The Daily Mining Gazette - Published: Thursday, April 12, 2007 Print Article | Close Window One final performance Horn player looks back at 36 years with KSO CAPTION: Photo courtesy of Bill Fink The Keweenaw Symphony Orchestra will perform Satrday at Michigan Tech University’s Rozsa Center. By DAN SCHNEIDER, DMG Writer HOUGHTON — The Keweenaw Symphony Orchestra will say goodbye to the last of its first Saturday. When the orchestra performs the final concert of the 2006-2007 season, it will be French horn player Judy Spahn’s last concert. Spahn has been with the orchestra since it began in 1970. She arrived in Houghton that year with a musical background that started when she was a fourth grader in Hamburg, New York. “The school that I went to, music was huge, so we started in fourth grade and had weekly lessons in school,” Spahn said. Her music teachers there had a role in her choosing the French horn for her instrument. “They looked at your lip structure and decided what you should play — probably what they needed,” Spahn said. In college at Cornell University, she played in a concert band and a brass quintet. Then a community orchestra in New Jersey. Then onward to the Copper Country, where she found a number of musicians. “There’s a strong musical background up here,” Spahn said. Around the time she arrived on Superior’s shores, Keweenaw Symphony Orchestra founder John Clark was getting started founding the symphony. As now, “it was students, faculty and community,” Spahn said. A seventh grade math teacher at Houghton Middle School, music has always been Spahn’s number one avocation. “I have a lot in common with people who are involved in music,” she said. “We think alike and I am a math teacher and I think math and music go together and I think that’s why Tech is so successful with their musical groups. There are no music majors, but there are some excellent musicians.” Looking back at the whole history of performances with the orchestra, the one that comes most quickly to mind for Spahn was last spring’s gig with the Alan Parson’s Live Project. She remembers it for its complexity and its free flow. “We did have music, but we were sort of winging it, too,” Spahn said. “The music, especially the French horn parts, were very difficult.” And the crowd appreciated it. “Any time you have two sold out concerts and everyone is involved and enjoying it, it just makes it so much more fun for the performers,” Spahn said. She has enjoyed collaborations with other musicians. “It’s a very emotional experience for me to be playing with them, listening to them, having them right there on stage with you,” Spahn said. “Our recent concert with Whitewater was great, too.” She remembers the transition from the orchestra’s early days and venues to today. “The other thing that just means so much to me is the change over the years from rehearsing in the basement of the DHH (Douglass Houghton Hall), and performing in the basketball gym. From that to performing in the Rozsa Center. The Rozsa Center is just the greatest thing that ever happened.” Spahn’s favorite composer is Mozart. “He like the French horn,” she said. “Great horn parts.” Saturday’s performance will feature local musicians Nicholas Enz and David Olson as soloists. Enz will solo on Claude Debussy’s “Rhapsody for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra” and Olson will perform Carl Maria von Weber’s “Concerto for Bassoon in F Major.” Also on the program are Ravel’s “Bolero” and Johannes Brahms’ “Academic Festival Overture,” which is Spahn’s favorite work featured that evening. The performance begins at 7:30 p.m. at Michigan Tech’s Rozsa Center. Tickets are $15 general admission and $5 for students. Dan Schneider can be reached at dschneider@mininggazette.com