The Really Terrible Orchestra Of the Triangle (RTOOT)
RTOOT Home Page
News & Observer
Published: Sunday, December 07, 2008
The Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill triangle in North Carolina
DARN TOOTIN'
RTOOT - the Really Terrible Orchestra Of the Triangle -
sneers in the face of musical snobbery.
These folks are a hoot.
W. Sands Hobgood conductor for the Really Terrible Orchestra of the Triangle -
that would be RTOOT for short - leads the group during a rehearsal:
photo by John Rottet
News & Observer
Arts & Living
Sunday, December 07, 2008
By Matt Ehlers
Staff Writer
The orchestral music bouncing around this school gymnasium sounds ... well, there's really only one way to describe it: wounded.
To even an untrained ear, the problems are plentiful. This version of "The Blue Danube" is too slow. The violins occasionally squeak. The entire orchestra seems a notch off-kilter, as if the players are having trouble jelling as a unit.
But this interpretation takes into consideration only how the music sounds. It is wounded, yes, but it is not afraid of death. It might even be defying it.
The cellist in the hipster eyeglasses and beat-up sneakers is smiling wide. The older gentleman with the hearing aids plays the violin with concentrated enthusiasm, eyes locked on the sheet music. And at the front of the room, waving his baton with rhythmic abandon, is W. Sands Hobgood, conductor of the Really Terrible Orchestra of the Triangle -- RTOOT for short.
In this room, everything is happening exactly as it is supposed to.
RTOOT takes its inspiration from the Really Terrible Orchestra of Scotland, co-founded by author Alexander McCall Smith. Like its namesake, the Triangle version welcomes musicians with limited skill.
Haven't played that trumpet since high school marching band? Come on down. Oboe covered in dust? No matter.
Some competence is necessary, as the rehearsals aren't intended to be music lessons, but desire and a sense of humor are more prized than ability. Professional musicians are welcome, but they generally don't play their principal instruments.
After months of practice, RTOOT will have its inaugural concert on Wednesday in Hill Hall on the campus of UNC-Chapel Hill. The ears of the Triangle, for better or worse, will never be the same.
A 40-piece orchestra of marginal talents would be a challenge for anyone, but Hobgood has the personality and attitude to take it on.
Hobgood, who is 63 and a self-proclaimed "evangelist for retirement," says the Terrible Orchestra isn't thumbing its nose at more established ensembles.
"But we are kind of spoofing the music and the music establishment, people who are a little bit stuffy about their classical music," he says.
Musician at heart
Hobgood, "Sandy" to his friends, is anything but stuffy.
He will prove this by answering his home phone one afternoon and listening politely. Sure, he says, we can get together soon for an interview. But I'm naked right now and can't get to my calendar. Would you mind sending me an e-mail?
And by setting up a lunch meeting for precisely 11:11 a.m. ("it's just so digital") and then appearing at the diner looking haggard and worn, with a story more fitting for a college student than a retiree. The tale involves alcohol, old friends and conversation that extends into the wee hours.
The interview starts slowly but picks up after Hobgood knocks back a bloody mary and downs half a cheeseburger.
After working nearly 30 years for IBM, he retired in the late 1990s at age 52. A software architect by training and a musician at heart -- with a treble clef tattooed on his right shoulder -- Hobgood played the organ at Aldersgate United Methodist Church in Chapel Hill and studied conducting with Tonu Kalam, the conductor of the UNC Symphony Orchestra.
After deciding he was ready to conduct an ensemble on his own, Hobgood kicked around the idea of finding a small local group to work with. Then a friend sent him a story about the Really Terrible Orchestra of Scotland.
He decided a good name for a similar local group would be the Really Terrible Orchestra of the Triangle, and checked to see if the Internet domain www.rtoot.org was taken.
It was not.
"Being from a liturgical music background," he says, "it was like the Lord had spoken."
The Really Terrible Orchestra Of the Triangle prides itself on its
inclusion of players with a wide variety of experience and talent:
photo by John Rottet
Rochelle Sparko of Durham plays violin for RTOOT.
The 40-piece Triangle group takes its inspiration
from the eally Terrible Orchestra of Scotland:
photo by John Rottet
Paul Baerman of Chapel Hill, who plays oboe with RTOOT,
makes notes on his musical score during a rehearsal:
photo by John Rottet
Brian Walker, Trombone:
photo by John Rottet
The Really Terrible Orchestra Of the Triangle prides itself on its
inclusion of players with a wide variety of experience and talent:
photo by John Rottet
Carolyn Field of Durham warms up on her alto violin,
which is played like a cello. Her husband, Frank, plays
violin with RTOOT. The orchestra gives nonprofessional
musicians a chance to perform great music:
photo by John Rottet
Michael Lyle, assistant conductor:
photo by John Rottet
He turned no one away. For Hobgood, the auditions are more about getting to know the players and judging their skill level so he will have an idea what level of music the orchestra can tackle.
Rehearsals have been held at Hatcher Grove Baptist Church in Cary to regionally centralize the orchestra as much as possible. The group's first concert will be in Chapel Hill, but Hobgood plans to hold performances in Raleigh and Durham in 2009.
"We are," he says with a hard laugh, "a Triangle-wide cultural resource."
'We do try very hard'
Trish Weaver, 43, is a paleontology and geology researcher for the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh. But long before she was a scientist, Weaver was a tuba player. She started in the sixth grade."The school bought a tuba," she says, remembering her introduction to the instrument. The kids were asked: "Does anyone want to play it?"
Weaver figured everyone plays the trumpet, so she volunteered for the oompah machine. She didn't stop playing until her sophomore year in college, when it became too difficult to balance her musical and scientific studies.
To join the Terrible Orchestra, she had to borrow a tuba from her nephew in Alabama.
Now Weaver finds herself enjoying it so much that she plays every day.
"It's a good mood-altering thing," she says. "It's fun
to make noise."
The orchestra is filled with similar stories.
Cameron Price, 34 is a percussionist. He had played in bands over the
years, but they never really got anywhere. Joining the orchestra "was
a chance to play my drums more and to play in front of people."
Patti Jean Spinillo, 44, plays the trumpet, which she first picked up
in the fourth grade. As an adult, she took a "26-year hiatus"
from the instrument. But she has gotten back into it in recent years.
It can be difficult, though, to find ensembles that need trumpet players of her caliber.
"After you graduate from high school, if you don't do it for a career, where do you play?" she said.
Spinillo loves music, and RTOOT gives her the chance to perform it.
"We're not that great," she says, "but we do try very hard."
Or, as Price puts it:
"Everyone in the orchestra is talented, it's just different levels of talent."
Terrible? Really?
When asked if the orchestra is truly terrible, as the name promises, Hobgood demurs.
"I'll be quite honest," he says. "It sounds much better than I expected it to."
He believes the orchestra can find an audience that appreciates the effort and sense of humor behind the music.
The program for the inaugural performance will be extra thick -- the joke being that a long program will better distract the audience from the music. It will include coloring pages for the kids in attendance.
"My grandchildren are coming," Hobgood says. "We have to occupy them somehow."
The orchestra operates in the middle ground between inside joke and semi-serious business. It's all in good fun, but the musicians perform as best they can, and Hobgood puts tremendous amounts of time and energy into it.
In the spring, RTOOT members will travel by Amtrak to New York City for an April 1 performance of the Really Terrible Orchestra of Scotland. Hobgood is already excited about the partying on the train.
For now, though, he's still worried about this "Blue Danube" waltz. At the rehearsal, Hobgood seems happy with the orchestra's performance.
But something is missing, an instrument not normally associated with this
140-year-old piece of music, yet one that charmingly fits RTOOT's mission.
"There's just not enough kazoo," he says.
So a few more of the plastic instruments are handed out, and he asks the musicians to try again.
This time, the Terrible Orchestra nails it.
matt.ehlers@newsobserver.com or 919-812-0466