string instructors—Rex Eggleston, Bob Bovie were both really instrumental, if you’ll pardon the pun. At one point, I was in the orchestra, Curtis was the conductor, Donna Efimoff—[a longtime symphony board member] who was a huge supporter of the orchestra—came to me and said they had a number of different symphony managers, and she came to me and said we need you to be the symphony manager and Dale, you would be just great and we just really need it, and we’re kind of uh- we’re not doing so well we need somebody with some enthusiasm and somebody that really loves the music and loves the orchestra and wants it to succeed and work hard. And my thing was well, that’s a full time job. I have a job, I was trying to make money to feed my family, and I was. Anyway she said well, you know you could do this part-time, and she talked me into doing this. And as you know there’s no part-time work. There's part time pay but no part-time work.

Rebecca: Right.

Dale: So I started with the symphony. They had no money. I had been on the symphony board when I had been ... in highs chool, I think.  I got on the symphony board and met a lot of the principal people that made the orchestra work, and gained a pretty good understanding of the pieces of the orchestra, that there was an orchestra where people came and practiced and played music. And there was the part of the orchestra that was the board that raised money and made decisions and you know, decided what was gonna be played, and who was gonna be the conductor and dealt with all the problems and the marketing and the business things that went with that. And then there was the guild that was mostly women, I think it was exclusively women, but they did things to raise money. They had a a thrift store. They did fund raisers like dinners, they did parties, they did…they were the social arm also of the orchestra. So anyway, I did become the symphony manager and that day I realized they didn’t have enough money to make a photocopy. And we needed an office and we needed… we didn’t have a symphony, we didn’t have a season, and Donna had told me, well you know, we’re really… we’re talking, you know, about one of the options is that we fold. So I said I would do it and I did. We got busy. People wanted the orchestra to succeed. We sent out a fundraising letter and checks started showing up in the mail. We had people come by. Des Bennion [of the Bon Insurance Agency] had an open office space that he allowed us to use and I think we paid rent but I don’t think we paid much rent. And he allowed us to use his photocopier if we needed it and one thing and another. Eventually we got to where we had a photocopier, we had office furniture and we got that office together. It was on 2nd St across from Veteran’s Park. And people were very generous with the orchestra. We went from not being able to afford a photocopy to being able to produce some concerts. But each concert cost about, I think it was… I wanna say $7,500 it was costing us to put on a concert. Anyway, we did that whole season and we ended the year with a little bit of money in the bank and began on the next season and I was the symphony manager for three years and every year we made headway. The last two years of those three we began to work on– there was a lot of discussion in the orchestra world and in Casper about repertoire and what the orchestra could or should be doing. And it centered on should we [be] playing– could we possibly be playing too much Mahler [Gustav Mahler, late 19th-early 20th century Austro-Bohemian composer] to attract a crowd and would the audience like to hear something more than just the classic pieces or the heavy classic pieces, and were we playing the right kinds of thing for our level of orchestra. And we went through, well there were some big bands–the Moody Blues was one of them–that were using orchestras as background. And of course the Beatles had used orchestral instruments in their more popular records, and then the Moody Blues. I had called the manager for the Moody Blues and said, you know—of course, they’re in London– and said, you know, what would it cost to have the Moody Blues come to Casper? And they said $95,000. Which just kinda blew me away, because, I mean, like I say, our concerts were costing some $7500 to produce and there were sixty or seventy of us [musicians]. So, I knew we couldn’t pay $95,000, we were lucky if we had the money for the next concert. But I talked to let me see what was his name… At the Casper Events Center they’d been trying to bring different big bands to town and I had had a discussion with–I’ll think of his name here before this is over–about how they could afford to get these bands and he was telling me well sometimes we get them on an odd night because they’re coming through, they’re going, they have a weekend here and a weekend there and they try to fill in inb etween and so we get a better deal and sometimes we can find a promoter that will take the risk, so explained that’s how they were doing it. I got his- he had a great big book and it was not unlike the [unintelligable] catalog, and it was probably, I don’t know, 14 inches wide by 20 inches tall. And as you page through this book, it just had all the different acts and all the different people who promoted different kinds of music and different styles of music and different kinds of theater and dance and all this different stuff. And it was like a catalog of people that promoted various artistic endeavors. And so I looked through that and I found a- I called a couple of them, and just you know, explained who I was and what I was wanting to do; that I was wanting to find a group that was like the Moody Blues to bring to Casper to play with our orchestra. And I contacted a guy down in Jupiter, Florida and told him what I wanted to do and he said “Yeah, I’ve done the Moody Blues.” He said, “Are there other orchestras in the region that could play with the Moody Blues?” and I said “oh, I think that there are.” And he said “Well, would you be willing to help me find them?” and I said “I sure would.” Anyway, we began to try to put together a tour for the Moody Blues, and so we ended up with them in Rapid City, in Denver, Casper, I think Billings, and Salt Lake. So all of them, they just came on kind of a whirlwind tour through the Rocky Mountains and played. So we got the Moody Blues to come to Casper and play with our orchestra. It was a really good concert. It was at the Casper Events Center. It was- I mean, my recollection is every seat was filled. And we had a blending- the audience was really interesting because it was a blending of the rock & roll crowd and the orchestra crowd. It was very happy; maybe it was just me but I just, it was a very joyful experience to have the Moody Blues come. And of course, the orchestra itself had never played in something like that, we had microphones on violins and big mixing boards and roadies. I don’t think the orchestra had ever had roadies before. Well, we had roadies.

Rebecca: [unintelligible]

Dale: And it was a-

Rebecca: [unintelligible] Oh, go ahead.

Dale: Go ahead.

Rebecca: I recall playing that concert; having to listen to myself through headphones, instead of having- being able to hear myself directly. And if I hadn’t had prior experience with that in Puerto Rico with recording studios, it would have been a real ordeal. But yeah, go ahead.

Dale: Yeah. Well it was just a really great experience for the orchestra and I think that it—and this was in the last year I was there before I moved on to being the executive director at the Casper Area Chamber of Commerce—but the orchestra had other bands come in subsequent years. I think Kansas  [American rock band formed in 1973 in Topeka, Kansas] came, and they had some 50s bands that came and played with the orchestra. And It became, I think the perception was less stodgy than just playing Mahler and Beethoven. And I would like to say, nothing wrong with playing Mahler and Beethoven, but it really kinda broke the mold for the symphony to go try some new things. At that time the orchestra had a deal with Casper College, where Casper College would have their string instructor on the payroll, and then the orchestra would pay part of the salary that was to direct the orchestra, and I think the orchestra also had a person, maybe personnel, and a library manager. And that’s how they managed to get a good person who could conduct and also teach. And then relationship with the Casper school district, the Natrona County school district was that a lot of those string instructors in school would play in the orchestra. And they would- so they would teach their students in the schools where they taught and then they would play in the orchestra, and they had a way for their students to see how they played music and how one could do that. Back in those, I don’t know, I suppose in the 60s, 70,and 80s there was a youth orchestra in Casper, which if you played in the youth orchestra you got the experience you needed to audition for the symphony. And a lot of people did, and we called it string farming at the time as far as the strings, because you needed ten violins, one oboe but ten violins for each section. And so we– the orchestra cultivated and fostered that education in the local school district of students who wanted to learn to play music. And it certainly was a big factor in me playing the string bass for my entire life.

Rebecca: You recall a rule that anybody who played in the Youth Symphony was required to continue in their public school orchestra?

Dale: I don’t recall a rule, but I mean, I wasn’t gonna quit. So if there was a rule, it didn’t… it didn’t come to my attention, because I wanted to take the lessons.

Rebecca: Yeah. Okay so, you were manager for… was it ‘92 through ‘90— 90… you better tell me.

Dale: Well it must have been…’90…maybe late ‘92, ‘93, anyway through late ‘95.

Rebecca: Yeah, so Chris Boor[?] was the manager when I was hired to be the principal cello.

Dale: Mhm.

Rebecca: Completely oblivious to the fact that the symphony nearly couldn’t pay me. It worked out.

Dale: Well, and then I was followed by um…

Rebecca: Holly Turner.

Dale: Holly Turner, yeah.
Rebecca: You know, that is– it’s not a part time job period, it just isn’t.

Dale: No, and it’s fundraising, grant writing. I mean, I think now there’s a bit of a broader base of employees to work on, but at the time if you were through cleaning the bathroom, you could answer the phone. And that was in between writing grants and writing fundraising letters and planning things and you know, trying to make sure the musicians were well served. The problem for me is that when I was the manager, I couldn’t really play in the orchestra, which is a terrible irony because the reason I was managing was because I wanted the orchestra to succeed but I couldn’t play in it because… you just couldn't do that, and produce the show.

Rebecca: You mean there wasn’t time? There wasn’t time to keep yourself–

Dale: Well, things had to be done at the same time, during the rehearsal you might have soloist who needed to be taken care of, or cookies to pick up, or donuts or coffee, or just lots of different things that had to happen. And sometimes they…I mean you just couldn’t really stop and play in the orchestra and then pick it up, things had to be done when they had to be done, and you’d say well, you could have organized volunteers to do that, and we did, a lot of volunteer organization. But the part of that is you kind of have to be there on the ground when the questions are asked or things don’t get done. It just wouldn’t— it just wasn’t possible.

Rebecca: Right, and I don’t remember if you have said this already on this interview but I remember when I interviewed you for my article that I did on the symphony you said, this sentence always impressed me, the three groups that took to make the symphony run, the musicians, the guild, and the board, none of those organizations really had any idea of what the others did or really therefore could appreciate what they did. I know when I when I was playing I only had the vaguest idea of you know, where the money came from to pay me and the other musicians, and things like that.

Dale: Right. I think I had said that they each thought they were the orchestra and they– they really were I mean, they were all such necessary parts of it but it was kinda interesting to learn how they weren’t as interconnected as you thought. And the guild did things, but the orchestra didn’t really know the people in the guild, I mean, some of course, but it wasn’t like we were all in the same room doing the same things, it was various arms doing their own thing. Anyway, it was good, the guild— one funny story, we were planning to have to have a black tie ball, the symphony ball, this is what it was, called the symphony ball. And it required a fancy, fancy dinner. And so Donna Efimoff and about four others had arranged to have a tasting; I had never done a tasting, I mean, we sat down, we ate. I had never done a tasting for dinner. So we did a tasting at the Casper Petroleum Club and we went up there and we tried a couple of different meals. And the manager’s name was Sandy, and Sandy would bring out something you know, and these ladies and myself, we would taste it and we were proposing this, well what would be a fabulous dinner? What would be something you could really sell? And they brought out…by the time we got to the dessert, they brought out some desserts and Sandy had this meringue that was supposed to be just fabulous. And it was a, of course, an egg meringue on a plate and it had some other fruit on top of it and I think some cream of some sort. Anyway, I was trying to— I had never had a meringue and I was trying to figure out how to, you know, it was kinda crisp and the base of it was about as big as what, you know, a hamburger size, and it’s there. So I was trying to— I took my fork and I just kept pushing on it hoping it would break into a piece so I could try it. And this meringue was like a tiddlywink, it came up, and off into the middle of the table. Needless to say the meringue didn’t make onto the menu. But it was just hilariously funny and those ladies, they must have just thought I was so backwards, and just to be clear I really was that backwards but I’d never had a meringue and it was so embarrassing and yet so funny. It was so funny. I laughed with Donna Efimoff about that for years. And, by the way, I did learn how to make a meringue and that one was just probably a minute too long in the oven.

Rebecca: Okay so, do you have anything more to tell me about your years as manager?

Dale: You know it was a really rewarding experience, and part of the reason was because of the people who really cared about the orchestra. They really cared about the music, they cared about the training, the youth part of it, they cared about the community part of it. One of those people was Betsy Knapp, and I don’t know how many years old Betsy was, but she had a long history with the orchestra, she had a depth of knowledge about music, and she really loved what was— she really loved that there was an orchestra in Casper. And she would write the — she wrote the history of the Casper Symphony. And she would write the program notes for each of the programs, and so I got to know Betsy pretty well as we put together the programs and what not. And she would come in and hang out, and just for a little bit, just a few minutes, and drop off the work she had done, and she’d say well I’ll leave you to it and she’d go. But there were just numbers of people that would come into that office and they’d— they really uh— it was a community organization, they loved what was going on, I’m sure that’s the same thing that goes on today. It’s just was— it was kind of a hub. Really appreciated that about the orchestra.

Rebecca: Yeah, so, after you ceased to be manager you could play in the orchestra again from a standpoint of time?

Dale: I did, I played in the orchestra.

Rebecca: From…that would be 1995 on?

Dale: Ohhh, you know I was kind of off and on there, but I’ve played in the orchestra every chance I could, yeah.

Rebecca: Do you have any high points that you remember from playing with the orchestra, either long ago or somewhat more recently?

Dale: Oh definitely. one of them was when I first started playing, the orchestra was playing the New World Symphony, [by Antonin Dvorak, late 19th century Czech composer] and in the New World Symphony, one of the movements starts with the string bass section playing a solo. And it’s pizzicato [plucked rather than bowed] and it’s…it goes [to a melody] bum bum  bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum…kind of on like that, just through this passage. And I went to orchestra that night, and I’d been practicing that part, and I was in high school, and Joe Corrigan wasn’t there. And it came time to practice that and I was the only string bass player. And I was terrified, literally terrified. And Rex Eggleston was, I think, conducting, but I don’t know if he was the conductor, was he the conductor for the orchestra? He was definitely…maybe it was an interim thing he was doing.

Rebecca: I think he was the conductor till Curtis arrived—

Dale: Okay.

Rebecca: —whatever year that was.

Dale: That would make sense. He was the conductor, so he— he came, we took a break, we were gonna start next with this movement of the New World Symphony and he came back and he must have just seen that I was terrified, I don’t know. But he came back and he said, you know, Dale, how are you doing? And I had gone to a summer camp up in Bozeman, Montana, and Rex had been the one that had taken us all up there, been our Casper leader. Rex is a wonderful person. Anyway, so he said you’ll do fine, just do your best. So we played that and I actually kinda played it. And you know it’s just one of those things that when it’s all said and done I just realized oh my god I was just so uptight this whole thing and you kinda relax and everything else seems easy. But the next day Rex Eggelston came by to the high school. Of course he was in charge of the music in all the schools in Casper at that time. Came to high school and found me, and he put his hand on my shoulder and he said “Good job, Dale.” And how could that not be a real high point.

Rebecca; Yeah.

Dale: But the leader of all the teachers; it was really something and I remained friends with Rex for a long time. But probably the real high point is Gary Karr [world-class string bass virtuoso soloist] came to Casper as a soloist with the orchestra. And Gary Karr probably revolutionized what bass players conceived what they could do and probably revolutionized what bass players were expected to do, because he was just so virtuosic and the way that he played, he played things— he could play Paganini on the string bass and the Flight of the Bumblebee on the string bass. [Niccolò Paganini, 18th and 19th century Italian violin virtuoso and composer. His compositions are among the hardest ever written for violin; on the string bass—because the bass is so much bigger—they would be just that much more difficult. Flight of the Bumblebee, by 18th century Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, would also be very difficult on string bass] And the things that he played and the tempos that he took, it was just…it was groundbreaking, it was ground shaking, I just couldn’t believe someone could do that on a string bass. And of course, admittedly we were in Casper, Wyoming and not New York City or something but Gary Karr really did change the world of string bass playing. Well, he came to Casper and I was the student and the principal string bass player so I got to play a duet with Gary Karr. And it was kind of funny, cause it was one of those things where I’d go boom and then he’d go blelelel, you know boom and blelelel. But I got to meet him and got to play a duet and got to talk to him, have dinner with him and realize that he was human, just like all of us, he just had this enormous talent, and was multiple generations of bass players before him in his family. And so that was…well I’m still talking about it. It’s Gary Karr.

Rebecca: His last name was spelled K-A-R-R, is that right?

Dale: That’s correct, mhm.

Rebecca: Okay, Gary, just a normal spelling for Gary?

Dale: Mhm.

Rebecca: Well that’s cool.

Dale: Yeah.

Rebecca: Well I’ve lost when that was.

Dale: I don’t, I don’t know either, probably the seventies.

Rebecca: So you still would have been in high school probably.

Dale: High school or college, yeah.

Rebecca: Not necessarily, I forgot we graduated.

Dale: Yeah, ‘74 maybe.

Rebecca: Yeah. Yeah that would have been in high school.

Dale: Yeah.

Rebecca: Okay, so moving on from your high school years to later, you have played in the symphony off and on…let me think, I know…well you were accepted as a sub most recently, is that right? Not let into the section?

Dale: Right, well, the level of playing in the orchestra has really improved, and I think orchestra went from, you know, trying to focus on local players to more of the audience experience. And so the, auditions have changed. If you want— you need to be able to play a concerto [showy solo piece for soloist, with orchestra accompaniment] if you want to audition for the orchestra at least in the string bass section last time. I just, I just don’t— I mean, it’s been a long time since I took any lessons, I mean I have played professionally and semi-professionally around the world but I haven’t played a concerto, and there are a number of string bass programs that have grown up through the years at various universities. One of them is in Greeley [Colorado], and there are students who go and pay for college education where the focus is string bass performance. And so those players, when they get out of the university program, they need gigs. And so it’s— since Casper is a regional orchestra now, they will audition for those jobs and it’s— it’s just more difficult for a local player, it’s more difficult for a player that doesn’t have the same credentials to get those jobs. So I haven’t played in the orchestra for years. But I think I’m on the…I mean COVID really changed things, I don’t know if they’ve had any substitutes in the past couple years but I think I’m on the— I mean I was told I’m on the substitute list. But I’m very blessed, I have a lot of gigs. And I get to play a lot of different kinds of music, and including in a couple orchestras in Wyoming. It’s not a problem but it— the, the level of the musicianship in the orchestra has been improved, and I would say, at the expense of local players who get no— there’s no margin; you either play the part best or you don’t.

Rebecca: Dale I don’t recall if it was you or somebody else who told me that since Christopher Dragon is the conductor and he’s also the main conductor of the Denver Symphony, do I have that right?

Dale: I don’t, I don’t know, um…

Rebecca: He’s affiliated with the Denver Symphony somehow.

Dale: He is, mhm.

Rebecca: Yeah, so his presence in Casper is attracting people, musicians, who want to come to his notice, and one of the ways they can do that is audition here in Casper.

Dale: I don’t know if it was me that said that, I think it’s probably true though.

Rebecca: Yeah, which kind of pushes out local talent like you. I have to say, I noticed that at the time and wasn’t too happy about…I mean, you’re confident, you could play in the orchestra, no problem. But that's just my private opinion.

Dale: Well, and I—it’s just different, it isn’t the same as what it used to be and I think that that happens. I mean, I— I I don’t know that it’s a tragedy for local musicians. It’s certainly different and it ...  doesn’t foster local musicians, and it affects the community in this way. And then if there’s not local people playing those parts, then there’s not local teachers teaching parts. And there are exceptions, there are students who might go the whole distance, but as a general rule that won’t be what…I mean the community— if you need a cello player you might not have a cello player that you can find to do a gig because now they come from other places. But, that said, that is what has happened, and the orchestra sounds great, and if you’re in the audience it might be a better experience, that’s just the way it is.   

Rebecca: Yeah I’m sure it is, I remember they tackled Mahler’s Fifth [Symphony], not that many years ago. That’s not an easy piece of music and it’s a real treat for the audience.

Dale: So it’s just different, you know, it’s just different. and that probably changes, with each board and as boards evolve and as management evolves. I know each manager has their own…you just never know what’s—till a person is in a job, in any profession, what’s really gonna be their forte, until they’re in their— maybe their second year and begin to form here their organization heads. And I think that that’s true with the symphony and through the various management that has been, and you mentioned Chris Boor and me and Holly, each of us had our own thing that we do, and there was a guy by the name of Kent Steiger, who I think was the very first symphony manager and he was a professional. Great smile, good person. And trying to herd the symphony into having a management, you know, having real management as opposed to a shoebox under somebody's bed, you know. there’s just a lot of changes you know, and it’s evolving. But I think the bottom line it is based on, people loving music and you know, their experience with that, totally positive thing.

Rebecca: Can we jump back in time? I remember you telling me this when I interviewed you for the article I wrote on the subject, to when, I think you were high school you served in— you were on the board and learned a whole lot about fundraising?

Dale: I did. I was very shy, you might remember, in high school. I actually knew you, I didn’t talk to many girls for sure. and I got elected to the symphony board as a symphony representative, and I was very young. And I went to a meeting, it was at ... [Marta Stroock’s] house, and there were, I don’t know, 20 people there. And they had Ralph Black from the American Symphony Orchestra League in New York City come to the [unintelligible]. And Ralph was there, he wore dark suit, dark tie, white shirt, slicked back hair, looked very much like he was from New York. You know I was probably— I might have had a shirt with a collar on.

Rebecca: And you had a beard, and your hair was a little long.

Dale: It might have been. But we— so we were there in that setting, you know, and they were talking. It was a…I guess nowadays what you’d call a retreat. And we were talking about how to fund the orchestra and what could be done to improve the funding. And at the time I think the symphony had two and a half seasons in the bank so they could run for two and a half seasons without any fundraising. They’d been doing it. And it was because there was the guild, and there was the board, and the board would get together and in somebody’s office and the phones were such— you know, you had those phones that you’d look at and you’d have a…you’d have different buttons you could push for different outside lines. We’d have five lines, and they’d blink when it was busy. And so we’d get together in an office and they would have pizza or they would have— or somebody would make food and you would have list of people who’d supported the orchestra in the past and lists of people who hadn’t supported the orchestra but had been seen at a concert, and their phone number. And the thing you did was pick up the phone, push the button, and dial the number and say “Mrs. Rebecca, this is Dale Dale from the symphony, and we’re in the middle of our fundraising, and  we— you know, we want you to participate with us, could you give us a thousand dollars?” And a lot of people were like, “Well I don’t know if I— I don’t really know if I can do that,” you know, I don’t ask people for money. And so Ralph Black was saying um–this is something I just— it’s just stuck with me a lot of years–he gave us all a piece of paper and he gave us a little golf pencil, a little pencil. and it— and he said okay, now make a list of people who give money to orchestras. And so in this group, you know, they were saying well, people that own boats, people that own businesses, people that are professionals, people that love music, people that, you know, buy nice clothing, I mean all these different, different ways of explaining who it was that gave money to orchestras. But at the bottom line, and he probably had a kind of a roundabout way of doing this, but the bottom line, he said, the only people that give money to orchestras, symphony orchestras, are the people you ask, and not many others. And boy, that was sure my experience, in the symphony world. But, so I was in high school and so he said, you know, if you call someone on the phone and you say, would you give me a dollar? He said they probably will. He said if you ask for a hundred dollars, they— they might. He said, if you ask them for a thousand dollars,  you’ll never offend, because they’ll think “This guy thinks I can give him a thousand dollars,” you know, when in fact, if you only could— you might give five hundred, you might give a hundred, but the fact that they thought that you could give a thousand made you feel better. And so he said you just don’t have to worry about— just don’t ask for too little, don’t ask for five hundred if they could give you a thousand, or five thousand, or ten thousand. And so he’s also the one that you know, ask them to join you in supporting the orchestra because nobody wants to be the one that pays when you're not. So you’re calling them to ask them for money but you’re not doing anything. So you know, join me in supporting the orchestra, and I thought that was really good advice. Who gives money to orchestras? Only the people you ask. 

Rebecca: That’s so logical.

Dale: It is.

Rebecca: So, something has occurred to me while you were talking. So looking at that symphony program, there’s always a list of supporters according to— categorized according to how much money they gave.

Dale: Right.

Rebecca: Right, so, it dawned on me, I saw my parents’ business way up at the top, that they gave a lot more in proportion to their income than a lot of other people but that was leaving out of the picture all the fundraising things like the balls, and the dinners, and the things like that that a lot of these other people that appeared to be giving less were actually spending lavishly at these auctions, at the balls and dinners. Do I have that right?

Dale: You do.

Rebecca: Yeah.

Dale: Yep, yep,

Rebecca: Well, what it really takes— oh, go ahead.

Dale: Those— those fundraising things were really interesting. One time the uh— Susan and I, my wife Susan, and I used to donate a dinner at our cabin. And I— I would— I thought of it as okay, I have the expense of the steaks and the expense of the wine. And so I would say this dinner is for eight, eight people and it includes, you know, all these different things. And it would— it would cost us hundreds of dollars to do this party for the symphony. And one time a local real estate person decided he wanted that party. And we had music by the Tremors [a Casper band] so my friend Cory and I would play music, and I thought, you know, we’d cook steaks on the open fire, we’d play some music, we’d have some wine, and it’d be great. and we did that one year and it was really, really fun, and the next year we did it again, and one of the people that’d done it the prior year stood up and said, we did this, and it was really fun, he said, it was just so so easy, and just really a lot of fun. And so a bidding war started, and it was a real estate person, and a doctor, and they started bidding on this party. And the real estate person finally said, I am not gonna be outbid by a doctor. And I think that it was at ten thousand dollars for this dinner, I mean I was laying down by the fire cooking steaks and we were serving, you know, probably a 20 dollar bottle of wine which is not cheap but it wasn’t like, a ten thousand dollar dinner. But it was, and it sold for $12,000 that year, and for a couple years after that. And and the same person bought it, we had a great time. And anyway, [unintelligible] was the support of the symphony supporter. And then at one point it was decided that that dinner was a little too rustic because there was an outhouse at our cabin, and instead of a bathroom. So they moved it to another location where there was, you know, indoor plumbing and the dining got to be like magazine quality table settings and I'm sure they must have served a meringue, what do you think? Anyway, it was really, really fun. Those parties were so much fun. And those things didn’t— you’re right, they didn’t— they weren’t what was put into the, to the program in support of the orchestra, those were just things you did to make sure it all worked, and the people whose name was put in the orches— in the program as supporters for cash donations.

Rebecca: Right. Well, those are great stories.

Dale: All in all, you know, it’s just amazing that there’s an orchestra on the high plains of the Rocky Mountains and that there has been all these years, and people who’ve— who’ve…I mean it’s changed people’s lives. It changed my life, for certain. Gave me a different appreciation for things and it, you know, music and math, I think are— established that they’re pretty close to the same part of the brain that you use, and I used to be able to just, do a lot of math in my head and people would say my god, how do you do that? And I— I think it’s the music. I think it’s listening to all those different parts and how that all works and the value of that in a person’s life is…is immeasurable. So I’m just eternally grateful for having had the Wyoming Symphony in Casper all these years, and for everything that I personally got. You know, it’s— there’s a lot of rough and tumble to an organization that has 60 or 80 or 100 or 120 people involved, but it was really beneficial.

Rebecca: Well, you look back at the early days and it’s really kind of amazing that Casper, Wyoming could give rise to a civic orchestra.

Dale: Yeah.

Rebecca: And from there I guess the growth isn’t too surprising, but it sure took a lot from a lot of different parties and organizations.

Dale: Yup, sure did. And a lot of people after me, you know, that the symphony managers, there’s probably five or six since then, and another one coming.

Rebecca: There’s gonna be a change in managership?

Dale: Yeah, Rachel Bailey gave notice, I think May 13th was her last day.

Rebecca: My goodness, I didn’t know that.

Dale: Uhuh, and she’s— I don’t know what she’s gonna be doing, she didn’t really say, but she said she’ll be in the ... audience, so we’ll see.

Rebecca: Well, well, she was there quite a while.

Dale: Yeah, she was, she was.

Rebecca: Okay, is there anything else you would like to tell us about your experience with the symphony or being manager or anything like that?

Dale: I think I’ve said it. You know, it’s just such an amazing thing and what a great opportunity and I certainly have benefited and appreciate it.

Rebecca: Okay, well, I really appreciate your giving us your time today.

Dale: Of course. Well, thanks for doing the interview and thanks for your interest in the orchestra. I think it’d be easy to lose that history, and we won’t because of your work.

Rebecca: Yeah, we have to keep it alive, definitely, trace it from the beginning to the end, if possible.

Dale: Yeah. Well, best to all of you, all of you Rebeccas at the [unintelligible] Goose Egg.

Rebecca: Thanks Dale, same to you.

Dale: Okay.

Rebecca: Okay, bye.

Dale: See you, Becky.