Maestro from the majors Maestro from the majors Maestro from the majors

Even Peter Erös' wife wondered why he would want to "bury" himself at the University of Washington School of Music, after building a distinguished career working with some of the finest orchestras and opera companies in the world.

Here was a man who had conducted the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, the Cleveland Symphony, the Chicago Symphony, the London Royal Philharmonic and the Israeli Philharmonic. He worked at some of Europe’s most prestigious opera houses, including the Bayreuth Wagner Festival, the Salzburg Festival and opera companies in Hamburg, Cologne, Budapest and Stockholm.

He ran three orchestras, including nine years as the musical director of the San Diego Symphony, and taught at one of the most prestigious musical conservatories in the U.S., the Peabody Conservatory of Music. Now, he told his wife in the spring of 1989, he was going to leave his conducting post in Aalborg, Denmark, to teach at a state-supported institution tucked away in the northwest corner of the United States.

It’s as if a veteran major league pitcher like Nolan Ryan voluntarily sent himself down to the minors.

Indeed, even after being at the UW for a year, Erös is so tired of answering the “why ” question that in a recent interview he didn’t wait to be asked. The rather short, rotund Hungarian impulsively plunged right into an explanation.

He agreed that in some musical circles, a move from conducting to teaching is regarded as “downgrading,” but that attitude is merely a reflection on the snobs who hold it. “After a certain age, teaching young people is just as much a conductor’s duty, … just as important as making your own career.”

In a statement that grateful alumni can appreciate, he says, “I was very lucky in my life. I had wonderful teachers. … I wanted to give back to young people what I had got.”

Coincidence and kismet also had a great deal to do with Erös’ decision. When he was looking for possible teaching jobs, he saw that the head of the UW’s search committee was a former colleague from the Concertgebouw, Steven Staryk, who now heads the UW violin program.

The 57-year-old Erös also had a personal reason for choosing the UW over two other job offers he had in the spring of 1989. “I’m a West Coast man,” he admits freely.

To sweeten its offer, the School of Music was able to name Erös the Aura Bonell Morrison Professor of Music. The first endowed professorship in the music school, the private funding allows the conductor more resources and more creative freedom. “I am able to do things for my students that I would normally not be able to do,” he explains. With the money, he has been able to hire a teaching assistant for the orchestra, purchase special stereophonic equipment and secure an orchestra personnel manager.

Locally, the arrival of Erös was regarded as a coup for the UW.

“His musical strengths are his links to the great, mainstream, European conducting tradition, an ability he will be able to pass on to his students,” says Melinda Bargreen, the Seattle Times music critic.

Those links were forged in Hungary, where Erös was born in 1932. He came from a musical family that held Sunday afternoon chamber music concerts in its Budapest home. Erös began to read music at age four, when he was allowed to turn the pages for the pianist at these Sunday sessions.

He later attended the famous Franz Liszt Academy of Music, where his instructors included the great Hungarian composer and music theorist Zoltan Kodaly.

As an example of the student-professor interaction, Erös says that anyone could approach Kodaly, provided he was willing to join the composer at his 6 a.m. nude swimming ritual in a local pool. “I myself never did, because I didn’t like to get up that early,” he wryly comments in his soft Hungarian accent.

Erös graduated from the academy in 1956, the year of the Hungarian uprising. He already had a job as an assistant conductor at the Hungarian State Opera when the nation went into revolt that October. After a few weeks of freedom, the revolution was crushed by Soviet tanks. “Oh yes, I saw blood in the streets. I was standing in line for bread when they shot at me.”

Erös and his mother escaped to Amsterdam, and the young conductor had his first big break when he became an assistant to Ferenc Fricsay, one of the leading conductors of the 1950s. Later he was an assistant to Otto Klemperer and George Szell.

These legendary conductors, particularly Szell, had a profound influence on Erös. “For 10 years he was kind of a father figure to me. I never made a career decision without talking to him first. I still would now if he had not died.”

In the 1960s and ’70s Erös’ career went into high gear. He became the associate conductor at the Concertgebouw and then ran his own symphony in Malmo, Sweden. Perhaps his happiest moments came as the musical director of the San Diego Symphony, which he built from a community orchestra into a major regional symphony. “When I started in 1971 we had a $400,000 budget and six to seven concerts. When I left in 1980 we had a $4.5 million budget and 16 double concerts,” he says proudly.

Greatly loved by his musicians, they gave him a privately printed commemorative booklet which included cartoons and humorous quotes from the “maestro.”

To be adored by his musicians is a mark of how Erös works as a conductor. “He’s not a tyrant. He likes to motivate people to do what he wants,” says Jose Nilo Valle, a graduate student in conducting and the assistant conductor of the University Symphony. “Despite having worked with professionals, he’s very patient.”

Erös bristles at the suggestion that he expects less of his student orchestra. “I don’t see any difference between conducting a student opera production and conducting a New York City Opera production,” Erös says. “I try to bring the students up to my level. I don’t compromise.”

In Erös’ view, conducting is not some physical skill that can be taught, but rather an interpretive art. “It does not differ from the concert pianist,” he explains. “The Steinway grand is the pianist’s instrument; the orchestra is my instrument. I push on the keys. Using my—how do you say—charisma, and technique, I push those keys the way I want them to sound.”

During rehearsals the technical problems of making music are solved, he explains, but much of the interpretation comes during the performance.

But how much can be changed at whim, he is asked. In response, he challenges the reporter to recite Hamlet’s famous soliloquy. As the words pour out by rote, Erös begins to conduct, changing the words’ tempo and inflection by a pointed finger or flattened, descending hand. Afterwards, Erös insists on a repeat. This time he varies the inflection and speed. What was a rapid, toneless delivery of “tobeornottobe ” becomes a bombastic “to BEEEE … or NOT to be.” A catlike smile of satisfaction breaks over his face, as he sees he has made his point.

“He has a magic touch,” says Valle. “With just a few gestures he gets amazing things. It is an incredible rehearsal technique, highly effective and economic.”

This magic touch is crucial to the success he has had with his student orchestra. A university symphony conductor is never sure who is going to show up, since the orchestra includes both majors and non­majors. “People come and people go. They might play two quarters and then they don’t play the third quarter. … This is not a permanent ensemble,” Erös admits.

Yet Erös has been able to achieve impressive results in only nine months. His conducting debut last November, a production of Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte, prompted Times critic Bargreen to write, “Erös … is already working wonders with the UW student orchestra, which sped gamely along under his deft baton.”

Last spring, the University mounted Vanessa by modern American composer Samuel Barber. “I thought it was very good,” says William Dunlop, a UW English professor who reviews opera for the Seattle Weekly. “He got very good playing from the orchestra.” Noting that Erös also conducted a successful Cosi last fall, Dunlop adds, “he has a wide, eclectic range of accomplishment.”

This coming season, the operas will include Dominick Argento’s Postcard from Morocco in January and Mozart’s Abduction from the Seraglio in May. The conductor is looking forward to the season and says his mood has improved markedly since his arrival. “I’m now more optimistic. I feel better now than when I came here …. Now I know where I want to go and what I want to do.

“. . . Our function is to teach people to play in an orchestra. Apart from the educational side, the University needs to put up public performances of its students, to show the community we are doing a good job. It is the best students can do, the best teachers can do together,” he continues.

“Everything is possible, whether you are a student or a professional. It’s a matter of the art that you put into it.”

Musical munificence

Aura Bonell Morrison graduated from the University of Washington School of Music in 1918. Born on her father’s pioneer timber claim in the new state of Washington in 1896, she recalls that some of her fondest childhood memories include making music with her father and her sisters. When Aura and her sister, Hannah, came to the University, they decided that “if we went to college together and both took music, it would be more interesting than being separated.”

After graduation, Aura taught music in public schools. She also joined the Mountaineers, where she met her future husband, C.G. Morrison. They later moved to California where they had great success participating in the post-war building boom. But Aura Morrison had not forgotten the School of Music. In 1981 she responded to an appeal to buy a new concert organ.

Later she decided to create the first professorship in the School of Music through a gift of $250,000. Professorships may cover salary enhancements, support for staff, graduate research assistantships, travel or publication expenses, and other costs of scholarly activity. To increase the level of support, the University has matched the Morrison gift with $250,000 in state funds through the Distinguished Professorship Program. This popular, private-state matching program adds public funds equal to a $250,000 private gift, endowing a half-million-dollar professorship.

The UW already holds 10 Distinguished Professorships. Last March the state legislature authorized funds for five more professorships, and the Aura Bonell Morrison Professorship became the UW’s 11th in this program.