THE KANSAS CITY STAR

WHERE SELDOM IS HEARD A SYMPHONIC STIR
KANSAS PRAIRIE IS THE SETTING FOR ALL-WOMAN PERFORMANCE.

Sunday, June 19, 1994
Section: ARTS
Page: I3
 

By SUSAN J. KRAUS, Special to The Star

CHASE COUNTY, Kan. - "And you thought 'Field of Dreams' was just a movie," Jane Koger, a Chase County rancher, said in welcoming an enthusiastic audience to "Symphony on the Prairie."

 More than 3,000 people were spread out before her on blankets and lawn chairs that covered this piece of the sloping Flint Hills.

 "If you build it, they will come," was the ghostly cinematic injunction that motivated Kevin Costner's character to transform an Iowa corn field into a ballpark. Koger must have also heard voices, or at least had dreams. And to many it may have appeared to be a crazy dream: an all-women symphony playing a concert out in the middle of nowhere.

 Well, not exactly nowhere. It was on the northwest quarter of Section 30, Township 22, Range 9, Homestead Ranch, Chase County.

 "This symphony is respectfully dedicated to the people of Chase County," Koger said, "who have given me the gifts of roots and community." And her "community" responded: more than 300 volunteers (some from as far away as New York and Washington State); the support of the Chase County Arts Council; and local backing from groups ranging from the Rodeo Association to Rainbo Bread.

 It was a warm afternoon a week ago Saturday. Early on, clouds moved in, thunder rumbled in the distance, but it didn't dare rain. A long curl of dust could be seen in the distance as car after car crunched along the gravelly back road. Horse-drawn covered wagons helped transport folks from the parking meadow to the symphony site.

 In huge striped tents at the bottom of a hill, the Free State Brewery (from Lawrence) catered more than 1,500 barbecue or vegetarian dinners, a logistical challenge given the absence of any utilities or water.

 Many of the symphony players came from Kansas City. Penny Kruse, of the William Jewell College faculty, was first violin. Several musicians came from the Kansas City Symphony, Liberty Symphony, Kansas City Civic Orchestra and the UMKC Conservatory as well as from Indiana, Illinois and Texas.

 They opened with Joan Tower's "Second Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman," then moved into Aaron Copland's "Appalachian Spring." Libby Larson's "Deep Summer Music" was followed by dance episodes from Copland's "Rodeo." As a surprise for Koger, not listed on the program, the symphony played one of her favorites, Pachelbel's Canon in D. High up the hill, children danced in the waving grasses.

 The music was fine, but the concert offered so much more. It was a visual feast: the broad sweep of color of thousands of people on green fields under a blue-gray sky; children running across the prairie, picking purple liatris and hot orange butterflyweed, indigo, coneflowers and rudbeckia. A lone kite arched in the sky, frisbees flew, people hummed to the sounds of the symphony.

 In a nostalgic conclusion, symphony and audience came together to play and sing the Kansas state song, "Home on the Range." There was a rarely sung verse: How often at night when the heavens are bright With the light of the glittering stars, Have I stood there amazed, and asked as I gazed, If their glory exceeds that of ours."
 
 

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