A Cowboy Goes to the Symphony

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Audio: The first movement of Dan Welcher's Symphony No. 4 "American Visionary," which was written to honor the entrepreneur George Kozmetsky, reflects Mr. Kozmetsky's obsession with machines, and is preceded by two minutes of narration by his friend Billy Joe (Red) McCombs.

Recording engineer: Andy Murphy, U. of Texas at Austin

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By SARA LIPKA

Austin, Tex.

Billy Joe (Red) McCombs, a hulking Texas tycoon who breeds longhorns, drills for oil, and buys and sells football and basketball teams, is not the likeliest classical-music lover. But the symphony isn't bad, he says, "when I can't get Willie Nelson."

A few weeks ago in Austin, Mr. McCombs, who even at 78 has a thatch of auburn hair and a college-football lineman's frame, took to the stage of the Bates Recital Hall to narrate a symphony commissioned for the University of Texas Wind Ensemble. Fine-arts faculty members hoped that the popular public figure, dressed in a tuxedo and black cowboy boots, would bring more people to the student ensemble's performance and, more generally, help broaden public interest in classical music.

Mr. McCombs agreed to come after Robert Freeman, dean of the College of Fine Arts, let the businessman choose the theme of the symphony himself.

Mr. Freeman, a New Englander whose father played bass in the Boston Symphony Orchestra, arrived in Texas after 24 years at the University of Rochester's Eastman School of Music and was immediately fascinated by "the energy in the idea of this state" — an energy he saw personified by Mr. McCombs. The entrepreneur, who founded Clear Channel Communications, among other companies, was in the news at the time, having just donated $50-million to the university's business school, which is now named for him. An important local figure, "he has a terrific voice besides," Mr. Freeman says of Mr. McCombs's rich, resonant baritone.

The dean believes that narrated works of classical music draw new audiences to the concert hall and fulfill a "need in the United States and beyond for American art that tells our story to ourselves and to the people around the world who both admire and despise us." A pianist by training, he had experimented successfully with a narrated symphony in the early 1980s, when he commissioned an orchestral work to honor Martin Luther King Jr. and talked Willie Stargell, then the Pittsburgh Pirates' first baseman, into narrating it.

A couple of years ago, the dean drove out to the office of the Red McCombs Automotive Group in San Antonio — Mr. McCombs got his start in the 1950s selling Ford Edsels — without revealing his reason for the meeting. "I thought the dean more than likely had come down to talk about some project that he might be looking for some assistance in funding," says Mr. McCombs in his soft drawl. "I was absolutely surprised as well as stunned when he came to my office and said, 'I want you to do a reading at a little concert.' I said, 'For what?'"

After listening to the King tribute that the dean had given him, Mr. McCombs came up with his own answer: for George Kozmetsky. Mr. Kozmetsky, who had died a few months earlier, served as dean of the business school at UT-Austin from 1966 to 1982. A scholar, entrepreneur, and technology expert whom his admirers call a visionary, Mr. Kozmetsky is credited with developing Austin's high-tech industry, and, according to Mr. McCombs, setting the Texas economy on track. Mr. McCombs had often sought business advice from Mr. Kozmetsky, and the two were great friends.

Mr. Freeman liked the idea and called his friend Robert L. Kuhn, an investment banker and corporate strategist who had worked closely with Mr. Kozmetsky. Mr. Kuhn began sorting through Mr. Kozmetsky's writings, looking for "little nuggets," he says, to work into a libretto for the symphony. With gifts from Mr. McCombs and Mr. Kuhn, as well as a donation he made himself, Mr. Freeman commissioned a symphony for wind ensemble by Dan Welcher, a professor of composition at the university.

Because Mr. Kuhn was working in Beijing, the composer and librettist communicated via e-mail to create a three-part symphony with each movement preceded by two minutes of narration. The first movement would reflect Mr. Kozmetsky's obsession with machines, the second his commitment to his family, and the third his dedication to his community. (While some narrated symphonies weave words in with the music, the woodwind and brass instruments of a wind ensemble — as opposed to a full orchestra's high proportion of softer stringed instruments — make it difficult for a narrator to be heard over the music.)

Lucien Douglas, a professor of acting, met twice with Mr. McCombs at his office in San Antonio to "fine-tune his natural instincts." But those instincts were already good, the professor says. "I don't know that there are many people in the state of Texas or in the country that have more confidence than Red McCombs."

As news of the concert spread, the College of Fine Arts was flooded with inquiries, says Sondra Lomax, one of its assistant deans. "We were really surprised at the people who were calling, people from really outside fine arts," she says. A typical concert of the wind ensemble, which features 88 undergraduate and graduate students, fills half the 700-seat concert hall. According to Mr. Freeman, the idea of Mr. McCombs's narration fostered "a palpable sense of 'Gee, I wonder what this is going to be like.'"

Just hours before the concert, Mr. McCombs joined 50 members of the wind ensemble to rehearse together for the first time. More was new than the presence of a local personality; Mr. Welcher's work also incorporated innovative sounds. A percussionist adjusted a suspended railroad spike, which he played by hitting it with a second spike. Beside the spike hung five ceramic mugs, poised to be tapped with a wooden drumstick. Nearby a fellow percussionist arranged a pile of river stones to be struck with a brass mallet.

During the rehearsal, Mr. Welcher stood and waved his arms a few times. "I'm still hearing something funny on the second eighth of the second bar," he yelled, calling for a G sharp on the xylophone. When Mr. McCombs and the ensemble finished the rehearsal, however, the composer clasped Mr. Freeman's hand in a hearty high-five. Mr. Douglas shrugged and smiled at his dean, as if to say that their narrator — who spoke at a lectern before each five-minute movement and sat in front of the harp while the ensemble played — wasn't half bad.

Backstage just before showtime, Mr. McCombs looked ready to go. "Anyone got some dice? Let's see if I could win a buck or two," he said, revising his original plan to scalp the performance's $10 tickets outside the concert hall.

The hall was nearly full when the ensemble opened its show with a bold brass fanfare by Richard Strauss. Two more pieces — including one called "Slalom," composed to evoke the exhilaration of downhill skiing — preceded Mr. Welcher's Symphony No. 4 "American Visionary."

The homage to Mr. Kozmetsky began with Mr. McCombs reading his friend's words: "Texas — think beyond cattle, cowboys, oil. To see the future, Texas, link intellect, technology, and enterprise." The music that followed incorporated several of the unusual percussion sounds to represent quirky bursts of machine energy. Before the second movement, Mr. McCombs, licking his finger to turn pages, continued with Mr. Kuhn's libretto, calling Mr. Kozmetsky "an irrepressible optimist and a loyal friend," an idea expressed musically in a gentle conversation between the flute and bassoon. The symphony concluded with Mr. McCombs describing Mr. Kozmetsky's contributions to his community and the wind ensemble gaining energy for its exuberant finale in C Major.

The audience responded with a standing ovation begun by Mr. McCombs's wife, Charline. Mr. Freeman was especially pleased with the number of nonregulars who attended, including several university donors. "The objective is to get the nation more viscerally involved in the arts," he says. "Classical music is too often focused on what was written 100 years ago. ... It isn't that I disdain the 'Eroica' Symphony and the Brahms Third, but classical music in America will die if it stops growing."

"I'm always looking for other constituencies than the ones who normally go to concerts," he says.

For now, he is succeeding in Austin. After the performance, Mr. McCombs mentioned the symphony in the same breath as a common ranch activity: lassoing and binding animals. The symphony "doesn't compare at the moment with roping goats," he said, "but it was fun."