A Song For America

One of the things that people who don't work in the music business probably don't have a firm grasp on is the sheer number of musicians a major symphony orchestra employs. And I'm not talking only about the 95-100 musicians you see on stage when we're performing, although we're certainly an intimidatingly large bunch. Orchestras our size typically employ close to 100 non-performers as well, and you'd be amazed at how many of them also play (or used to play) music seriously, if not professionally.

Just taking a glance through our artistic staff roster (the people directly involved with the day-to-day artistic administration of the orchestra, as differentiated from the folks in, say, payroll or HR,) I see an operations manager who sings in the Minnesota Chorale, an education director who plays viola in the Minnesota Opera Orchestra, and a personnel manager who used to be a professional violinist. Our former CEO, Tony Woodcock, who now runs New England Conservatory, is an avid amateur violinist. Brian Newhouse, who hosts our weekly live broadcasts on Minnesota Public Radio, used to sing semi-professionally. And Kari Marshall, the orchestra's Artistic Administrator and one of the unseen hands guiding Inside the Classics, is a lifelong flautist.

And then, there's Kellie Nitz. Kellie works in our personnel department, dealing with all the whiny musician complaints and scheduling snafus that most of us never think about when we're practicing for the next concert. I've known Kellie since she started working for us a number of years back, and it never occurred to me to ask whether she played an instrument herself, until a couple of summers ago, when I was wandering Peavey Plaza during the Day of Music, and found myself looking up at her as she stood on one of the outdoor stages, thwapping a bass and wailing into a microphone.

As it turns out, Kellie spends her off hours as a member of a truly awesome Minneapolis rock band called Mighty Fairly. They've already got one full-length album to their credit, and they'll be throwing a release party for their second one next month at Bunker's, in the Warehouse District. And this fall, they entered a songwriting contest sponsored by Rift magazine, in which bands were challenged to write a song completing a sentence that begins, "My America..."

According to Kellie, Mighty Fairly banged out their submission in less than two days. And they won. (Told you they were awesome.) After realizing they might have a hit on their hands, they created a video to go with the song, featuring a wide variety of Minnesotans completing the My America sentence themselves. Parts of the video nearly made me tear up, and the chorus of the song has been stuck in my head all week. (And I'm not tired of it yet.) So as the country steams towards next Tuesday's date with the ballot box, here's a song to sing while you're waiting in line...