Creating a space to breathe together with Dave Möschler
Creating a space to breathe together with Dave Möschler
Award-winning Conductor and Founder of Awesöme Orchestra Collective
Awesöme Orchestra Collective (AÖC) is something of a unicorn in the San Francisco Bay Area (and that’s saying something). Existing among other radically inclusive and experimental groups (e.g., improv troupes with a political bent, flash mob musical productions), AÖC gathers around a hundred volunteer instrumentalists every month to put on “awesome orchestral adventures” that are accessible to musicians of all kinds and hosted in public venues like parks and gardens, community spaces, museums, and libraries (and sometimes after hours). A pop-up grassroots experience, the Collective invites the diverse public to join in open rehearsal-style performances of world premiers, film and multimedia scores, the greatest classics, jazz ensembles, vocal music, and big band arrangements. Its vision is to “create a new model for orchestras to represent, serve, and inspire their communities,” which means that everyone from local conductors, soloists, composers, and other community partners are a staple at every AÖC session.
Free of the rigid and classist etiquette of conventional symphonies and concert halls, AÖC’s form is novel and even a little mind-bending for most classically-trained musicians. After all, most of us grow up spending hours perfecting single notes and passages with little concern for play and connection. And those two things…well…those are the backbone of the Collective and dear to the heart of its founder, Dave Möschler.
Today, the maestro meets me in a cozy coffee shop in the middle of the afternoon. He is dressed in a plain shirt that departs slightly from his typical rehearsal attire of colorful, chunky cardigans. His only visible accessory is a large helping of waffle fries overflowing the sides of a petite takeout container in his hands (a very late lunch). Inarguably tall, Dave struggles a bit to fold into the little nook I have selected for us along the cafe’s eastern wall.
I first met Dave a decade ago in a dim orchestra pit, rehearsing the numbers to Sweeney Todd. Or, was it Urinetown? Up until that point, I had never played music that was not virtuosic or symphonic in nature, and so the opportunity to do so brought me immense joy. I was also fascinated by the existence of professional musicians in a community so inclusive and talented - and dreamed one day to spend my free time as an “adult” playing violin in these spaces. It was also then that I fell madly in love with the genre of musical theater.
Dave is decorated with many local and national accolades as a conductor and musical director, but he is perhaps most known for his humanness and generosity. In the words of Alexandra Simmons, an ambassador and clarinetist in AÖC, “whether he is gathering folks around a game board, a conductor's podium, or a fire pit, Dave shows up as one of the most good humans I've had the pleasure of knowing.” Alexandra recounts her first attendance at an AÖC session: “I walked into the venue, which was a beautiful upstairs room of a former church with a glass mosaic roof, and ran right into Dave. I didn't even have my nametag on yet, but he somehow knew who I was, greeted me by name, and welcomed me with such warmth and care that I knew I'd be a repeat customer at future Awesöme Orchestra sessions!” My first experience with the group was similar - inviting and memorable.
Dave cares for good music, of course, but first and foremost good people, and elevating vehicles to connect good people to each other. “Music is a conduit for us to connect,” he utters into the abyss between my teapot of green tea and his now-empty takeout box.
“Music is a conduit for us to connect” - Dave Möschler
Curious to know how a kid born on a cattle farm in Virginia and raised in the small suburban city of Kings Mountain, North Carolina came to embrace a livelihood of music-making here in the city of San Francisco, I ask Dave to share some of the adventures of his youth.
One of four siblings, Dave grew up a major band geek. He started learning tuba at age thirteen and followed his brother Jacob in taking up the electric bass as well. A somewhat shy kid in his small hometown, Dave soon realized that playing music helped him belong - and connect.
In addition to music, he spent significant time pondering philosophy, science, and human existence - perhaps slightly influenced by his mother’s career at the town’s library. Throughout his self-study, Dave nurtured a fascination with astronomy and physics. After high school, he attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to pursue a double major in astrophysics and music. He was fascinated with the application of laws of physics to stars and galaxies, and recalls many nights stargazing to record observations. Equally, he was vigilant with music and playing his instruments. In addition to classes and rehearsals all year long, Dave took on summer activities like staffing the music and astronomy summer instructions at the North Carolina Governor’s School, a residential program for gifted high school students integrating academic disciplines and the arts in Winston Salem, North Carolina. Not only did he love playing music, but he loved conducting and teaching as well.
By junior year of college, Dave started thinking seriously about where to take his career: physics or music? On the one hand, he enjoyed expanding his understanding of the universe. On the other, making music felt inseparable from his personhood. Then, one of his mentors - a theoretical physicist - gave him a piece of life-changing advice: “Every job feels mundane at least 90% of the time, and exciting for about 10%. So, if you find a job where you love the mundane 90%...then you will love 100% of your work.” These words sparked an epiphany. Imagining his two potential futures before him, Dave was more sure than ever that music would be his career. It gave him joy 100% of the time. In fact, sometimes he loved the mundane 90% even more than the exciting 10%.
A year later, Dave enrolled in the Masters of Arts in Music (Orchestral and Choral Conducting) program at the University of California Davis. In 2010, he graduated and was off - to make history.
Dave quickly made a name for himself in the Bay Area - conducting orchestral, wind, chamber, and choir repertoire as well as directing musical theater. He spent endless hours honing his craft, and built trust among his talented colleagues. He also absorbed the philosophies of other artists along the way. Van Dyke Park, lyricist for the Beach Boys and a true genius whom Dave had the opportunity to collaborate with once said to him: “our best work is always ahead of us.” Dave now exudes this as both an assurance and commitment to make great music.
“Our best work is always ahead of us” - Van Dyke Park
In 2013, Awesöme Orchestra Collective (AÖC) was founded by pure accident. It started when Dave gathered a couple friends to participate in a novel group in the city that organized flash-mobs by performing artists (i.e., comedians, musicians, thespians). Loving the community and fun of mashing together different performance genres to themes like Star Wars, Dave began to assemble larger and larger groups of friends to orchestrate musical acts. On one particular night, he gathered thirty others to convene and perform a mashup of Star Wars’ “Empire Strikes Back” and the overture Marriage of Figaro. Afterwards, one of his friends came up to him with a huge smile: “I’m usually already a fan of orchestras, but this … this was AWESOME.” It was unbelievably fun and people kept asking him: when’s the next one?
So, without meaning to, Dave reimagined an orchestra that was celebratory and inclusive. He recalls AÖC’s first unofficially official session, launched with an e-vite starting off something like this...
Subject: “An Awesome Orchestra Reading session.”
From: Dave Möschler
Recipients: Dave’s entire contact list of musician friends
Location: Mutual friend Brendan West and Travis Kindred’s live/work artist warehouse in West Oakland
In his mind, he was not necessarily naming the group “Awesome Orchestra.” He just couldn’t come up with anything else. Unbeknownst to him, folks loved the name. Now in its tenth year, Awesöme Orchestra Collective (AÖC) has played nearly one hundred sessions and is regularly invited back to venues and events including the de Young Museum, Golden Gate Park and Flower Piano, California Academy of Sciences, Exploratorium, SFMOMA, and many more. Today, over three thousand local musicians have played in the group.
As I continue to scribble illegibly across the pages of my notebook, recording all the characters of Dave’s adventures, I pause to admire what an incredible journey this must be. I wonder out loud: “What have been your emotional milestones of this journey?”
He pauses, thinking - smiling. I can almost see his mind wandering back in time. “Well…there are a few standout moments...”
He then tells me about the visceral reaction he experienced when Awesöme Orchestra was awarded its first micro grant: “It was a validation that others outside the collective also believed in what we were doing!”
He also had to pinch himself when recollecting the time he conducted the orchestra at a sold-out show at The Fillmore alongside cult band (and one of his favorites) The Dear Hunter.
Lastly, and perhaps a top-ten life moment, Awesöme Orchestra performed with the band Sly and The Family Stone at the Fox Theater in Oakland in February 2015. Right before the set, the lead singer, Sylvester Stewart, asked him a simple yet shocking question: “What key are we in?” Dave remembers freezing in time for a bit. Did Sylvester Stewart just ask me what key his own song is in? Coming back to his wits, Dave realized no - Sylvester wasn’t asking for information, but rather direction. He wanted to know what key Dave wanted to play the song in. And boy was it a miracle that Dave did not melt onto the stage right then and there…
So, what’s next for the award-winning conductor and musical director?
He will continue to split his time between his three passions: musical direction (with the Youth Musical Theatre Company and others), Awesöme Orchestra Collective, and teaching (through faculty appointments and mentoring avenues at colleges all around). As for AÖC, he hopes to grow the group to be even more accessible than it is now, to involve more artists and musicians, and to exemplify not only excellence in music, but - most importantly - excellence in community.
So, the next time you are in the Bay Area, be sure to drop in on an Awesöme Orchestra session as a musician or audience member! It is damn-near magic.