Brenna Patrick
Staff Writer
The Idaho State-Civic Symphony appointed Grant Harville as the new director of the nearly 100-year-old orchestra this year.
When Harville came to ISU, he said it was nice knowing there were good people waiting for him.
It wasn’t just the staff and orchestra that he put in his ISU pros and cons list, it was also the atmosphere.
“Mountains make better scenery than freeways,” he said, adding that there is a lot of natural beauty in Pocatello that can be hard to find other places. Harville enjoys being able to walk to his office, being in a place with no traffic jams and one with a sense of community.
In August, Harville left his job at the Georgia Symphony to come to ISU. He looks forward to seeing what will come of the performances this year.
That the symphony’s board was “very active and competent” was reassuring to Harville, since he had to move 2,000 miles away from home.
During the year, Harville said he doesn’t intend to shake things up.
“Because I’m new, it’s going to be different enough automatically. I do things my own way and, without even trying, some things are going to be changing,” he said.
While he has his own rehearsing methods and musical choices, he doesn’t want to change everything with his new position. Harville plans to mainly focus on building onto the symphony and “making sure there is continuity and not any major hiccups,” he said.
The symphony has big plans for the year. It is trying to top the major success of the Joy to World program last December, Harville said.
Giving more focus on creating a stronger rapport with high school string students will be a focus of Harville’s. He wants to see the symphony create a string festival at the school and play as a group.
Harville is young as far as directors go but foresees no difference in his conducting styles that are relating to his age.
“I can only be the age that I am and I won’t deliberately make any choices, like, ‘since I am a young guy I’ll do this,’” he said.
He added that age is but a number and his focus will always be on making the best product possible.
Born in Verona, Wis., Harville has been part of many music-related programs.
Previously, he was the associate conductor of the Georgia Symphony and the Director of the Georgia Youth Symphony.
Harville received post-graduate degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Michigan.
After school, Harville worked at Ripon College in Wisconsin as the orchestra director. Harville has also been a part of the Philharmonia of Greater Kansas City and the Oistrach Symphony.
Harville has been involved in music his whole life. He is excited about his new position and can’t wait to see the program grow.
He said he enjoys performing, composing and orchestrating.
“Conducting kind of allows me to access all of those different areas,” he said.
For 15 years Harville has sung and played the tuba. He has taken up playing the piano and viola as well.
Music has always been a part of Harville’s life.
“When somebody creates a musical piece, they are giving us a glimpse of the way their minds work,” he said.
This season the music choices were from pieces written from 1790 to 2010. There are over 200 years of music from 12 different countries. This, to Harville, means the orchestra has the opportunity to experience “musical perspectives from all sorts of smart people throughout the globe.”
Using music as a tool, Harville believes all musicians can convey messages with sound in every piece they do.
The symphony itself is the oldest orchestra in Idaho that was created in the early 1900s and has housed a variety of performances since then.
Harville said he decided to direct at this symphony because the ISU orchestra is a great group to work with and it does a lot of good things.
