It has always been a given that the Terrible Adult Chamber Orchestra is not ready for prime time.
Excellence is desirable, but it’s not the point. That TACO is finally presenting a concert March 30 is an anomaly.
“‘Terrible’ is a way to say we’re ‘welcoming,’” says Cathy Humphers Smith, who has been running TACO for 15 years.
Conducting TACO, which consisted of 98 musicians at its monthly gathering Feb. 23 at the Los Altos Community Center, can seem like herding cats. Humphers Smith issues scores, a few weeks in advance, that a largely inexperienced musician can sight-read and play without exhaustive practice. Then she leads the assembled musicians through a three-hour session that for most is their only performance outlet.
“Because everybody can come and we never exclude anyone, it can be like bedlam,” Humphers Smith says. “There’s a lot of cacophony. We’re grateful when we can make it sound familiar.”
By the third run-through of Leroy Anderson’s “The Waltzing Cats” at the February session, the violinists were making their “meows” sound less and less like caterwauling.
“Cathy creates an environment that is very forgiving,” says Kyoung Park, a second-violinist.
There will be some pressure at the March 30 concert at the Visual and Performing Arts Center at De Anza College in Cupertino. The highlight of the 2–5pm concert will be the premiere of Nancy Bloomer Deussen’s final work, “Shoreline to Skyline.”
Among several other works, mostly with guest musicians, is Ron Levy’s “Central Coast Concerto,” with the composer at the piano, and a short film about Deussen and her creative process, “Silence to Sound.”
Bloomer Deussen was a Bay Area composer who strove to restore accessibility to serious music. The “Shoreline to Skyline” project began in 2017 and was supposed to mark TACO’s 10th anniversary. The composer’s death and the COVID pandemic delayed the premiere five years.
Humphers Smith will yield the baton to local conductor Tony Quartuccio, but the orchestra for “Shoreline to Skyline” will include about 70 TACO members.
Still, the March 30 performance is a one-off. Then TACO will return to its normal yet bizarre self.
The musicians pay about $30 per session, covering the music and facility fees.
“It’s tricky for Cathy, not knowing who’ll show,” says Ola Cook, a violinist and TACO board member. Proving that point, there were 17 cellos, 13 clarinets and 16 flutes on Feb. 23, which would be overkill in a normal orchestra.
Some TACO musicians are veteran performers. Several play in prominent Bay Area orchestras.
Brass players Roger Bazeley and Daniel Grumet, in their late 70s, are looked upon as mentors. They make a nearly 100-mile round trip from San Francisco, finding it worthwhile despite the numerous mostly-closer-by groups they also play with, the bulk of which would not like to be called “terrible.”
Bazeley is an 18-year cancer survivor and says playing music is “extending my life.”
Grumet underwent heart bypass surgery at age 55. During rehab, he “realized how much I enjoy trumpet.” He has since picked up French horn and says he’s probably better at that than at trumpet now.
Myra Orta, 91, is no beginner either: “I have played violin since I was 5 years old.” She formerly played in the Peninsula Symphony, among others. Yet she sits in the back at TACO, not wanting to stand out. “I’m old now and have arthritis.”
Joan Skernick was long retired when “I took up violin again. After six years, I could play the easier Beethoven quartets.” A subsequent arm injury took its toll, so now she plays no more than 20 minutes at a stretch. No problem.
Others are less experienced.
Mark Sarjeant of Cupertino took up clarinet in seventh grade, “then I put my clarinet in a closet and it stayed there for 40 years.”
Vilma Huertas, a 53-year-old electrical engineer, is a native of Puerto Rico who played violin at Swarthmore College, but kids and career got in the way. “This is my only group,” she says. “I’m so in love with this. It gives me motivation to practice and find music again. And if you mess up, don’t bow right, no one cares.”
TACO and Friends: Celebrating the Music of Nancy Bloomer Deussen takes place 2–5pm on Mar 30 at De Anza College Visual and Performing Arts Center Theater, 21250 Stevens Creek Blvd, Cupertino. Tickets: $40 ($20 students). tacosv.org
