Brahms in the Bush

As the battered old F-27 touched down on the runway, the huddle of welcomers in fur parkas and boots shuffled about enthusiastically at the edge of the airport. They would have cheered, but when the wind howls in southwest Alaska, why bother? Inside the plane, the musicians stretched, checked their thermal underwear, down booties, sweaters, ear muffs and fur coats and hats. Then they stepped out the door into the frozen flats of Bethel, Alaska (pop. 2,500, predominantly Eskimo). "We can't believe you're here," said Nancy Hohman, principal of the Bethel elementary school. Shivering against the 5DEG-below-zero weather, looking at the log cabin that passed for an airport terminal, neither could the musicians.

So it went as Conductor Milton Katims and the Seattle Symphony brought culture to the arctic climes of the 49th state, where music normally comes only from records, radio, TV or walrus-skin drums. Never before had any major orchestra visited the Alaskan bush or the treeless tundra. Never before, in all probability, had any orchestra's itinerary been such a travel agent's nightmare--covering 11,000 miles by plane, boat, bus and snowmobile to give 36 concerts in six days. The Seattleites were able to do so by splitting up, for much of the tour, into seven chamber groups.

By the time Katims got to Bethel, the orchestra had already given full symphonic concerts in Anchorage, Fairbanks and Juneau. Now, in the high school gymnasium, Katims led a 16-member string ensemble before an enthusiastic crowd of adults and children that overflowed from bleachers and folding chairs onto the floor. There was an overflow of the overflow when a chorus of 94 children came out to join Katims in Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus.

The Katims contingent dined on roast moose, reindeer, and a mixture of seal oil, caribou fat, berries and sugar known as agutuk, or Eskimo ice cream. Then, at the airport, they were delayed for three hours while their plane's engines were warmed back to life. Concertmaster Henry Siegl took out his violin. While Katims conducted with a swizzle stick, Siegl played an impromptu recital of pop songs, Irish jigs and gypsy music.

Getting Couth. Meanwhile, at the Arctic port of Barrow, a woodwind quintet entertained 300 schoolchildren with a variety of pieces ranging from Beethoven to Pop Goes the Weasel. In the southeast part of the state, Associate Conductor Joseph Levine took another string ensemble on a 130-mile ferry ride through the Inside Passage to reach Ketchikan for a concert in the local high school. One rapt member of their audience was the first mate on their ferry boat, Gene Chaffin, who at 35 was attending his first concert. "I thought it would be very formal and boring but it was wonderful," Chaffin said. "I got me some couth tonight."

The backers of the $90,000 tour (notably the National Endowment for the Arts, two fish-packing firms, a barge company and an airline) were just as pleased in their way as Chaffin. The big, relatively sophisticated cities like Anchorage may not have had much to learn from hearing the Brahms First Symphony, but will provincial Bethel ever be the same after hearing Bartok's Divertimento for Strings? The real test, of course, will be how quickly the Seattle musicians, or any others for that matter, are back beating the bush with more Brahms and Beethoven. Conductor Katims, who found the trip a thoroughly warming experience (thanks partly to the men's pantyhose he wore throughout), would like to make it an annual affair. "There were wonderful vibes from the people," he said as the orchestra headed home. "I could feel them in the small of my back."

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