On a recent Sunday night, musicians began tuning up for rehearsal in a hall at the School of Music, Theatre & Dance building on North Campus.
One was in scrubs. A few were just days away from finding out where they had matched for residency after medical school. And one came straight from the lab, because the cells he’s growing for his doctoral work had not cooperated with the rehearsal schedule.
The tuning was led by an ophthalmologist doubling as concertmaster, who signaled to a psychiatrist to give the tuning note on his oboe. The other principal string players — doctoral students in pharmaceutical sciences, health policy and cellular pathology — and the rest of the orchestra joined in.
For a moment, all of them were connected by a single note: nurses and research staff, engineers and epidemiologists, information technology staff and data scientists, surgeons and a veterinarian, ranging in age from early 20s to mid-80s.
And then the conductor took the podium and led them through the finer points of Rimsky-Korsakov’s masterpiece “Scheherazade,” which they’ll play for the community April 3. The ophthalmologist-concertmaster used her violin to portray the piece’s namesake, the heroine storyteller of the Arabian legend of the “1001 Nights.”
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In other words, it was just another rehearsal for the U-M Life Sciences Orchestra, which is celebrating its 25th season of blending science and music.
The LSO came together in 2000 when a group of up-and-coming physicians and scientists approached Elaine Sims, the director of Michigan Medicine’s Gifts of Art program, to propose a new orchestra for the amateur musicians of the medical and science community.
From that moment on, the LSO has held auditions each fall and played two concerts a year since January 2001, with a hiatus for the pandemic. They’ve played under the batons of more than two dozen graduate students and alumni of U-M’s famed orchestral conducting program.
“When they take their places on the Hill Auditorium stage, where musicians from the world’s most famous orchestras have played, I can feel the magic they feel all the way to my seat in the auditorium — it is that powerful,” said Sims, who calls herself the LSO’s stage mother and oversees its operations with a volunteer committee that includes several other founders. She notes the orchestra’s 25-year partnership with Kenneth Kiesler, professor of music in SMTD who directs the orchestral conducting program.
“The LSO is more than a gathering of people with an interest in music,” said Kiesler, who has taught all of the LSO music directors. “Working together on some of the greatest works of music involves a unique sort of collaboration and non-verbal communication. While it engenders self-expression, it is also a catalyst for human connection and community.”
The LSO’s 25th anniversary concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. April 3 at Hill Auditorium, with a pre-concert lecture by music director Nicholas Bromilow at 6:45 p.m. Free and open to the public, it will include not only the Rimsky-Korsakov piece but also Johannes Brahms’ “Academic Festival Overture,” conducted by assistant conductor Michael Roest, and “Hymn for Everyone,” written in 2021 by Jessie Montgomery.
The event will also be livestreamed; visit the LSO website for details on how to attend or watch, or to audition next fall.
