Minnesota Orchestra Music Director Thomas Søndergård was grieving last week for a childhood music instructor who’d recently died, a man he first encountered as a 9-year-old while growing up in Holstebro, Denmark.
“He was one of the most important figures in my whole youth,” he said. “There’s not one person that meant more to me in my education than my music teacher.”
Søndergård repeated that sentiment to an audience last weekend, appropriately enough, during special concerts in which the orchestra invited Minnesota music instructors to join them onstage.
The “side-by-side” events featured 54 educators from around the state performing a piece alongside the orchestra on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon as part of a sampler concert featuring selections from the upcoming season, which starts in September. The orchestra has held similar side-by-side concerts in the past involving students, but this was the group’s first time playing alongside teachers.
Each educator, selected from among more than 100 applicants, sat beside an orchestra member playing the same instrument. Together, they performed Gustav Holst’s “Jupiter,” part of a suite called “The Planets.” (If you don’t know that piece by name, you might find it familiar; it can be heard in movies and TV shows including 1983′s “The Right Stuff” and an episode of “The Simpsons,” and has been played during important occasions, such as Queen Elizabeth’s 1953 coronation.)

Ironically perhaps, this event celebrating music educators came at a time when the Minneapolis School District, facing a projected $115 million budget gap, is considering ending its districtwide fifth-grade instrumental music classes. Principals at individual schools would still have the option to spend their discretionary money on a music teacher, but not all schools could afford that.
In an interview, Søndergård was visibly saddened by the prospect of the cut, wondering if there was anything he could do to help. The side-by-side was planned long before the budget proposal arose, partly because Søndergård “expressed right from the beginning that supporting music education was key,” said Jessica Lowry, who manages education for the orchestra.
Søndergård values music education, and not just because it led to him becoming a world-famous conductor.