Show: On The Town Station: KNCO File: 9:8.mp3 Air date: 2026-09-08 Source: OpenAI whisper-1 · shrunk from 27.0 MB to 5.4 MB --- transcript --- Welcome to On The Town, but we're at the KNCO studios today and joining me on the second Tuesday of the month in Concert Sierra, but that means we go right to the top because they've been kind of celebrity carousing lately at every government meeting out there, including today's Board of Supervisors meeting. We have Ken and Julie Harden here, or Julie, is it correct to say Julie and Ken Harden? What's the correct way to put it? It depends on the day. All right. Julie and Ken would be alphabetical. Alphabetically correct. Yeah. You're executive director. I am. Artistic director you are, Ken. Yeah. That puts me in front alphabetically. Yes. Exactly. So you see how... But he should never be in the front. Actually, Julie, you're the boss. Yes. Yes. You're the boss, Julie. We all know that. Another recognition of the 80 years that In Concert Sierra has been in our community, giving us the arts and music. What was it like, Julie, to go to the Board of Supervisors and get this honor? Well, it was really fun because Heidi Hall, our supervisor, she actually gave us a proclamation and she was on our board for several years. Oh, that makes it extra sweet. So it was really lovely to have her do that, even though we are actually in Lisa Swarthout's district. Yeah. Lisa was also very sweet. It's a wonderful Board of Supervisors. It was fun. It feels like... I didn't know really what to expect, but I would say that I felt very comfortable because that's this community. It just is a really cozy, wonderful community and every time we're out there talking with people, we feel very comfortable. So I appreciated that. One thing, Ken, when I kind of looked at the proclamation, because you guys still had it in your hands from the meeting this morning, I am so used to seeing... I kind of joke the whereas and who has it and all that stuff that they say. Whereas, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Whereas, blah, blah, blah. It wasn't like that. No. Ken talks like that all the time. He does. He actually has done that to me a few times. This sounded very conversational and very nice. It really told the story of Twin Cities Concert Association starting back in 1946 and then becoming In Concert Sierra. It's been a long evolution and pretty amazing. They mentioned that it's highly... I think it was Lisa that said it's highly unusual for an organization like this, a nonprofit organization in any community, but particularly in a small community like this, to last for that long, to be around and still be vital, still be a vital part of the community. And growing. And if you don't mind me asking, as far as its history, starting in 1946, right after the war, was it the reason to get music back and people enjoying music after the trauma of World War II? Is that part of it? Well, I'm sure that was partly it and an effort to bring in very high caliber, professional classical music. So they were bringing people from the Bay Area at first and then gradually expanded that over the years. So yeah, I think a bit of a number of things and certainly one of them would have been, we have this opportunity now the war is over. Let's create a civic life that we want. Let's be thoughtful about what do we want. And there was the Community Concert Association that was a nationwide effort to basically they wanted to have a Carnegie Hall in every small town. Wow. Isn't that a wonderful thing to think about? Right. It's subscription based. You subscribe to it and they send different artists to your town. So we were part of that. It was actually started as a Twin Cities Community Concert Association and then it just went to Twin Cities Concert Association, still at Mouthful. I like in Concert Sierra, much easier. Yeah, it is. Yeah, it is much better. Yeah. I will say this about Carnegie Hall, a little trivia, Tom trivia. When we thought we had a little vocal band back in high school and we didn't really, but we thought we could. There's actually a picture of me and a couple of other guys trying to break into Carnegie Hall. Nice. Just jokingly. Just jokingly. We thought it would be a good album. Right. Right. A little PR. One across the river. A little PR piece. I can picture that. I can picture it. So could the cops. Yeah, they weren't too happy even though we were just fooling around. You know, one thing that was really cool this morning at the Board of Supervisors was a gentleman got up from the audience when they invited public comment on the resolution and a gentleman got up, introduced himself, his name is Mike Taylor, and so I knew of him, but I didn't know him. I've never met him. Yeah. And he got up and said a couple of very nice things about what we're doing, about the roof collapse and what we've come back from. And he said, and I really encourage anybody that hasn't been up there to see it, to go up and really get a sense of what they're doing up there because that's the only way you really understand it, is to see it with your own eyes. It being Crown Point Venues. It being Crown Point Venues, right, right, sorry, yeah. And it was just really nice. It was very heartfelt and just, it was one of those nice, serendipitous things that just happens because he was there and that's what we were talking about and he got up and actually took the trouble to say something. All right, so how long have you two been involved within concerts here? Do you have a year? For me, it's been 32 years. 32, okay. For us together, it's been 30. 30. I actually, when I started, they hired me as the marketing consultant and I made $500 a year. It was pretty impressive. How much? 500. A year? Yeah, it was a labor of love. It still is, really, but I make more than that. And the treasurer at the time, when we were getting to the end of the season, he said, I'm going to pay you the whole amount right now because I'm not sure that we're going to last beyond this season. And then that season was when we really kind of took the helm. And that season was the 50th season. I actually wrote the 50th season brochure and now I just finished the 80th season brochure, so I'm in my 30th year. All right, so in the 30 years, do you guys have highlights that really have always stayed with you? You know, special moments and stuff? So many of them. Lots of them. Because you may see it from different places, you know what I mean? You guys are married, which is a great thing. But artistically, business-wise? Right. Right. We have our own perspectives, which often align in terms of the experience, which is usually around an artist, a particular artist. We have so many artists that have become good friends. And Julie's great about keeping in touch with all of these people and reaching out to them if we need something, advice about something. We have this whole host of people we can go to. And then there were the really big highlights in terms of names that came along. I think 2010 was a big one. We were just changing our name to In Concert Sierra, and I was reaching out to bigger artist rep agencies to try to get some big names coming here. And so the first one we had was that season was the Vienna Voice Choir. Oh, I remember that. And it was really successful. Then five years later, we got Joshua Bell, the great violinist. And there have been a few like that that really were kind of placed by Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, which is the top chamber music ensemble in the world. And Wuhan. To have them here, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. We could go on and on. It's been pretty amazing. And I have to say that Ken is so great at programming and has so many wonderful relationships with artist reps that they really go out of their way to make it work for us. Yeah, that's the behind the scenes things, Julie, that people don't know about. You don't just make a phone call and it happens. You have to kind of develop. Well, and they know we're the third Sunday, so they have to figure out how to have a booking work on that date. Is that a plus or a minus? It's a plus for the audience. It's a minus in terms of being able to book anybody, whatever I might want to do. Like I've never been able to have a thematic season because I can't be sure that I can. I can't say this is going to be our theme and then hire around that because I don't know that we're going to be able to get the performers that would be able to be available on that third Sunday. Right, to really make that happen on a specific date of the month. So I'm way looking forward to Crown Point Venues happening so that I don't have... We're going to keep the third Sunday series because the audience loves that predictability, but I'm also going to book things whenever they're available. That will be so pleasant, won't it? Yeah. It'll be so pleasant for everybody. Yeah. It's going to change my life. All right. How are we doing with that? Any updates on that? Did you get the Board of Supervisors' updates that they asked about that? No, they didn't ask. They didn't ask. They didn't ask, huh? We have another little speed bump that we're working around and that just seems to be the nature of the financing game. They love to get a chain hooked to your ankle and then tug on it and every once in a while you run into one that just yanks the chain and pulls it right in your legs right off of you. Yeah, that's not fun. No, it's not fun. It's not fun. We've talked to a lot of people that have done similar things to this, not necessarily around a concert hall music and arts, but they all say the same thing. They've had a similar experience? They've had similar. It's just there's always stuff that you come up against, like having the roof collapse. Who would have guessed that was going to happen? We had to persevere through that. You just keep on pushing the rock uphill. That's the word we keep hearing is persevere, persevere, persevere. You'll get there. All right. How tough is it from the front office point of view to persevere, persevere? It's exhausting at times, but really you just put on a smile and keep going because we know there's so much momentum behind this from the community, from artists. I got Jason Veo, a guitarist. He's a Grammy award-winning guitarist. He wrote and said, when is my building going to be ready? When am I going to perform there? I bet. So many of them. There's a lot of excitement. We just talked to Wu Han from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center on Saturday, and she is so excited about the possibility and helping us find ways to get it funded. They're not just excited. They're participants. She and her husband that are the co-artistic directors there. They're investors. They're invested literally and figuratively. Weren't they responsible for a piano kind of helping to show up there? Two pianos. Yeah. Two pianos. Yeah. That's a relationship, Ken. Yeah. She met us. She and her husband David met us in San Francisco at the dealer for these particular pianos, which is very specific. They're Steinways, but they're made in Hamburg, East Germany, and they're stylistically a little bit different. And so Wu Han and I tried. There were eight concert grand pianos. We played them all, and we kind of narrowed it down to three. And then she and I were playing some piano four hands duets. We started playing this Schubert piece that we both love. And within, on one of the pianos in particular, within like 90 seconds, Wu Han and I were both crying. Crying. I remember that. Yeah. And then we look up and Julie and David are both crying. And so we thought, okay, this is one of the pianos right here. It sounded that sweet? It didn't sound that pure? It's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. The same thing happened when I bought the piano that I own. And the dealer took me around looking at a bunch of pianos, and I saw this one over in the corner. And I said, so what about that piano? He said, oh, that's a piano you're going to buy. And I said, oh, well, let me play it. I'll decide that. Yeah. So I went over and I started playing some Beethoven, and I turned around to ask Julie what she thought. She was just weeping. I cry a lot. Well, okay. I guess that's the one. Julie hath spoke. But it is true, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, it just reaches into your soul when you hear it. Yeah. So good and so pure. It does. It does. And that's exactly it. It's just so visceral. It gets right in there. I love that. I mean, the only experience I had that close, because I'm like a music idiot, you know, what do I know? But I had to do like a little announcing thing for one of the Fourth of July 3rd concerts, and Paul Perry was there. And there was this, I guess, maestro type of, I don't know the term, but it was a violinist that was there. And she was... Concertmaster. Yeah. Probably. Yeah. Exceptional. And I heard that. Yeah. And it stopped me in my tracks. Right. Yeah. And I said, before I started talking, I go, wow, you're really good. And all the guys laughed like a drafter. But I mean, you could feel it. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Yeah. Went right through me. It's the best. It is the best. Yeah. Yes, it is the best. And sometimes, sometimes it sneaks up on you. You don't really even, you don't know what's happening until this, you know, a little ways into it. And you realize, wow, I'm having a major emotional response to this. Well, I went from worried about what I had to say, because it was like a kind of a poetry verbal type of thing, right, that I'm not very comfortable with. Everybody thinks I'm good at that stuff. But I'm used to talking by myself on the radio, not in front of people. Anyway, so I'm having that anxiety. And it took me totally away from that. I totally forgot about that. Yeah. I was just... Wow. Just touched my soul. You went into the zone. Maybe five feet over my right shoulders where she was playing. Yeah. And I physically turned around. It was like, and then when I got it, like, like full force. Yeah. Yeah. How about that? Those are the experiences we live for. I didn't weep because I was scared to weep in front of people. I don't have that one. But I was close. I used to weep all the time. All right. Now that we talked about all that stuff, let's talk about what's coming up within concerts here. 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The Harden's here with In Concert Sierra, just spent the morning being honored by the Board of Supervisors and the Root Center, and rightfully so, 80 years strong, that In Concert Sierra has been presenting great music. You have quite a big group coming from Napa Valley. I saw the picture. It must be like a dozen and a half, two dozen people. How many people are in this? They're like 21 singers. It's an amazing sound. It's a life changing experience. But before we go there, I'm going to shanghai you just for a second and talk about something else that's coming up musically tonight. It's not ours, but many of our listeners are probably aware that we have a world class Scottish fiddler that lives in our community, Alistair Fraser, right? And just amazing. What's he doing? Well, I'm going to let Julie talk about it. It's not Alistair, but his son Galen Fraser and his wife, they live in Spain, but they're visiting and they're doing a concert tonight at 7 o'clock at the Center for the Arts. And I encourage people to go. Galen is a really incredible fiddler and he's just an incredible human being. And just watching him and his wife are on stage, she's a violinist too, but anyway, I'm super excited about it. I kind of mentioned that Alistair's not going to join him on stage. I think it's going to be an incredible show, so super excited. This is a Grass Valley Party concert. Wow. And you know, that's an interesting culture thing too, because you have these Scottish roots. They live in Spain now. Right. And have the Grass Valley roots. Right. That's quite a thing. He's a great guy. So back to Aeternum. Yes. Yeah. This Sunday, September 13th at 2 p.m. at the Seventh-day Adventist Church, as usual, 21 voices. Julie and I went to hear them. We were invited to hear them because, of course, they wanted to get a booking within Concert Sierra, and we knew several of the singers, because the singers for this group are drawn from some of the great a cappella small groups all over the planet. All over the planet. Okay. Yeah. Votuous Eight in the U.K., the Talos Scholars in Europe, and Chanteclair right in our backyard in San Francisco, and several others. And so the guys that are running this live in Napa, and well, one of them lives in L.A., grew up in Napa, the other one lives in Napa, and they're singers, and they thought it would be cool to put together a large a cappella ensemble with people from all these different groups. Yeah. So they did that. We went to hear them last year, and were just blown away, just floored. It truly is a life-changing experience to hear voices like that, in harmony, professional singers. That makes a difference, too. Yeah. Yeah. And, oh my gosh. And this program called Origins. Origins, right. Right. So a lot of the a cappella, beautiful a cappella music that was written first for complex harmonies of voices, was written back in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. So they're starting with some of that literature, and then they're leapfrogging over centuries to modern composers, and having pieces that are sort of reimaginings of some of the pieces from the Renaissance period that they're singing first in the concert, these reimaginings from living composers. And it's a fascinating program. Yeah, it's fascinating. And it's going to be just spectacular. I'm going to be crying. Yeah, you're going to be crying for sure. I mean, talk about talent to kind of... Come cry with me. ...to reimagine some of those... Yeah. Yeah. ...those songs. Yeah. Wow, that's amazing. All right. So tickets still available, right? Tickets are available. All right. At the door. You can show up at the door, or on the website, inconcerts.org. Yes. And, of course, you can call the office, 273-3990. Yes. And Michael Cohn and Adam Klein are there, ready for your calls. All right. That's great. Now, how's Micah doing? I haven't seen Micah for a while. I know. We've got to get Micah back here. Micah's doing great. He's going to be Dracula pretty soon, you know, at Off-Broad Street. Yeah. He's just pretty unstoppable. I figured he was just doing that for funsies. He does do it for funsies. Yeah. Yeah. And then he'll be doing Hamlet, I think, with John Dedrick. Right. Oh, man. And then he's going to slow down for a while, because we need him. Do you see him being in the, you know, of course, Crown Point Ventures is going to have its Black Box Theater. He's going to be involved with that? Oh, absolutely. Yes. Yeah. He'll perform there. Yeah. He's definitely part of the leadership team. Yeah. All right. For people, the Board of Supervisors had a totally big point. A lot of people still haven't seen it. A lot of people haven't taken time to tour it and stuff. Obviously, that's the best way to get involved, I think. And it's a great time to see it, because as soon as we get our financing locked down, it's not going to be open framing under construction. It's going to, things are getting covered up. So it's really interesting to see the bones of the building. It's all enclosed and weatherproof, everything. But you see the open framing and how things are put together, and it really is interesting. And often, Micah will sing in the concert hall, so you get to really hear the acoustics. Yeah. You know what? I've teased him on the air before about singing. I can't anymore, because I've heard him sing. He has a beautiful voice. He does. Beautiful voice. Yeah. Now, how are your guys' voices? Because you sang at a Grass Valley City Council meeting just recently. Right. Right. Was that planned? Was that spur of the moment? Well, it was sort of planned. It was planned on our part. It was rehearsed improv. They didn't know, the council didn't know what was going to happen. Right. It was an original song. It was sort of a flash mob. It was an original silly song. Yeah. A silly song about... It was a little round. We had to get everybody in the audience and the Supes to sing with us. Oh, how'd that work? It was okay. It worked pretty well. And, of course, we had packed the house, so we had a bunch of singers there. That's right. That's the way to work it. That's the way to do it. All right. Inconcertsierra.org is the website. Yes. Get out there, not only for the group coming up from Napa. The whole season. The whole season. Is awesome. Check that out. And then tonight. Yeah. Exactly right. That's right. Tonight at the Center for the Arts. Galen. That sounds like a great idea. Yeah. All right. That's 7 o'clock tonight. Maybe I'll see you out there. All right. That does it for us. --- end of transcript ---