A conversation with … Dr. Yugo Sava Ikach
Dr. Yugo Sava Ikach
Dr. Yugo Sava Ikach plays the piano in the music studio at California University of Pennsylvania.
One of the first things that Washington Symphony Orchestra principal conductor and music director Yugo Ikach says to me is that he’s got the best job in the world. The reality is, he has several of them. In addition to his work with the WSO, he’s the director of choirs and chair of the music department at California University of Pennsylvania, and the director of music at Immaculate Conception Parish in Washington. He holds degrees from Carnegie Mellon University, the Peabody Conservatory of Music at Johns Hopkins University and West Virginia University. He’s passionate about what he does, and it’s not only obvious when he talks about it, but when he puts his ideas into action. For example, last season, the WSO paid tribute to the late, great David Bowie with a rendition of “Space Oddity,” with the choir singing “Ground control to Major Tom …” with orchestra backup. Ikach has figured out how to make the classics not only accessible, but fun with a capital F.
A native of McKeesport, he now lives in Washington with his wife, Charmaine (a professional dancer; they met when they were paired up in a show), and their children Savannah, Arwen, Isaac and Isabelle. “If you try us once, you will definitely come back – because its not a concert, it’s an event,” he says of the WSO. “It’s an event that’s fun and a little unpredictable, and I think a lot of people would be surprised by not only just how much fun we have, but how much fun they would have by coming.”
We actually spoke to Ikach at the beginning of 2010 for this very piece, “A Conversation With …” and in that time, things have changed for the better for the symphony. “I actually listened to a recording from 2010 and another recording from a year ago, and I thought, ‘Wow, we’ve really gotten better,'” he says. “When you do something long enough, you can’t help but get better.”
Another plus for the symphony in recent years is that the organization has been successful enough to hire a full-time employee. “We went from an organization with almost no paid employees – any grant writing, any going after major donors, that was all done by board members voluntarily. Hundreds of hours were being donated. A little more than a year ago, we hired a full-time general manager, Adam Shaffer.”
Ikach continues, “That’s exciting because not only did we need a full-time employee, but we had saved enough money that we were in a position to have a salary for someone.”
Read on to learn how the Washington Symphony Orchestra “progressed from a little regional symphony to a viable regional symphony.”
Q. How did you get into music?
A. I started in the band in fourth grade, and teacher comes and says, “Hey, what do you want to play?” I said, “I want to play drums.” And he said, “I’m sorry, we have enough drummers.” I said, “OK, what else is really loud?” He said trumpet, so I played trumpet all through grade school and high school. I really loved it, had a great time with it. I went to college and had my first year, majoring in computer science because that’s what I should do, and after a year of that, I started doing some musicals in the summer. I got cast in a show that I had to sing a high note, and I couldn’t sing it: I cracked. I thought, I better learn how to sing. And I had sung in high school choir a little bit, and I could read music. My voice teacher said, “Yugo, why don’t you go into music?” It never dawned on me that I could do what I liked in life. So I switched majors and I switched schools, went to Carnegie Mellon University. Up to that point in my life, I never had anything in life that I thought I could put all of my eggs into one basket and try. I said, “This is it, I love this.” I lived, slept, breathed music. It’s what I did all the time.
Q. How did you end up with the Washington Symphony Orchestra?
A. I’ve been the music director at Immaculate Conception since 1992 – we’ve taken the church twice to Rome and sang for the Pope. We have a real active church choir there, wonderful people. I love it. Dave Owens, who started the Washington Symphony Orchestra, asked me to sing for them. They were doing this program where it was like an Oktoberfest kind of thing. I did this rousing drinking song with some other guys who sang backup. At that point, I think I had just been teaching part time at Cal U., and he got to know that I conducted – in high school I was the drum major and I had been conducting orchestra with the church choir for a number of years. We realized we had similar ideas on programming, getting people into the hall. He had the idea of doing accessible classics, things that people would know and love. So when he realized we were sort of on the same page, he had me guest conduct that same year. I sang in October and in May they did a concert called “Cartoon Capers,” and we did all cartoon music. If you watch “Bugs Bunny,” that’s classical music. I had a great time. At that point, Dave said, “OK, I think it’s time the orchestra gets a full-time conductor,” because he had always conducted up until that point. So he talked to the board, and I interviewed, and they hired me. The very next season I conducted all of the concerts. I have a blast.
Q. How has the WSO grown over the years?
A. Every year, we saw great increases in our attendance. We went from the George Washington Hotel and maybe 200 people to the Washington Park Elementary School that seats 400. Our last concert, we had to add 80 chairs. Then we went to Trinity High School – that seats more than 1,100, so that’s a huge hall. We did have one concert where we had to tell 75 people with money in their hands that they had to go home, and we felt bad. So we sold out Trinity one of our Christmas concerts, and that made us add a second Christmas concert. Not only has the audience grown, but the orchestra has grown. The quality has risen. I think one of the things that’s wonderful about the Washington Symphony is that it is made up primarily of Washingtonians. So you can look up there see people in your community. We meet once a week and rehearse for two-and-a-half to three hours. And then they practice at home. So this is a real love for these people. And our end product is pretty darned-good quality, and it takes us maybe six weeks to get there instead of two rehearsals. We don’t play anything watered down. Everything we play are bona fide orchestral pieces, and we play accessible classics, some that can be considered pops. One of the things we do better than a lot is we have a blast doing it. We don’t take ourselves too seriously; when we perform, we have a great time doing it. Last May, we did a concert called “We Will Rock You.” We did the first movement of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony – he was a rock star of the time. We did the “Danse Bacchanale” from “Samson and Delilah.” Then, we did things like “We Will Rock You.” So, the whole orchestra is clapping and stomping like Queen. The orchestra put Freddie Mercury mustaches on right before we did “Bohemian Rhapsody.” They gave me one, and I took a selfie during the concert with the orchestra behind me – that kind of fun is catching. I think the best compliment I can get is when a man comes up and shakes my hand and says, “You know, my wife made me come to this, and I’m glad I did.”
Q. Why is it important for smaller cities like Washington to have their own symphony orchestra?
A. For a lot of reasons: It’s really healthy. There’s a camaraderie among the musicians that builds a stronger community. No matter how tough of a day I’ve had and I feel like I’m spent, I go to rehearsal and it recharges my batteries. It’s like therapy. We’re all pulling for something together, locally, us Washingtonians. There’s something to be said for that. Same thing can be said for the audience side. I think it’s so cool for the audience to say, I have my neighbor who plays and they do a good job – we can call it our own and be proud of it. We try to do a lot with students; we have student players. We have a concerto competition where we have a student who is maybe in 10th grade, gets up with his violin and plays a solo with the orchestra behind him. That’s life changing! That person is a new person who is going to love the arts, who may come back to the community years later because of all of the fond memories they’re creating. I really believe you need to see live music in person because there’s an electricity with live music that you don’t get through the television. When you go to a local performance, often you can be right next to the performers. You can hear them breathe. You can see them after and talk to them, shake their hand. It’s a little more difficult when you go to a show in Pittsburgh. Everyone can take ownership of this organization. I think anytime you unite people on one cause, a worthwhile cause, it’s catching. And other people start to do good things because they see good things happening. That’s corny, but I believe it.
Q. What can people expect from this season?
A. No matter what concert they come to, they are going to have a surprise. I always try to infuse a little unpredictable fun, we’ll call it. I have a theatrical background. So I tend to look at these concerts not as concerts, but as events or shows. The Christmas Show is going to be a lot of traditional Christmas music that you’d expect to hear, but this year, we’re focusing on movies. So, we’re going to do Christmas music from say, Danny Elfman and Tim Burton’s “Nightmare Before Christmas,” “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” “The Polar Express.” I think we may do something from “Home Alone,” we’ll have a sing-along. I’m having the All Star High School Choir sing and I’m going to add Cal U.’s choir to that. February is “Home Grown.” We’re focusing on local talent. So we will have some church choirs sing. The Washington Jazz Society will perform with Dan Baker, Washington Community Theatre, Mon Valley Push polka band – we have all these local ties. Plus, the concerto competition winners. So whatever student wins will play with the orchestra. That’s our side-by-side concert where we have student players sit next to regular musicians and add to the ranks of our orchestra. The final concert is called “Irish Eyes.” We are going to do some wonderful Irish music, some step dancers, we have our folk/Irish fiddle player, Bob Banerjee. I’m hoping we get a lot of people who are if not Irish, at least Irish for a day.
Q. What’s on your iPod?
A. Wow. That’s a great question! Probably about 20,000 songs to start with. It’s pretty full. You can hear everything from opera to rap to jazz to musicals to church choir music. It is so eclectic, I think if someone picked it up they would think what in the world … what is this person, I can’t pin him down to anything! I love good music regardless of what style it is. I think there is really good classical music, and I think there’s some, to me, boring classical music. I think there is some really good rap, and I think there is awful rap. I think there’s good country and bad country, and I try to teach my students to gravitate toward that really honest, genuine storytelling and have an open mind as to the musical language that the artists are using. I could be on the way home listening to some heavy metal and other times I’m listening to disco. It’s eclectic. I’ll tell you what I’ve been listening to a lot lately – we have three bands here at Cal U. as part of this commercial music technology major – Hear Tonight, The Vics and Soulios. When I get in the car with the kids, I always have to turn on one of these Cal U. bands. My daughter has all the words memorized.