If you have ever read an Illinois Symphony program book and felt a piece come alive before the first note, you have met Erik Rohde. For ten years, he has written the program notes. This fall, we finally got to ask him how it happened.
A sub, a chamber concert, and a good conductor
In early 2015, Erik was teaching violin and conducting the orchestra at Indiana State University, a few hours from Springfield. The ISO’s personnel manager invited him to sub on a chamber orchestra concert. He was won over by Alastair Willis on the podium and by the culture of the orchestra, so when an audition came up, he took it. He played with the ISO for a couple of years.
Then the writer of the program notes, also an ISO violinist, needed to step away from one program book. Beth Wakefield knew Erik loved talking about the stories behind the music, and asked. He expected a one-time favor. His first batch ran in 2017, and the notes have been his ever since. “It’s now been a decade,” he said, and he has every one archived.
Notes for the curious and the expert
Erik pictures himself having a drink with a friend who asks, “Tell me about this piece.” What would he say? What does he find cool? His goal is that a reader finishes the note and thinks, “Now I can’t wait to hear this.”
Two writers shaped that goal. Michael Steinberg’s books on the symphony and the concerto work for a trained musician and a newcomer alike. And a biography of composer Libby Larsen left him wanting to run and listen to her music.
He also wants to take the great composers off their pedestals. Geniuses, yes, but people too. “If you know what to listen for,” he says, the experience of the music is richer.
Digging for the story
Living composers are the easy ones, since many post their own notes online. The hard ones are obscure mid-century composers with no recording and little written about them. Those he saves for last, and he admits he enjoys the sleuthing.
A season he is excited about
His favorite program this season is the January concert with Mendelssohn’s overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, written when the composer was 17. Erik loves Mendelssohn so much that he suspects his notes run a little long. He is also delighted to be writing about Beethoven’s First Symphony, which gets overshadowed by its famous successors.
From Rochester to the podium
Erik started Suzuki violin at four, in a family full of amateur musicians. He chose the University of Minnesota for its strong engineering and music schools, and he double majored in violin performance and biomedical engineering. His father is an engineer. At the end of his third year, he knew that being an amateur would never be enough. He went on to a doctorate in conducting, then Indiana State, then the University of Northern Iowa in 2020, where he directs orchestral activities. He is also artistic director of the Winona Symphony in Minnesota and works with the Waterloo Cedar Falls Symphony.
Few weeks pass without a concert. This November alone: a Prokofiev symphony alongside a concerto for turntables and orchestra, with a live DJ, then an all-American chamber program in Minnesota, then The Pirates of Penzance on campus.
At home in Cedar Falls, his wife teaches elementary and choral music, and their four children play three violins, a cello, piano, clarinet and bass guitar. “It’s not a quiet household,” he says.
Why living composers matter
Erik champions living composers because they can answer the phone. Sometimes they say, “That’s a mistake, let’s change it.” He believes a second or third performance of a new work can matter more than a premiere. Last season, he got to write about two composers he knows, Chen Yi and Christopher Theofanidis, and it showed.
Every concert, he says, has something for everyone to connect with. Erik’s notes are how he helps you find it.