When we left Boston 55 years ago, Arthur Fielder was the leader, a position he held from 1930 when he was named the first full time conductor, until his death in 1979.
About the time Richard Gird was buying the semi-desert Rancho Santa Ana del Chino in 1881, Boston was an historically dynamic financial and shipping center, and the citizens figured it was about time to add some culture to the city of the nation’s founding fathers. The Boston Symphony Orchestra was formed, and in 1885 an offshoot, the Pops as it was later called, was founded to present “concerts of a lighter kind of music,” including popular pieces from the era’s musical hits. Thus the name Pops, a model for many similar symphonies across the nation.
Our program that night had a western tinge, and was conducted by visiting maestro Robert Bernhardt from Chattanooga. He opened with the Cowboy Overture, did a couple of pieces by Aaron Copeland and finished the first half with Themes from Silverado. You could hear the hoof beats throughout.
In the second half Mr. Bernhardt showed up dressed as a ranch foreman and led the backup music for the Riders in the Sky, Grammy winning group that has carried on the tradition of the Sons of the Pioneers. Ranger Doug (guitar), Too Slim (bass), Woody Paul (fiddle) and Joey (accordion) may have mellowed with the years but they still are great stars of cowboy music and the audience ate it up.
The concert was a welcome respite from the heavy stuff we dealt with earlier, such as “Energy in the New Century,” and “Capitalism, Democracy and Development,” presented by current faculty members of the Harvard Business School.
Some of the other topics such as “The Crisis in CEO Success,” “How to Manage Urban School District,” and “New Opportunities for Productivity and Innovation,” we left to the reunion graduates of the classes from the seventies and eighties who are still in their executive prime.
This doesn’t mean that members of my class aren’t still active in the world of finance and leadership, but many of them are contributing lifetime skills to non-profit and health care organizations, donating back to society the benefits of their top business education and the good years they have had as corporate and business mavens.
Concerning energy, Professor Forrest Reinhardt assured us that oil will never get cheaper and that the few producers globally are in a position to hold back production. He said that there is no perfect competition in energy and we’re paying too much at the pump now.
Why? We’ve got the whole energy picture all wrong, he said. Oil is much mixed with politics. Supply and demand are topsy-turvy. For the future we need to produce what people want, and teach our children economics. Most important, we need to take another look at government regulation of energy for the long range and more subsidization for other forms of energy production. Keeping energy prices down as demand increases is too big a task for big business to handle. Besides, American big business has appeared to have ceded control to a few global biggies.
How about Capitalism? Move over Energy. It, too, requires better rules and regulation, according to Professor Bruce R. Scott, whose field is the impact of government policy on business.
First of all, would anyone like to define what “capitalism” is? Good luck, because different countries have different notions of how it works. In this country, the modern definition was set by conservatives around 1980 and is struggling in face of 21st century needs, concepts and desires. It falls short in face of the rising inequality the way income is shared, and the changes brought about by globalism.
Neither of these teachers are exactly college-cloistered socialists, as some conservative opponents of government regulation might think because of the Harvard connection. The business school is hardly a nest of liberal thinking. It’s job is to make future business and management leaders think and succeed.
Maybe that’s why “Riders in the Sky” were so satisfying. The class of ’53 has basically had its day.
(Postscript—in a quick survey at our table of 10 at the final night dinner, eight favored McCain, but eight also thought Obama would win.)
Copyright 2008, Champion Newspapers - Published June 14, 2008
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