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Building Community, Connections, and Support, with Noreen Green and the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony

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Today we talk with Dr. Noreen Green and uncover how to build community support for our orchestras. We discuss how she built the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony into a relevant and thriving orchestra that crosses cultural barriers to reach diverse audiences and how she used creative programming and collaborations to connect with her community of audiences.

Visit the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony at LAJS.org.

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Jeremy Cuebas:

Hi there, this is Jeremy, your host for podium time. Happy holidays and happy New Year. I'm recording this on December 28th 2023. Today I get to talk with Noreen Green, who is the founder and conductor of the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony. This was a fantastic discussion. We talked a lot about relevance and building support for your orchestra in your community through programming, through collaborations, and how she actually does that and how conductors can do fundraising. So I'm looking at these things with my orchestra right now and it was great. Noreen gave me some excellent advice from my group and then advice that you can take basically to any group. We also talked about the importance of mission and niche.

Jeremy Cuebas:

So I wanted to hop in here, say welcome to the podcast, introduce the episode and let you know right at the beginning the audio quality of my microphone is pretty low. It's been a while since I recorded an interview, so when I plugged my microphone into Zoom or into the computer, zoom forgot that it was supposed to switch to that microphone. So I was just using my computer microphone for the first maybe 10 minutes until I realized in the middle of the recording. So you will hear that change. But without further ado, here's our interview with Dr Noreen Green. Welcome to podium time. Today we're here with Dr Noreen Green. Noreen, thanks so much for being here.

Noreen Green:

It's my pleasure, very excited to talk with you.

Jeremy Cuebas:

Absolutely. Could you give us a quick overview of who you are and what you do?

Noreen Green:

Sure. So I am celebrating almost 30 years with the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony Orchestra that I founded and I'm the primary artistic director and conductor of the organization, and in addition I do choral music and I'm steeped in the Jewish music experience. That's kind of my niche and my specialty.

Jeremy Cuebas:

And I heard on another podcast you talk about Jewish music and the Jewish music experience. Could you outline what that is? Just, we're all on the same page.

Noreen Green:

Yeah, so I say that I present programming that explores the Jewish experience, music that reflects the Jewish experience. There's a lot of talk about what is Jewish music. I mean, is there a label that you can put on a piece of music that it is Jewish? And for me it's very subjective. There are certain elements that create Jewish music from the Torah, which is the five books of Moses, the Old Testament, which is sung at every time it's read. It's not actually read. It's sung with what is called tropes and if you remember your music history, gregorian chant, that was actually developed through the tropes that the Jewish canter or the lay person is singing the text of the Torah it's never read. So a lot of people feel that there has to be some kind of connection with those melodic structures in order for it to be Jewish music. There's also the Jewish prayer modes, and different prayer modes are done for different services the morning service, the afternoon service, the evening service, Much like the Catholic service, has their prayer modes for the different times that they pray. And then, of course, there's Israeli music and there's music.

Noreen Green:

Jews lived all over the world, so wherever they went, the melodic structures would change depending on what region they were in, what country they were in. So we do a lot of music on the Sephardic Jews. Let's say so. The Sephardic Jews come from Spain and in 1492 Columbus sailed the blue, but also Queen Isabel and King Ferdinand made a decree and said if you don't want to become Catholic and follow the Catholic Church, you either need to convert or you need to leave or you could be murdered. So the Jews in 1492, it's called the expulsion went all over the world and dispersed and they took that route of the Spanish music with them and then it was influenced then by wherever they went Morocco, turkey, the Middle East. In the Middle East there's Mizrahi Jews. Those are more the Arabic modes and they use those Arabic modes which is called a taqsim, which is very much like a Raga in Indian music.

Noreen Green:

The Ashkenazi Jews come from the German, austrian. The Pelis woman, it's called Eastern European Jews, are from the Ashkenazi tradition and that music is more based in the Germanic and Austrian and Russian style. Yiddish music, klezmer music, comes from that area. Yiddish is basically a German language. That was the vernacular for the Eastern European Jews and the most famous. In Sephardic the vernacular was Ladino, which is mostly the Spanish, an old Christian Spanish mixed in with Arabic and Turkish.

Noreen Green:

So what is Jewish music is a huge subject, as you can see. So I like to say we do music of the Jewish experience. So it doesn't necessarily have the prayer modes or the nigguns or the relationship to the motives, but the Holocaust is a Jewish experience and the music written during the Holocaust, music written in America, in American influence Gershwin Bernstein, you know that's they have their own Jewish music experience, copeland. And then, of course, music from Israel that has a whole different experience, with all the people immigrating to Israel and the influence that they did so. And then there's the holidays, a Hanukkah. How is a Hanukkah expressed? How is Passover expressed and what music represents the holidays? So we kind of do everything, yeah.

Jeremy Cuebas:

And it sounds like the diaspora and the variety of those influences is. I guess not critical but kind of foundational almost to a lot of those musics from around the world.

Noreen Green:

Right, exactly. So. That's the music of the Jewish experience and also, like I don't do, just Jewish composers either. The composers don't have to be Jewish to have the Jewish experience. For example, shostakovich he wrote, you know, the Bobby R and he wrote from Jewish folk poetry based on Yiddish folk songs. Then there's Prokofiev he wrote overture on Hebrew themes. Prokofiev had Jewish students that he was teaching and one of his Jewish students asked him to write an overture for their group, the Zimro group. So that's how the overture for Hebrew themes got started. And a lot of film composers are, you know, used the John Williams as a perfect example for Schindler's List. You know he's not Jewish, but he wrote probably the most iconic Jewish violin solo that everybody knows he has a Jewish soul, though we always say.

Jeremy Cuebas:

I love the story Just a quick detour that when Spielberg brought him the script, he said you're going to need a better composer. And Spielberg said yeah, I know, but they're all dead, so you have to do it.

Noreen Green:

Because I'm not Jewish. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a great story.

Jeremy Cuebas:

That's fascinating to hear because when I first encountered the Eli Jewish symphony, my assumption was that it was only Jewish members, only Jewish composers. But as you're talking about this, it's again really clear that that influence everywhere is, you know creates a lot of opportunity. So I don't think that you would actually have a lack of potential repertoire. You've probably got plenty.

Noreen Green:

Oh yeah, we got plenty of repertoire. And also it's not legal. You can't just have Jewish, you can't just hire Jewish musicians.

Noreen Green:

Oh yeah, of course, the orchestra is not just Jewish musicians, it's the repertoire that we perform that makes us a Jewish orchestra, and I try to hire soloists and stuff that represent a Jewish experience and it's listen. I'm the conductor, the artistic director and the head bottle washer for the organization. I kind of do everything. So it's a very subjective process. I mean subjectively, I choose music that resonates with me and who I am and what I think will resonate with the audience.

Jeremy Cuebas:

And what is kind of the mission of the orchestra, what was the original idea in founding it and then what keeps you going?

Noreen Green:

So actually the seed was planted by Murray Siddlant, who was my teacher in Aspen. I was one of the conducting students there and as part of our time there we have to gather other students and musicians and put on a concert. So I put on a Jewish music concert. Now, going back a little bit, my doctoral work was my treatise was on the music of David Dabakowski, who was considered the Bach of Odessa. He was the music director, conductor and organist at the Brody synagogue in Odessa and it was a very progressive synagogue, and he wrote a cantata almost every week to be performed in the Jewish service and he used the Odessa opera. Singers was his chorus. So it was very unusual and this wouldn't happen in an Orthodox synagogue. So I actually wrote the book about his music and his life and how. So I was very steeped in Jewish music already and working on it during my doctorate.

Noreen Green:

When I went to Aspen I decided to do a Jewish music concert and I went to the Aspen Jewish Center and they underwrote it. The Aspen Jewish Center is actually housed in the. If you've been to Aspen there's a church on the hill and that's where the Aspen Jewish Center was. So they take down the cross and they put up the star of David. So I went to the board there and they helped underwrite the concert and everybody came. It was just everybody came.

Noreen Green:

And my teacher, marie Sittolin, saw this and he said we need to have lunch tomorrow and so you should start a Jewish orchestra. You live in LA, there's an orchestra on every corner, but this is your niche and just do it at the highest level. So that he planted the seed. And then I had just gotten married and my husband you know, who's very Jewish and wanted, is very conscious of Sadaka giving back to the community. He thought this would be a wonderful opportunity to give back to the community and to create a Jewish orchestra. So that was kind of the inspiration to get it started. And then he formed a board. You know all those next steps. You can't apply for grants for three years, you need to have seed money. So the mission but the mission was always the same to provide opportunities to the presentation of music, of the Jewish experience. And then we added an educational component as well.

Noreen Green:

So, that's how it all started.

Jeremy Cuebas:

Yeah, and you, you. You basically started them and then ran it by yourself for a while. Is that right?

Noreen Green:

Yeah, I had, you know, assistant administrator and stuff. But yeah, for the first three years it was just me and one other person and we did maybe two, three concerts a year. We still just do two, three concerts a year. It's it's, you know, we're, we're, I call we're the Wandering Jewish Orchestra, so we're always collaborating with other organization and other venues and you know that that can be difficult, you know to to try and coordinate that. So but we've added a substantial education component and we have that several education programs that we do and chamber music programs, and I also have a choir so it keeps me busy.

Jeremy Cuebas:

Yeah. So I'm curious how I'd love to come back to this, to connecting with the community and the Wandering Orchestra I'm curious how you got community support for the, for a new project. Because when you were talking about your concert at Aspen you said you went and you got the concert underwritten and that's like. You know, I don't think most, most conductors would think about that. We just like so focused on the music. So like where did that? Where did that come from? Do you have a business background? Like where did those ideas come from? And then how do you build that for a new orchestra in a community?

Noreen Green:

So I don't have a business background, but my husband does, and so he's the president of the symphony, so I always had him as my advisor as to how to go about doing this. And also you when you build a board, you know you want to gather people who also have business experience and have outreach into the community, because that's very important that you know.

Noreen Green:

You have that, and I was also already in the community the Jewish LA community because I was a music director at a synagogue for 10 years and at one area, and then I got a job at one of the largest synagogues in the San Fernando Valley, which is where I live in Sino, and they had a robust music program already, so I did a lot of partnering with them at the beginning and I still do so I said it was like a perfect storm here. I had an orchestra, I had a choir, I had a rabbi who was very supportive of what I was doing at a venue and so many of our concerts were there.

Noreen Green:

And then I went to the temples and said you know, we have this program and many of them and the cantors, the singers, wanted to collaborate because they wanted to sing with orchestra. So that was my first. Collaborations were with the cantors who wanted to sing with the orchestra, and then also Jewish musicians and soloists. I also. It was very important to have a concertmaster that was very dedicated to the mission and I was very lucky. Mark Cashper is my concertmaster. He's associate principal of the LA Philharmonic and he's from Russia and yeah, so it was very important. He has been instrumental. He's been my musical left hand, right hand person. He also has been helpful in raising awareness and money and and he's our founding concertmaster, he's been with us from the beginning for 30 years.

Noreen Green:

Well, with the years, and then also he, because of who he is, his stature in the community, in the music musician community, I was able to always have people who wanted to play with the orchestra. It's professional and community, both. And then you go to I you know the Jewish community have granting organizations, so there's the Jewish community foundation, there's, the Federation there's, and so you learn how to maneuver in that atmosphere.

Noreen Green:

And I would say that 80% of my time is on fundraising, audience building, collaborations, reaching out to other people, and 20% is programming and conducting. And you know, you're the CEO. It's not. You're not just the conductor is the CEO. But this was the difference between my orchestra and, let's say, a regular orchestra. Let's say that you know, dim, you're in the Colorado. The Denver crop is that they were established and they hire a conductor. I am the founding music director and conductor. It's a whole different followax and it's a nonprofit. That is what they call founder led. So I basically that's part of you know why I've been successful is that I'm able to get people on my train. I always say what is a conductor? A conductor is basically leading a train, whether it's an orchestra or a locomotive. You know you have to lead and you have to guide, and so that's what I do in all aspects of the orchestra.

Jeremy Cuebas:

Yeah, yeah, it sounds like that's one of the. You had a big benefit in niching down as well, because it was very easy to identify, at least at first, the people in the organizations that you could reach out to. Right, right, and you said that about 80% of your time is fundraising or meeting people. That's kind of where I'm, at that point in my career where I'm just starting to focus on the extra musical things in that. So when you are, you know, for somebody who just got their first job maybe, and you're looking to grow a group in the area, when you say you're working on fundraising or networking, like what are you actually doing? Like what are the steps that you're doing for that 80%?

Noreen Green:

So I'm on the computer a lot I'm looking at. You go to other organizations that are like yours and you look at other donors. You look at their donor list and you also ask your board to look at donor lists to identify private foundations that possibly could donate Also. It takes three years, but then you can get yourself into the government granting. So we get money from the Department of Cultural Affairs, the LA County Arts Organization and the California State. So it's really important that you have a grant writer and someone who is on your development team who can.

Noreen Green:

So it used to be that I did all the research. Now I have someone who does it for me, so I might be looking through this and I say, oh, this one, this looks like it might be a good fit for us. So I send it to my development director and then she looks through all the requirements and all of the stuff and then reports back to me if it's a good fit or not a good fit. If it is a good fit, then you go to the next step. Well, what program are they looking for? What is their mission? How does my mission?

Noreen Green:

fit their mission. So a lot of it is brainstorming and just thinking about what you can do to create a program that will fit the requirements of whoever the funder is. And then I do a lot of repertoire searching as well, and I put together programs and ideas and each concert has a theme. So some are generated by what the funder wants and others are generated by what I want, and then I look for funding for that particular program. So those are two very different ways of programming when I collaborated with the Korean orchestra here. Now you would think well, how does the Jewish and the Korean have anything in common? Well, it turns out that Koreans, each one of them, have what's called a town would in their home. A town would is the written commentary on the Torah, on the five books of Moses.

Noreen Green:

And it's basically a guide to how to live your life, and the Koreans studied this and they're very Christian but they use the town would as their guide. So that was a. That was a very interesting revelation, you know, and it just so happens that the conductor of the Korean orchestra, he, reached out to me and we started. He does a concert called friendship and harmony, so he wanted to reach out to the Jewish orchestra. It's kind of like, you know, the niche orchestras all kind of want to know what each other are doing. And as we were sitting and talking, we talked about our board and and he said well, my doctor, I'll have a doctor who runs our board. I went oh well, my husband's a doctor and he, he's our board president. Well, it turns out that his president worked for my husband and we didn't know it. I mean, for like for 25 years they had worked together. So it so the collaboration that became stronger and so we're doing our second concert together next. He must have heard us talking. I just got a chat with him. His name is the immune, so it's so funny that I was talking about it. So that's one of the collaborations.

Noreen Green:

When we started looking at our patchwork of cultures education program, which is uses Sephardic music as a bridge between the Latin community and the Jewish community. So I live in Los Angeles. You know Spanish is our everyone's second language. Basically, you know there's the amount and it seemed like a natural tie in with our Sephardic music to create this bridge between the Latino community and the Jewish community, which we've done and we've educated like 20,000 kids over the years in using Sephardic music as a bridge, because both all Hispanic music and all Sephardic music have their stem from the music of Spain. So it was a natural thing. So that has resonated with a lot of things. And then, you know, we had a mayor who was Spanish, right, so he wrote us a, an endorsement, you know. So it just it just that's how you just kind of look we have.

Noreen Green:

I did a gospel program, so I called her a shared heritage, because we have a shared heritage of slavery, right, passover is about freeing the slaves, the Jewish slaves, from Egypt, and the song Go Down Moses, which we sing at every Passover when Israel Was in Egypt Land, is a gospel song that we actually took from the African American community. So there was this. You know, it's a natural. So I've done several concerts on our shared experiences from slavery to freedom is what I call it. You can find connections anywhere you look, because we're all. We all are the human experience. We all have shared human experiences. So you have to kind of just think out of the box.

Jeremy Cuebas:

And just I mean, that's all. That's so fascinating. I had never thought about that and now I'm, and of course I didn't know about the, about the, the Spain connection also. So I'm learning. I was learning so much and you said you're doing a lot of kind of like brainstorming. Are you just like setting up when you're going to connect with a new group? Are you just like setting up a meeting and talking for the first time, or are you going in kind of with a plan of how you could?

Noreen Green:

Well, okay, and proposal to some sorts you have to come in with the idea. It's absolutely you have to think about what would resonate, and then you have to also be a tune and body language to if they're interested or not interested and be ready to pivot at it. That's a one-on-one presentation. All right, now we've, after course, our presentation.

Noreen Green:

we have nice visuals, we have videos. So because we've been doing this a long time, but in the beginning you know in the beginning before videos and zoom and all that kind of stuff we came in with a written proposal at outline about why this program would be beneficial to your community and our community and how we could be beneficial to both of us. So that's how that's how we did it so.

Jeremy Cuebas:

Yeah, and you said that sometimes the programming comes out of that and sometimes you come in with a program in mind.

Noreen Green:

I always have a program in mind, okay.

Jeremy Cuebas:

You always have a program in mind, absolutely.

Noreen Green:

Or at least one piece. That would be like. When I went to the Koreans this last time, you know, I said what is our theme this year? And obviously it's not obviously, but because of all the wars that are going on, it's going to be peace. It's not going to be our theme. So I proposed it to Chester Psalms, you know, and, and they didn't know it, the Koreans don't really know that piece and I said, well, it's based on three Psalms and you know, and they love the idea. So that's going to be the piece that I conduct, and then the Koreans are going to conduct other Psalms and then we're going to do a joint piece that is going to be in Korean, hebrew and English, based on songs of peace from the Korean community and the Jewish community, and we have somebody arranging that and putting it together so that you have it. Yeah.

Jeremy Cuebas:

Yeah, yeah, I wanted to.

Jeremy Cuebas:

I wanted to ask about about reaching out and doing these community collaborations and of course it connects to what we've been talking about and it connects to programming.

Jeremy Cuebas:

So I don't want to necessarily, you know, delineate which is which we've about working with the Latinx community, the Korean community and the black. I'm just, I'm just thinking about my own, my own opportunities now of of what, what can I do and how can I and how can I reach out and and how I can do that with my orchestra. And again, I want to, I want to highlight for the listeners because we have a lot of people starting small groups and and trying to build them in the community that when you have some mission and such a specific thing that you want to convey through music, I think, again, it makes it much more focused when you go talk to those people because you have that shared story, whereas my orchestra, right now you know, maybe their stories I haven't uncovered, but if it's like this city symphony, I think I need to be creative when I try to go out and reach out to them.

Noreen Green:

Who are the players in your orchestra?

Jeremy Cuebas:

It's a volunteer orchestra in one of the suburbs of Denver. Okay, so they're all. They're all very you should do a questionnaire with the volunteers and ask them what they're.

Noreen Green:

You know what they do other than music and find commonalities. You know there's so many different orchestras. There's a lawyer's orchestra here, there's a doctor's orchestra here. You know, and so you have to look at your membership first of all, because they're your first line of. I have a professional orchestra, so it's a little different. But, for my community members. I know who they are and I look to them for suggestions. So I would send a questionnaire out to your and.

Noreen Green:

I would advise this to anybody who has a community orchestra, to find out who they are and what do they do when they're not sitting in that chair playing opo, you know. So you know education is very important. You know, and I worked for the LA Philharmonic Institute, which was really my inspiration for having a combined orchestra, community and professional, the LA Philharmonic Institute. For about five years the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra brought in very high-level high school young college students and created this institute and they played alongside the professionals, had workshops with the LA Philharmonic players and then played at the Hollywood Bowl together. It was hugely impactful for the musicians and for me, because I that energy that the youth brings to the orchestra is Because it's the first time they're playing Beethoven's Piano, not the hundredth time they're playing it, you know no anyway. So I always Educational and youth outreach is very important and your community members would love to do it, I'm sure. Go into schools and stuff like that.

Jeremy Cuebas:

So it's very yeah, as I've been looking at that, that's the one thing that I've identified recently, like what's the measure of how much the community supports us? So like it's a little bit ticket sales, it's a little bit donations, but mostly it is how far-reaching or how.

Noreen Green:

Impactful.

Jeremy Cuebas:

Impactful? Yeah, our education programs are, and I mean, that's where all our granting comes from. It's like it's the mission-driven educational programming.

Noreen Green:

Absolutely yeah.

Jeremy Cuebas:

I'll absolutely do that because I am also interested. You know you get so focused on the music and only doing the music and you get overwhelmed with what we can do musically, and so I'm trying to back up and see what we can actually do to grow in the community. So this is fantastic. Thank you so much for your advice.

Noreen Green:

Do you have an administrator or do you have office staff or anything? A development director.

Jeremy Cuebas:

No, we have. No, we're all the board's volunteers, while I'm the only. So we're trying to build that and, you know, just get our budget up and get our ticket sales up so we can have a little bit more money. I would love to get us to the point where we can invest in an executive director. They had in the PEM, but right now everybody's volunteer and they've all got other jobs, so it's all up to you so any initiatives are mostly going by me and we have a couple active board members, but, yeah, nobody right now.

Noreen Green:

So also look to your council people, your congress people and stuff like that.

Noreen Green:

And they have discretionary money and you can get $1,000 from this person to give tickets away to the senior citizen home. You know that's one of. They love that. The seniors are the underserved community and people think, oh well, they get senior discounts and stuff, but they need a way to get to the concerts, you know, and if you can help underwrite some of the costs for that and a lot of times board members will do that or granting organizations would do that and also go to the senior homes and stuff and play for them with a chamber group or something Because people love that looks great to the funders.

Noreen Green:

When you're doing outreach and providing free concerts for the people who can't come to your concerts, you know the disability community or whatever so.

Jeremy Cuebas:

That's another thing that came up while we were talking to so many people during COVID. We were about that earlier, before we started. The one thing that happened when COVID hit was now all the conductors had been trying to get on the phone. Suddenly they were all free. So we talked to so many people and one of the things that kept coming up was like okay, we are, by definition, a large group of people getting together. What do we become when we can't get together? And a lot of that answer was we can still work towards our mission with chamber music or with smaller groups or in that level of outreach. So again, that's another blind spot that we have is that it has to be the whole orchestra going to an event, but now we can absolutely do small chamber things.

Noreen Green:

And yeah, what is your instrument?

Jeremy Cuebas:

I play violin. Yeah, so we're doing, and we do do some small chamber things. We our city is has a event that runs for a week leading up to MLK Day, so we're open, we're playing some of the opening music for that next Monday, on the 8th. Yeah, so I'll.

Noreen Green:

Actually I'll be playing Concert Master for that, because we get basically ZR rehearsals for it, right, and somebody needs to lead it, but yeah, yeah well, I'm the artist, so a lot of the chamber music I actually program myself to play once in a while, just so I'm forced to practice. You can get rented and just all I do is read scores, you know so I don't actually practice, you know so. So I'm actually practicing for a chamber concert in February, and it just, you know, the stiff fingers have to come out at some point.

Jeremy Cuebas:

Yeah. So, I'm curious when you're, when you're building programs since you're doing mostly unfamiliar music or maybe mixing things in different ways how does that process actually start? Could you give us a couple of different examples, because sometimes it starts with a collaboration idea and does, sometimes it not, is sometimes it just we've got. We've just got to do some music on this concert.

Noreen Green:

Well, usually I have a theme first, like there's one piece that comes, yeah, okay.

Noreen Green:

And I decide, oh, that's going to be, that fits into that theme. So some of the themes other than holiday stuff, from darkness to light. So that was Holocaust to Israel. So I would have a piece that represented the Holocaust or and then represented Israel, and then I would fill in the program with that. Youtube is an incredible resource for us. Now it's also those of you if you're interested in Jewish music.

Noreen Green:

There is an Israel Music Institute in Israel. The theater presser is the American. They have wonderful music and the, the, the composers, came from Eastern Europe and everyone, and came to Israel and created this new style of music called the Mediterranean style of music, and I'm you know it's really interesting to look at. And then so a lot of the cross cultural stuff. I'll look at Persian music and Mizrahi music and Indian music and Arabic music, and we're always trying to form bridges of connection.

Noreen Green:

So one of the programs was called Ashina. So Ashina means love in Turkish and but it's also derivative of what love means in Hebrew, and it was written by a Israeli composer, sharon Farber, and it was for choir and small ensemble and Ney, which is a kind of like a recorder, but it's a Middle Eastern record. It's very long, and air Dumbek, which is an Arabic drum. A drum and guitar and Oud. So so I so that was the main piece on the program, so I had that ensemble.

Noreen Green:

So then I looked for music then that would use the Oud and use the Ney and you know in other ways. So once you know your main piece and you know who your soloists are, you know if it's unusual instruments and you want to find other music that can highlight those. It just so happened that that concert I was partnering with a Turkish organization and my collaborative partner was a pianist and she was from Turkey, so she introduced me to a concerto by. His last name is Erkin and he was part of the Turkish five. I didn't know there was a Turkish five.

Noreen Green:

I didn't know the, you know the French and the Russian, but I didn't know there was a Turkish five. So I started exploring music, classical music from Turkey, and it was phenomenal and very rhythmic, which I love, so you know so. And then I live in Hollywood. I mean, I live in LA, so emigre composers came and established themselves in Hollywood and so I have several concerts I do called Cinema Judeka, so Jewish composers that influence our Hollywood music comp composition. So I did several of those, and actually I did those in Israel and then South Africa and in Canada, because they were so interested in the Hollywood music coming to their populations because they don't have it. So that was kind of cool.

Noreen Green:

And then in 2020, one of my dearest, dearest friends, who's Israeli, you know, and Zor is considered the preeminent composer of video game music. Okay, so video game music now has they do these big concerts of video game music. So here's Israeli and he's Jewish. I actually conducted his first video game when he, before he, learned how to conduct, so I created a whole concert around his music and he's like winning beta awards, you know, for all of the things. And the video game composers are the opera composers of today. It's astounding what they have to do to create these video games and they all use full 100 piece orchestras and they have themes and the and the light motive changes depending on what happens to the character in the video. So I think we get stuck in our little classical box and I don't, because I I want to explore all kinds of music and listen. The Hollywood Bowl now does more pop music and jazz music and cinema music and video game music, because that's how they keep the Hollywood Bowl alive. In order to have their classical music concert series, and that's that's.

Noreen Green:

You have to think out of the box. You can't be in your little classical music box, so that's another suggestion I have is to look outside, you know, and also performers like in your, in your Denver area. Look for upcoming performers, singers, someone who won American Idol that's from your region, and highlight them and you'll get a lot more people to come to your concert and you can build. This necessarily has to be a pops concert, but you know, and a lot of those performers have a classical background and all of a sudden you know, you know they're singing whatever they're singing rock and roll or whatever it is. But if you look at, like Pat Benatar that's my generation. She has a four octave operatic range. All right, you know, pink pink is amazing, her range is amazing. So, like, what I'm saying is, think, out of boxes they can do classical music and they can do popular music and stuff.

Noreen Green:

So that's another thing, I, I, I'm not in a little box, my classical box.

Jeremy Cuebas:

Yeah, well, and I think the average person on the street is also not in a classical box. So we're we're serving them with things that's more relevant to them, and when you frame it in the themes that you've been talking about now, you give them even more context for the classical things that are not familiar to them and the other music that's not familiar to them, which, again, is probably a lot of what you guys are doing.

Noreen Green:

Well, and I think what's important to also understand is, like I, 30 years ago, conductors didn't talk to the audience. They walked on stage, they took their bow, they turned their back on the audience and the next thing you saw was the bow and then they left. And pre concert lectures were usually done by guests If the audience came wanted to come ahead of time. So I felt as an educator since I was doing music that was unfamiliar to most people. It was really important to frame it and for the orchestra to understand it. So I always talk about this. I did survivor for Warsaw by Arnold Schoenberg, not an easy listening piece and not an easy piece to conduct.

Noreen Green:

So I I framed it and said what is? Who is Schoenberg? What is Schreckstamma? What are we listening for?

Noreen Green:

What can you hear in this piece that you can, you know, latch onto it, understand, and I do that for every piece, especially if it's a little avant-garde, or, you know, atone or whatever you have to, you have to frame it. And then also, because all the music it's subjective, my programming, so the audience wants to know why you picked that piece of music, why did it resonate with you? And it brings them into, I call them going from passive listeners to active listeners, because they, they can. Oh, I hear it. I hear that, like very common thing in Jewish music is using the shofar blast. The shofar is the, a ram's horn and it's what we use to call for services and it. And if you know the beginning of Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, that's the shofar blast. So he, I can always signal that it's a, it's a natural horn, so it's in fifths and octaves and da you know the, the partials, that goes by the partials.

Jeremy Cuebas:

Yeah.

Noreen Green:

So you know whenever that's used and I've played a lot of music, another thing, like Gershwin's it ain't necessarily so.

Jeremy Cuebas:

It ain't necessarily so.

Noreen Green:

I know is based on the beginning of what every bar mitzvah kid learns Baruch hatah, adonai, it ain't necessarily so, so I always try to you know, bring in something of interest about the music for the so the audience can understand it.

Jeremy Cuebas:

So I heard a. I went to a concert a number of years ago in St Louis and they did the the Moldau, and they were explaining that during World War II the radio stations would play the Moldau a lot because it was very close to to a Jewish song I can't remember which one, but then I mean that made me that totally changed how I was listening in that concert. And you know the Moldau, I'd heard it a thousand times and now it had this new significance for me.

Noreen Green:

Well, the same thing with Mahler's first. There's a whole klezmer section in it.

Jeremy Cuebas:

Yeah.

Noreen Green:

And that's the second or third movement. That is completely a chlesmer tune. So, there's a lot of Jewish music influence, but you can find it in all compositions, even in Mozart. You know, you just. But I think you know, unfortunately our music education in the schools isn't very good. So you need it's very important we, as conductors, have to educate our audience.

Noreen Green:

We're going to continue having audiences that come to classical music. They need to know, and no one. We don't even have printed programs anymore. Do you have printed programs? You get a QR code right, you know, because nobody wants to waste paper. I hate that. I like reading a program.

Jeremy Cuebas:

We do have printed programs because they demanded that they come back.

Noreen Green:

Ah see, Good yeah.

Jeremy Cuebas:

Yeah, people did not like our digital programs.

Noreen Green:

Nobody likes them, nobody reads them. Yeah.

Jeremy Cuebas:

So yeah, you, you. You said there are Jewish influences in Mozart. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, they're not Jewish influences.

Noreen Green:

I've seen you could find some kind of influence in Mozart that would resonate with the audience. You just have to look for it Okay, okay it's. Italian Siphonni or whatever it is. You have to explain what it is. You know why is this? There's nothing Jewish about Mozart, sorry. Yeah, I was like what have I been missing this whole time? Perfect.

Jeremy Cuebas:

Before we move to the end, are there any other things you want to cover? One of my, one of the questions I wanted to ask is what do you, what do people not usually ask you, that you wish you would get a chance to talk about in these interviews?

Noreen Green:

You know it used to be. You know, as a woman conductor, they wanted to know. You know there's a lot more women conductors now, but there is still a feeling about being a woman and leading an ensemble or leading an organization or leading a nonprofit. That is there's. There's still some discrimination out there and in fact, I don't know if you write your own grants for everybody, but they always ask if who is leading your organization and they want you to identify who they are. Is that a woman? Is it a BIPOC? Is it a transgender? Is it whatever it is? And I find that very interesting that still nowadays where we have to deal with this. And in the early days I did have some players from Russia who didn't want to play because I was a woman conductor.

Noreen Green:

And what's interesting is the Jewish religion is a patriarchal religion. You know, there's a lot of women rabbis and there's a lot of women canters out there now, but when I first started, there wasn't and there wasn't any Jewish women conductors. And I think, you know, 30 years later, looking back on that time and looking at this development, some things have changed, but a lot of things haven't changed. And I think I have, you know, men, friends, who are a little angry that there's so much still focus on, you know, women composers and performing women composers, but we have to still do that because 2% of film composers are women.

Noreen Green:

All right, there's still a long way to go and I'm not asked about that anymore, but it's still an issue. And I think you're a white male okay, you are, you know you have all of the privilege at your fingertips, but I deal in a world that I don't have that and I sometimes go into meetings and there's still that barrier. I still feel the barrier and I wish that wasn't so. So still keep asking about women. And you know Native American and you know it's important that we're all understanding that there's still a long way to go when it comes to the leaders of our community.

Jeremy Cuebas:

Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, you said, and you said 2% composers Composers in film, and I'm like, I'm just thinking of directors, even they're very lany, very lany women, oh, there's Barkie.

Noreen Green:

There's Barkie, Greta, and I know yeah, there's Greta.

Jeremy Cuebas:

Yeah, who else? Have you done collaborations with any Native American groups? I have not, you have not.

Noreen Green:

I did a Native American piece, though. In Afspen One of my dear friends, Andrew Clearfield, wrote a piece about the Hopi Indians and I did that, but this is way before the Jewish symphony. So the Hopi Indians are actually a very similar in spirit to the Jewish that they have what they call a female god. Jewish has the Shechina, which is the female equivalent of God and stuff. But that was the only one that I've done.

Jeremy Cuebas:

Okay, yeah, that's one of the populations we have here that I'm wanting to connect with. I've been listening to a lot of fantastic music by Native American composers.

Noreen Green:

Great Good luck with that. I incorporate dancers too.

Jeremy Cuebas:

Yes, yes. Well, we have a big Latinx community here as well. Our city is 30 percent Spanish as first language, so that's the clear community that we've only done a little bit of work towards connecting with.

Noreen Green:

Well, mariachi is considered like the and klezmer, like there's a lot of klezmer, mariachi similarities and also gypsy music. So we used to do this thing called fiesta shalom, so that was about combining those communities together. So, mariachi, there's a lot of orchestral Mariachi music. So if you don't Is there, there is a lot.

Jeremy Cuebas:

I just, you know, I just haven't looked, I was assuming there wouldn't be that much, but there's a lot.

Noreen Green:

There's Mariachi symphonies, there's all sorts of stuff.

Jeremy Cuebas:

I've got some research to do. While we're talking about orchestral Mariachi music, do you have any hidden gems or listening assignments? You could send our listeners on Something to go check out after they hear this.

Noreen Green:

Well, if you want to explore our, we have three CDs. Two of them are on the Albany record label. One of them is called Women of Valor and it's a 60-minute oratorio based on 10 Biblical women using the Asian hyal, which is the Women of Valor prayer, as the recitib, as the glue between those 10 arias, and it's a fantastic piece. It's full orchestra and two singers, and so I have that recording on Albany label and you can find it on YouTube and the 10 arias can be done separately. So if you're looking for some Biblical women, sarah Rachel Lea, you know, if that resonates with any upcoming programming, you could take a look at that. There's also chamber music version of it that Andrea Clearfield has on her website.

Noreen Green:

Another piece that I did A Hidden Gem, eric Zeisel. It was a composer, one of these emigrate composers, and his grandson is Randy Schoenberg, who is also a descendant of Arnold Schoenberg. So Arnold Schoenberg's son married Eric Zeisel's daughter in LA both of them in LA and then had Randy, and Randy Schoenberg is a lawyer that negotiated for the return of the art the Klimt art that was held by the Austrian government, and there's a movie about it, woman of Gold. Anyway, eric Zeisel's music is. I love Eric Zeisel's music. So for my 25th anniversary we did a CD of his Jacob and Rachel Ballet and I also am going to be presenting that at the International Conductors Guild Conference in New York. And if your listeners don't know about the International Conductors Guild, they should join because you get job opportunities, workshop opportunities. It's a really wonderful organization and our conference is in New York in January.

Noreen Green:

Anyway, so Eric Zeisel wrote the first requiem for the Holocaust victims in 1944, 1945, and the Israel Philharmonic recorded it. So if you're looking for a different kind of requiem, it's called the Requiem Ebreika. So that's another gem that I would look to. And if you've watched the movie Maestro about Leneberg's side, he's written a lot of Jewish themed music. The Chichester Psalms is one of them, of course, and the Coddish Symphony. But he also wrote a piece called Halil. Halil is a flute like a recorder. It's a biblical recorder, and in 1973, I think the Yom Kippur War 1973, leneberg's side went and visited a flute player that had been shot and was in the hospital and he was so moved by this flute player, who almost gave up his life for Israel, that he wrote this piece. It's 15 minutes long and it's for flute solo strings and six percussionists.

Jeremy Cuebas:

Oh, wow.

Noreen Green:

So if you have a great flute player that you want to feature, it's a wonderful piece of music. So there's a couple gems for you to look at.

Jeremy Cuebas:

Fantastic. We'll put links for all of those in the show notes. Noreen, what final message or call to action would you like to send our listeners home with?

Noreen Green:

If you're creating, if you're looking at how you want to be in this world as a conductor, as a musician, you have to really do something that you're passionate about, that speaks to your heart, and as a Jewish woman conducting an orchestra, I promote Jewish women composers and performers and stuff. So I think it's really important to be successful is that you find your passion, you find what resonates with you musically, personally, socially, if you're a social activist, whatever and that you follow that dream and you really create your ensemble that reflects who you are. How's that?

Jeremy Cuebas:

Fantastic. Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you for the work that you do. Yeah, we appreciate it.

Noreen Green:

Great. Well, it's been wonderful chatting with you and I wish you a lot of luck over there in Colorado. You have the mountain.

Jeremy Cuebas:

Yes, and you like they're beautiful. They're beautiful today We've had basically a snowless winter. We had like an inch. Denver got more. I'm about an hour north of Denver, but yeah, we've gotten almost no snow for the past two months.

Noreen Green:

Oh, I never see snow, so yeah, it's like it's a beautiful, sunny and 80 degrees outside right now. Yeah, of course All right, well, thank you so much All righty. I appreciate it. Dare I make what's been a pleasure.

Jeremy Cuebas:

Absolutely Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you.