Building a Chamber Symphony Library with Mikael Scheremetiew
Frances Walton explains that when the Thalia Chamber Symphony was founded, we didn’t have music for smaller orchestras. Mikael Scheremetiew, the founder of Thalia in 1949, started the library by charging members $1 each, and he used the proceeds to acquire music. Michel Jolivet remembers Helen Nelson, a friend of Mikael’s who took care of the library. Fran mentions that Mikael lived in that the house with the library, and in fact died there [in Oct, 1977]. Ann Rackl mentions that she’s learned though archiving that Mikael was overseeing a variety of music programs in the city, even in the early 1950’s. Fran says that she started out as the pianist for Thalia’s choruses, operas, and so on.
Bringing the conversation back to the Thalia Chamber Symphony, she mentions playing Beethoven Symphonies 1-8, as well as Haydn and Mozart. She says that because Thalia Chamber Symphony had the best players from Thalia, it was possible to accomplish a lot.
Summary and Notes by Ann (Dwyer) Rackl