{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/8w3804z88r/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Spoleto: Oral history with Tara Helen O'Connor"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/212/original/LOHI_aviarybanner2.jpg?1741032082","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["6/2/2009"]}},{"label":{"en":["Interviewee"]},"value":{"en":["O'Connor, Tara Helen"]}},{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":["Renowned flutist Tara Helen O'Connor is a member of the woodwind quintet Windscape, founding member of New Millennium Ensemble and flute soloist of the Bach Aria Group. She has appeared in countless festivals and programs worldwide and has performed at Spoleto since 1994.  O'Connor discusses her history with the festival, her longtime association with chamber music director Charles Wadsworth, her performances, her relationship with festival managers and artists, and the history and future of Spoleto Festival U.S.A. in Charleston, South Carolina.  Audio with transcript."]}},{"label":{"en":["Contributing Institution"]},"value":{"en":["College of Charleston Libraries"]}},{"label":{"en":["Media Type"]},"value":{"en":["Oral Histories"]}},{"label":{"en":["Subject - Topical"]},"value":{"en":["Festivals--South Carolina--Charleston","Festivals--Planning","Festivals--Management"]}},{"label":{"en":["Subject - Geographic"]},"value":{"en":["Charleston--Social life and customs"]}},{"label":{"en":["Subject - Geographic County"]},"value":{"en":["Charleston County (S.C.)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date Digital"]},"value":{"en":["11/25/2009"]}},{"label":{"en":["Digitization Specifications"]},"value":{"en":["Mp3 derivative audio created with Audacity software.  Archival masters are wav files."]}},{"label":{"en":["Type IMT"]},"value":{"en":["application/pdf;audio/mpeg"]}},{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["Digital resource copyright 2009, The College of Charleston. All rights reserved. For more information contact The College of Charleston Library, Charleston, SC 29424."]}},{"label":{"en":["PID"]},"value":{"en":["lcdl:27149"]}},{"label":{"en":["Collection Identifier"]},"value":{"en":["COH"]}}],"summary":{"en":["Renowned flutist Tara Helen O'Connor is a member of the woodwind quintet Windscape, founding member of New Millennium Ensemble and flute soloist of the Bach Aria Group. She has appeared in countless festivals and programs worldwide and has performed at Spoleto since 1994.  O'Connor discusses her history with the festival, her longtime association with chamber music director Charles Wadsworth, her performances, her relationship with festival managers and artists, and the history and future of Spoleto Festival U.S.A. in Charleston, South Carolina.  Audio with transcript."]},"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["Digital resource copyright 2009, The College of Charleston. All rights reserved. For more information contact The College of Charleston Library, Charleston, SC 29424."]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Lowcountry Digital Library"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Lowcountry Digital Library"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/212/original/LOHI_aviarybanner2.jpg?1741032082","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/125/187/small/data?1655837885","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1695/collection_resources/53012/file/125187","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - open-uri20211027-32251-mcw7ru.mpga"]},"duration":1977.552,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/125/187/small/data?1655837885","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1695/collection_resources/53012/file/125187/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1695/collection_resources/53012/file/125187/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-cofc.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/125/187/original/open-uri20211027-32251-mcw7ru.mpga?1635342737","type":"Audio","format":"audio/mpeg","duration":1977.552,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1695/collection_resources/53012/file/125187","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1695/collection_resources/53012/file/125187/transcript/39609","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Tara Helen O'Connor Interview Transcript [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1695/collection_resources/53012/file/125187/transcript/39609/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SPOLETO FESTIVAL USA COLLECTION \n\nCOLLEGE OF CHARLESTON \n\n \n\nJESSICA LANCIA: Okay, we should be on.  Just for the record, my name is Jessica Lancia and I am interviewing Tara Helen O’Connor for Spoleto Festival U.S.A.  It is June 2nd, 2009, and we are at the Gaillard Auditorium.  So, thank you for coming, and do you mind just starting off with telling me a little bit about how you got connected to Spoleto? \n\nTARA HELEN O’CONNOR: No problem, that’s easy.  I went over maybe 15, 20 years ago, to play for Charles Wadsworth at his house.  And it’s not unusual for people to hear musicians.  I mean, conductors, they have auditions all the time for soloists, and Charles, he’s one of those people that likes to know what’s going on, likes to know what’s coming up through the ranks, and likes to know who’s out there.  And so it wasn’t an unusual thing for him to hear me.  So he was really pressed for time, and he said, “Why don’t you come over?  I’ve got about 15 minutes and then Susan and I”— his wife, Susan Wadsworth, who runs YCA—“Why don’t you come over to the house and we’ll play a little bit, but we have to go out that night.”  I said, “Okay, fine, great, thank you so much.”  I went over to the house and we started playing, and two hours later Susan came flying in the house and they were late.  And she came busting into the living room where the piano was, and she said “Charles, we have to go, we’re late!  You’re still playing?!”  Because she was in this business mode thing; I’ve known Susan for years.  And so he said, “Okay, just a second.”  And he said to me right then and there, he said “What are you doing May 25 through,” I forget what it was, and I said, “Free,” because I knew I was.  And he said, “I’d like you to come down and play at the Spoleto Festival.”  He said, “I have another flutist here,” it’s Gary Schocker, was here at the time, who was actually a YC artist.  I’m not a YC artist, I’m one of the few artists in Spoleto—there’s maybe three or four of us each year that don’t go through the ranks of YCA, maybe more.  It varies from year to year.  And he said, “Gary Schocker is going to be here, so there’s a couple things I’d like to do for two flutes, and I’d love for you to come down,” and I immediately accepted.  And from that moment, Charles has been my gateway to my career.  That opened my career, so it was really amazing. \n\nJESSICA LANCIA: Now, at one point, you were his musical assistant, is that correct? \n\nTARA HELEN O’CONNOR: Still am. \n\nJESSICA LANCIA: So what does that mean? \n\nTARA HELEN O’CONNOR: Okay, what that means is, Charles puts the programs together, and for awhile we were doing the radio shows in a different format.  See, I wear a lot of different hats here.  One of the hats I wear is flutist.  That’s the primary role that I have.  The other roles include—after Charles gets the program together, the programs, as you’ve heard this number thrown around many times, but it’s eleven different concerts that we do three times.  It’s 33 concerts plus an auction concert plus, this year, a special concert, so it’s anywhere between 35 and 34 concerts a year in the two and a half weeks that Spoleto is open.  We run every morning at the Dock Street.  We are the one thing, I think, that doesn’t change, really.  Well, the orchestra doesn’t change, the personnel doesn’t change.  The repertoire changes, but you have a set group during that and then a set group during the chamber music each year.  So all of that needs to be coordinated; people are flying in at different times, and there’s a whole lot of music to rehearse.  So what I do is I organize the entire rehearsal schedule for the entire 35 programs.  And then I coordinate rehearsal space with Tabby or whoever is over in production, and then I make sure that all the artists distribute that.  Then Charleston has a long-standing association with the Chamber Music Society from Lincoln Center.  He founded the place.  But also, they have quite an extensive library, and Charles has whatever he needs from there on permanent loan from Spoleto. \n\nSo then I go down to the Chamber Music Society and I get all of his music, or I go to [John Carliano’s] house and get stuff from him, or whatever’s happening.  I do that for Charles.  And then we fax each other, because Charles doesn’t have e-mail.  He just has a cell phone now.  He doesn’t have e-mail.  He sends faxes, and they’re not typed, they’re handwritten.  So you’re looking at this fax and you’re trying to decipher this program, and he knows exactly what he wants.  He’s very, very specific and he’s very quick to point out if there’s a mistake, like a typo or something in the schedule.  So that’s one thing that I do.  I distribute the rehearsal schedule to everybody, get that all coordinated.  And then the other thing that I do is I do a lot of research for Charles on pieces, and for a time, maybe about eight years, I was writing a lot of his text for radio shows that went out to the public radio, the National Public Radio.  And now they’ve changed to a live format, just to get the real flavor and feel of Charleston.  And I think this is even more exciting for the audience to hear.  It’s more like a live radio show rather than something that we’ve prepared, and I think that’s just a better, more friendly direction for that.  And Charles doesn’t really need anybody to write for him, but there’s a few facts that he doesn’t—if he needs this or that, “When did this happen?” you know, he can’t keep it all in his head.  How many pieces has he programmed?  The man knows quite a bit.  So in that regard I organize him and then I also make sure that he has his meetings, and I coordinate his Spoleto schedule with the schedule that he wants to have in Charleston with whatever meetings with Mayor Joe Riley or whatever else he’s doing.  I still do that. \n\nJESSICA LANCIA: So now that he’s stepping down, and we are having a new person taking over, how is that going to work? \n\nTARA HELEN O’CONNOR: I don’t know. \n\nJESSICA LANCIA: What are your feelings on all of that? \n\nTARA HELEN O’CONNOR: Well, I’m excited for the change.  I’m excited not because I think we need a change.  I think it’s going to be very sad.  Honestly, I don’t really feel that Charles is going anywhere.  Do you know what I mean?  I think he’s still going to be visible in this venue, but not in the same capacity that he has been.  And Charles has expressed his interest in me continuing to help Geoff and continuing to help the new director, and we’re on a very friendly basis, and everybody—it’s like a family down here.  So if Geoff needs that, that’s great.  If he doesn’t, then it will alleviate some of those responsibilities for me.  It’s all part of life, which changes.  Nothing in life is permanent anyway, and nobody’s indispensable.  So we’ll see what happens with the whole thing.  But it’s definitely a lot to do, and I’m very organized, and everybody knows that, so I think that if they want to lean on me, of course they’re welcome to, in whatever capacity they  need. \n\nJESSICA LANCIA: So you debuted in Carnegie Hall.  You had all these accolades to your name, you’ve done all these things, performed all over the world, you could go anywhere in the world you want to go.  Why do you keep returning to Spoleto, 14 years?  What is it about this place that keeps you coming back? \n\nTARA HELEN O’CONNOR: Well, first of all, you live your life, it’s woven like a tapestry.  Musicians wear many hats.  Some perform more than others, some perform and teach, some do all of that.  And Spoleto is a place, first of all, where I meet my friends that I’ve made over the years here.  The interpersonal relationships are very, very binding and very full of love and very collegial.  So there’s the collegial atmosphere, the fact that there’s a ridiculous amount of talent at this festival, and these are people that you can sit down and break bread with and have dinner, but also people that you can make great music with.  Now, that’s just the personal side of it.  The emotional side of it is that you get to do the thing that chose you from when you were a little kid.  Music doesn’t—you don’t choose it, it chooses you.  And to be able to come to a town like Charleston and the Spoleto Festival, that’s a whole other amazing thing, because Spoleto is an incredibly magical, special place.  And the town of Charleston is an extraordinary town.  It’s very small; it’s very concentrated.  The festival’s very concentrated.  It’s a very exciting place to be.  It is a Mecca for all kinds of talent.  You have dance, you have theatre, you have acrobats in the street, so you’re constantly being stimulated in a way that—you know, I live in New York.  But there’s a lot going on in New York, too, but New York doesn’t exist for a festival.  Things happen, they come and go.  But Spoleto has chosen Charleston and Charleston has taken Spoleto, and it’s become this center for the arts.  And it’s very important for me to be able to play here.  The people are incredible.  The friends that we’ve made over the years are amazing.  I see these people all over the country.  They’ve become very good friends of ours.  We keep in touch.  We have dinner when they come to New York.  It goes beyond just, “Oh, Spoleto’s a nice festival and Charleston’s a really beautiful town.”  It is so much deeper than that for so many people that come here.  It’s the perfect festival, really, and that’s why everybody wants to come to Spoleto, everybody.  It’s got an incredible reputation. \n\nJESSICA LANCIA: Have you been as frequently to other festivals? \n\nTARA HELEN O’CONNOR: The only other festival that I’ve been at as frequently is Santa Fe.  And Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival is fantastic; it’s in August and it’s a different kind of festival, you know what I mean?  It’s like Piccolo Santa Fe. [laughs] \n\nJESSICA LANCIA: Right. \n\nTARA HELEN O’CONNOR: It has the opera, it has the chamber music festival, it’s fantastic.  But when you’re at a festival and it actually feels like a festival, it’s really amazing.  The town buzzes with excitement.  People see you in the street.  They stop you.  They say hello.  The other night I was at dinner at Blossom with my husband and somebody sent over a Prosecco and then somebody else bought us dinner. \n\nJESSICA LANCIA: Oh, fabulous. \n\nTARA HELEN O’CONNOR: I mean, that doesn’t happen, you know what I mean?  That’s not a reason to come back, but that’s just like, wow, that’s amazing. \n\nJESSICA LANCIA: Yeah.  It makes you feel appreciated as an artist and person. \n\nTARA HELEN O’CONNOR: Oh, totally.  But the other thing is to get on stage with Charles Wadsworth.  That’s the other thing.  That kind of man, who’s done so much for the arts and has really—all the careers that you see on stage he’s had a hand in.  You think about Jean-Yves Thibaudet, he was a YCA artist.  Susan found him, and then Spoleto had him.  And then the piece that I played last year with Pedja was premiered by Jean-Yves and Paula at the Spoleto Festival.  You guys have major premieres here, too, it’s very exciting.  Composers come in.  You’ve got John Kennedy’s series, you’ve got—it’s remarkable. \n\nJESSICA LANCIA: And what about the venues that you play in?  You’ve played in— \n\nTARA HELEN O’CONNOR: Many. \n\nJESSICA LANCIA: Dock Street, Gaillard— \n\nTARA HELEN O’CONNOR: Yep. \n\nJESSICA LANCIA: Memminger. \n\nTARA HELEN O’CONNOR: Memminger, and the Spoleto office at 14 George Street, and some houses.  And they’re all spectacular.  The Dock Street is an amazing place.  When you walk in there’s this instant sense of history, and you have that with this town in a way that America doesn’t have—it’s not like Czechoslovakia or Prague or Italy.  Spoleto has history, the Civil War, the buildings here are hundreds of years old.  I mean, it’s as old as it gets here.  The Dock Street Theatre is the oldest theatre in the country, right?  Isn’t it?  It’s been through four—it’s burned down a couple of times, and been rebuilt on the same plot of land.  You feel like you’re part of something really miraculous.  The new halls we play in all over the country, they’re great, but the Dock Street— there’s something about that theatre.  It’s very intimate for 500.  You walk out and the audience is in surround sound.  Memminger this year, too—I have to say, last year we had Memminger; the stage was off on the side.  This year it’s more center.  I like it better this year for the sound of it.  I think the audience is as close in some regards, and what it doesn’t make up for in closeness it makes up for in height, in terms of raking of the audience.  It feels very comfortable, and you walk out on stage, and everybody is so happy to see you, and you’re so happy—and you recognize people, and people wave, and you wave back.  Where else do you get that? \n\nJESSICA LANCIA: Yeah, and what about the Gaillard? \n\nTARA HELEN O’CONNOR: The Gaillard is beautiful, it’s enormous, it’s a great—now I understand they’re doing a huge renovation, is that true? \n\nJESSICA LANCIA: I think it’s being considered. \n\nTARA HELEN O’CONNOR: Okay.  Because I heard that they were raising money for it or something like that, which I think is great.  But I have to say, I’m so glad that the Dock Street’s been redone.  I really am.  The noise, the air conditioning units.  It’s an old theatre and everything’s been updated.  That’s what they’re working on, updating the theatre, and that’s going to be spectacular.  The Gaillard is huge, it’s enormous, and that is a very different experience all together, but just as friendly and wonderful.  And Memminger is great.  And when we play at 14 George, it’s even smaller, for the special concerts that we do, or house concert.  And that’s the way it was when Mozart was— you’d go into someone’s house and you’d play a concert.  Do you know what I mean?  That’s just part of history.  It’s cool. \n\nJESSICA LANCIA: Yeah.  What are some memorable performances that you’ve had over the years? \n\nTARA HELEN O’CONNOR: Oh man.  There’s a lot of them.  I mean, getting on stage—I remember one Bach with Juliette Kang and Charles Wadsworth and Andres Diaz, and we were—this is sort of self-serving memory, but I remember it because I remember it was having like a near-heart attack, in a funny way.  I walked on stage, and we started to play, and I took a very, very big breath for the first note, which is enormously long.  It’s actually the C major, Bach C Major, which Charles opened this year with, and opened the Chamber Music Study from Lincoln Center with Alice Tully Hall.  And the rebuilt version of Alice Tully Hall, this piece is what we started out with, so it’s a very special place in Charles’s heart.  And I love that he has that kind of association with repertoire.  But that was a very special moment; I take this huge breath, and I go to play my G, but they started playing “Happy Birthday” to me.  And I just about had a heart attack.  That was one moment that really blew—I couldn’t catch my breath for about, you know, 30 bars.  And then we started the piece.  But playing the Poulenc Sonata with Charles Wadsworth.  When you sit down with someone who has such a grasp of the French repertoire and who really understands about the depth of music-making and the colors and the chords—playing Charles’s own pieces with him, playing with the St. Lawrence Quartet, playing bright music with Barry Shiffman and my husband, and Steve Prutsman, and Andres Diaz.  But also side-splitting laughter.  And maybe Todd’s flamenco, Todd Palmer’s flamenco entrance on stage during the middle of Spanish Steps with Charles Wadsworth.  There’re so many.  \n\nIt could be a silly thing, like a palmetto bug on stage that Geoff, during the Beethoven String Quartet—watching this giant palmetto bug walk across the stage and then Geoff kind of reeling back and like landing on it with his foot, because his feet were very active in the early days.  And just smooshing this thing to the floor, this giant—I mean, you could saddle this thing up and ride it.  And then for days the stage hands were trying to like, scrape the goo off the stage, and just couldn’t get it off.  It was just disgusting.  So there’s all kinds of like incredibly great moments and hysterical moments, you know. \n\nJESSICA LANCIA: Yeah, that’s hilarious.  I should ask him about that. \n\nTARA HELEN O’CONNOR: You should.  He might not even remember it, but it was a very big cockroach.  And I’m from New York, and they’re big down here— \n\nJESSICA LANCIA: Well, you have the term down. \n\nTARA HELEN O’CONNOR: Palmetto bug, sorry.  “Palmetto Bug.” \n\nJESSICA LANCIA: Right, “palmetto bug” rather than “giant cockroach.” [laughs] \n\nTARA HELEN O’CONNOR: Does that just make you feel better?  What is that? \n\nJESSICA LANCIA: Yeah, I guess so.  It’s the state tree, it’s palmetto, so… \n\nTARA HELEN O’CONNOR: It’s a cockroach. [laughs] \n\nJESSICA LANCIA: So how important do you think the city of Charleston is to all of this? \n\nTARA HELEN O’CONNOR: Oh, unbelievably.  First of all, the city, the demographics of it work.  Everything is within walking distance of everything else.  So you don’t need a cab, you rarely see a cab.  And buses, like, I think there’s one on King, right?  There may be one on Meeting Street.  You’re not dealing with a population that relies on mass transit, yet not a lot of cars on the road.  There’s not a lot of traffic except when the outsiders come in on weekends, like Memorial Day weekend.  But a lot of people fly in for the festival, don’t get me wrong; there’s thousands of people, and I’m sure that that is very good for the Charleston economy in a certain sense.  It’s like having the Olympics every year in your backyard.  The fact that you can walk to everything, the fact that the way the schedule works out, not only for the artists, but for the patrons.  You can do something in the morning, you can do a thing in the afternoon, grab a lunch or a mint julep, and the whole historical end of things, and the traditional things of Southern hospitality and the welcoming feeling that you have here.  You can have an iced tea, or as Charles says, a Co-Cola.  Whatever you want, and everything just kind of moves at a very slow, even pace.  Nobody gets ruffled up about anything.  And then you have concerts at 5, then you have the opera stuff at night.  You can do it all, you can do some.  And it varies all the time.  \n\nSo the programming of the festival is excellent, the layout of everything is—all the performance spaces are within walking distance.  All the restaurants are incredible.  When my husband came here years and years ago, there was the old diner across the street from the Greek place, Old Towne.  Old Towne and one of the places were the only two places in town.  Now you have an incredible variety of food; you have an incredible variety of people, people from everywhere.  And the boundaries don’t seem to exist as they used to exist.  He used to say you used to not go really above Calhoun at certain times of night.  Now you go up there for Thai Basil at like 10.  You know what I mean?  It just seems like a very, this is going to sound really bizarre, but a metropolitan city in an old-world style.  \n\nJESSICA LANCIA: I think that’s the best way I’ve heard Charleston described. \n\nTARA HELEN O’CONNOR: And it’s the best of both worlds, really.  And I think that the culture and the things that you can see, the arts, it’s very important to South Carolina, but also very important to Charleston.  And since it’s a country, it’s a part of the country that’s very steeped in tradition, but also aware of the necessary things in life.  Music and art, it’s all very good for your brain.  It’s really good for who you become as a human being.  Recently I was talking to somebody about Nobel Prizewinning laureates.  And she had this project, like a fundraiser, and the fundraiser was to go get Nobel Prize laureates signing this violin.  She got 25 Nobel Prize-winners.  There were so many of them up in Boston.  And they said, “Music was the thing that made me become an imaginative scientist.  That was the thing.”  And it’s the first thing that they cut from schools, and it’s the first thing that they cut from all these other places.  So it’s actually good for your brain.  But anyway, I don’t know if I’ve answered your question; I think I have. \n\nJESSICA LANCIA: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.  Let me see, do you yourself go to many performances when you’re here? \n\nTARA HELEN O’CONNOR: Yeah, I go to as many as I can.  I will never forget Mark Morris, a couple years ago maybe—a couple, that was before everybody was married in the St. Lawrence Quartet, pretty much before all the kids were born.  Yeah, I love dance, I love the orchestra.  I’ve gone to the orchestra concerts.  The Piccolo Spoleto, I’ve gone to a few of those.  Our schedule is a little crazy.  11 o’clock and 1 o’clock concerts every day and then rehearsals all afternoon, so you get to what you can get to, and you’re always chagrined when you can’t.  I missed Punch Brothers the other night, and I know them, and I was hanging out at a bar with them and they walked in in Portland and they sat down and talked.  So you see your friends coming in at different parts of the festival, too, which is really, really nice. \n\nJESSICA LANCIA: So your schedule, your rehearsal schedule—do you actually get to choose, do you talk to Charles about selecting the chamber pieces? \n\nTARA HELEN O’CONNOR: For the most part, what happens is Charles gets a feel from everybody, usually.  This is how it’s worked in the past, except for this year.  This year he programmed all the pieces that he wanted to do, because he’s the artistic director, and he will be the first one to tell you that, and I will be the first one to remind him of that when he says, “I think I want to do this,” because he’s very thoughtful about what other people want to do, and he has to be kind of considerate about it.  He can’t ask someone to play a piece in two—if they’re not ready to go or they don’t— but he’ll say, “I’d like you to do this” and “I’d like you to do that,” and I have never said, “I don’t want to do that.”  Never in my life have I said that to him, and I never would to any festival director.  But if there’s something cool and we like it, we’ll tell him about it, and he’ll do a little bit of investigative research on it, and if he decides he likes it, he’ll bring it in.  So he gets suggestions from his artists, but he also sticks to his own guns, and he knows what works. \n\nJESSICA LANCIA: And then he merges the artists together, and says, “I want this violinist with this flutist with that— “ \n\nTARA HELEN O’CONNOR: He merges it all together.  Right. \n\nJESSICA LANCIA: And then you are just charged with coordinating and making it happen? \n\nTARA HELEN O’CONNOR: Exactly. \n\nJESSICA LANCIA: So you’re like the executive director of the chamber music series, production man.      \n\nTARA HELEN O’CONNOR: Or just the production coordinator, or something like that.  That’s the phrase they use, “The production assistance is provided by…” \n\nJESSICA LANCIA: Okay, got it.  Now, coming from 1996 to 2009, you have a range of experiences with Charleston.  Do you have a sense of how the city has changed?  You mentioned a little bit about being more of an inclusive city, but is there any other thing in terms of maybe a way that Spoleto might have lead to changes in the city, or just things you’ve noticed? \n\nTARA HELEN O’CONNOR: Yeah, sure.  The first time I came here, I remember we stayed at the King’s Courtyard Inn.  And I remember walking down King Street, and thinking, “Wow, this is really kind of an amazing town.”  But I’m from New York, where the buildings are enormously high and tall.  So these low buildings to the ground with old-style established businesses—now this is the thing that I find remarkable, is the mix of the old and the new in Charleston.  Over the years, what I’ve seen—and I’m not sure, I think part of it has to do with Spoleto, and I would say business comes in here.  There’s a Starbucks now.  There’s two Starbucks’. \n\nJESSICA LANCIA: Within a block. \n\nTARA HELEN O’CONNOR: Right.  Exactly.  Charleston Place was always there.  The storefronts have changed a little bit.  I’ve seen more of it in the economy end of things and the retail business end of things.  Just even walking up King Street, and also you see the town changing, and I don’t see things getting ripped down.  I see things getting repaired.  Things are always being repaired here.  Do you know what I mean?  It’s an old town.  The buildings are old; people are constantly working on their houses.  But that renovation now is going further north.  Then you see bigger businesses, like Berlin’s, which has been here for years and years.  Henry fits my husband for suits.  What is he, 93 years old, right?  He took my husband’s measurements just a couple years ago.  And I don’t get my suits in New York, I call Charleston and I tell them what I want, and they send his stuff up to New York made to order.  We have that kind of relationship with the business owners in Charleston.  Not the people like at Starbucks or Le Creuset.  But the older stores are still here.  They’re mixed in with the new, and the ones that have deep, deep roots are the ones that stay.  The other stuff changes, and it’s really amazing. And you see the usual tourist trap area, like the Hyman’s area.  I’m really talking about a retail thing.  \n\nThe other thing that I’ve noticed, too, is just in the way that the houses are the same, but things are much more mixed.  I don’t get a real feeling of this part of town being one way, and another part of town being another way.  The broad base of the peninsula, the bottom base of the peninsula, by the Battery, has always been old-time stuff.  And then from the Memminger westward changes a bit, and then it gets—you know what I’m saying?  The gentrification of the city has changed I think.  It’s just really amazing to see.  So now I come to Charleston—even then, when I walked in in the ‘80s or ‘90s, whenever I first came here, I thought, well this is a really beautiful town, it’s really old.  The pavement looks different to me now, too.  The streets look more paved.  I don’t see the cobblestones.  I remember riding my bike downtown.  There’s less cobbly bits.  It’s like when New York changed in the same kind of way, but that’s what happens when something is really successful.  People want a piece of it and they want to come see it, and Spoleto’s gotten so big that the one hotel is not going to do it anymore.  So there’s more hotels outside of town.  We even bought our car here last year.  We have it serviced down here when we come down.  We don’t get it serviced in New York. \n\nJESSICA LANCIA: So where do you guys stay when you come here?  Is there a specific place you go to every year, or does it change? \n\nTARA HELEN O’CONNOR: Well, it changes every year.  So we’ve stayed in all parts of town.  My first house was 31 Church Street, the Cathcarts’ house.  That was great, and that was with Marina Hoover from the St. Lawrence Quartet.  Then I lived with Leslie Robertson for about ten years, fifteen years, eleven, fourteen years.  We stayed over on Legare, next to Susan Ravenel.  These are people that we know.  We’ve been on the Burrous’s boat.  You develop these relationships with the people who not only support the festival, but who love music and who you become friends with, who you’ve met, who you’ve stayed with, who you dine with.  And that doesn’t happen anywhere else.  We’re really in this place for three weeks.  What other festival is like that?  What other town is like that? \n\nJESSICA LANCIA: So if you were to rank this festival amongst all the other festivals— \n\nTARA HELEN O’CONNOR: Oh, tops.  It’s great, fantastic.  I love it here. \n\nJESSICA LANCIA: Wow, that’s so great to hear. \n\nTARA HELEN O’CONNOR: Yeah.  Not only that, but I have to say the office people, the radio people, everybody’s really nice and completely accessible.  They take care of you.  They really take great care of us. \n\nJESSICA LANCIA: So you think you’ll be coming back in the future years? \n\nTARA HELEN O’CONNOR: I would love to, I hope so. \n\nJESSICA LANCIA: Good, and do you see the future with Nuttall coming on, are you sort of confident that this is something— \n\nTARA HELEN O’CONNOR: That it’s a good thing?  Absolutely. \n\nJESSICA LANCIA: Everyone seems to be thinking this. \n\nTARA HELEN O’CONNOR: I think Geoff Nuttall is really, really smart.  We know he’s an incredible violinist.  He’s really funny.  He has a way with the audience, in a similar way that Charles has, a way of making people at ease, but through his own personality.  He’s just enough crazy to be a little bit eccentric, but none of it’s put on, like Charles.  You know when you take a cross-section and it’s the same through and through, like an onion?  It’s a bad example.  But you cut an onion—it’s the same on the outside as it is on the inside.  It’s a consistent vegetable, right?  It’s a vegetable, right? \n\nJESSICA LANCIA: [laughs] \n\nTARA HELEN O’CONNOR: Charles, through and through—I saw this program last night on SCETV right that Beryl had done, Beryl Dakers.  He’s the same person he was 50 years ago as he is now.  He talks to the audience the same way.  He makes jokes.  He’s the funny man, doesn’t like to be the straight man.  He’s an educating non-educator, and he’s a perfect combination.  And people love him. And he can say—he can get away with the most outrageous things because it’s coming from the heart.  And Geoff is cut from the same cloth, from the heart through and through. \n\nJESSICA LANCIA: Wow.  It sounds like you have just a great experience here, and this is nice. \n\nTARA HELEN O’CONNOR: I love it here.  Just the palmetto bugs, it’s just the palmetto bugs. \n\nJESSICA LANCIA: [laughs] Any other anecdotes of misfortunes?  Any performances where strings have broken on stage and you had to stop? \n\nTARA HELEN O’CONNOR: Oh, there was one—I was with Catrin Finch and I went to play, and I took my flute and I wiped, like this, and it was so humid at the Dock Street Theatre.  The humidity here is really amazing.  It’s like sometimes it’s so thick you can cut it with a spoon. \n\nJESSICA LANCIA: Oh yeah. \n\nTARA HELEN O’CONNOR: I’m onstage, and I go to take my flute, and I go like this, and I go to play a note, and unbeknownst to me, liquid has come on the outside of the tube.  The condensation, which is usually on the inside, now it’s between the two tubes, and I came very close to pulling my entire 18 carat gold headjoint out of my gold flute just by rubbing it on my chin, without my hands pulling it apart.  And I went to play.  Now when you change the length of the flute by half an inch, it goes really flat and sounds really, really bad.  And I went to play a note and I stopped and I said, “Catrin, I’m sorry, my flute,” and I just took my flute and I went, boink, and the thing snapped back in.  It was the most embarrassing thing ever, but the audience said it was hysterical.  And the other one, I have to say that it’s really, really embarrassing.  Well not embarrassing, but hysterical—Charles with his Miss Maggie Brown, his teacher from the third grade.  He made me learn the Roman numerals that he had to learn when he was in second grade, and how he says them, the “One-I-one, two-I-two, three-I-three, I-V-Four, V-Five, V-One-I-Six, V-Two-I-Seven, V-Three-I-Eight, I-X-Nine, X-Ten,” and that happened yesterday during the Villa-Lobos concert and he said, “Are you ready?” and I thought, “What am I ready for?  Oh yeah, I can do that.”  But you haven’t done that in about ten years, so you never know what’s going to happen with Charles.  You never know.  And that’s part of the fun, I think. \n\nJESSICA LANCIA: Well I think we’re almost out of time if we’re out of time.  I really appreciate you coming on.  I’m going to x-out. \n\nTARA HELEN O’CONNOR: Sure, absolutely.  I hope I didn’t make a fool of myself.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1695/collection_resources/53012/file/125187#t=0.0,1977.552"}]}]}]}