And the Winner Is...

Sometimes it’s really fun to be the Executive Director of the Chicago Sinfonietta.  Aside from the day-to-day challenges of selling tickets and subscriptions, raising enough money to keep the orchestra afloat, and the six thousand other things that are bound to wake me up every night,  it’s a wonderful privilege to work in our field and for this particular orchestra.  Last week I had a truly amazing experience that I have to share with you.

About three years ago I had a meeting with Dr. Wayne Watson, then head of the Chicago City Colleges, Gloria Castillo, CEO of Chicago United, and Rosemary Jackson, then President of WYCC, Channel 20.  The idea of the meeting was to explore a possible collaboration.  It was decided that WYCC would shoot a documentary about the Chicago Sinfonietta and its Founder and Music Director, Paul Freeman.  The documentary, entitled Chicago Sinfonietta:  Sounds of Diversity, was directed by Jim White and aired in January of 2011.  I was credited as a co-producer.

Okay, flash forward to a month ago when I was informed that our show had been nominated for a Chicago/Midwest Emmy Award.  As you can imagine, I was really excited about the recognition, and very happy for Jim and his wonderful crew from WYCC who had worked so hard and done such a great job.  To be honest, I really didn’t think we had much of a chance to win as we were up against some great competition, and I wasn’t even sure until the week of the awards ceremony whether I would go or not.  It was going to be held on a Sunday night after a very busy week.

Given that this was likely the ONLY time I’d ever have a real excuse to attend one of these, I decided I had to go.  I arrived at the venue about 30 minutes before dinner was to be served, waited about twenty minutes to get a glass of wine – it was crowded – noticed that most of the people in attendance were frighteningly good looking, and finally hooked up with my WYCC table mates.  The ceremony began and I began to get nervous.  Very nervous.  Could this cool, little documentary about a diverse orchestra and its pioneering founder actually win?

After what seemed like forever they had finally given out all of the awards for best weather story of the year, and best special feature, and our category was next in line.  It was then that I realized that I had prepared nothing to say.  Oops!  The emcee read the name of the catergory, all of the nominees were announced, and those fateful words that we have all heard some many times were uttered into the microphone…. and the winner is….Chicago Sinfonietta: Sounds of Diversity.  I can hardly remember the rest.  I made it up to the podium with the other folks from WYCC.  I talked about Paul Freeman and his vision, thanked our great partners, and was led off stage.  The photo above was taken a few minutes later.   This was so much fun I can hardly describe it. 

Yes, I love my job!