Jerry E. Sirucek was awarded Honorary Membership in the IDRS in 1988. Honorary Membership (as described in the IDRS Constitution, Article V, Section 6) “...may be created for persons of unusual distinction... A candidate for Honorary Membership will have completed meritorious service to the area of double reed performance, teaching, instrument making, repair, reedmaking, etc...”

His career was certainly “meritorious and distinguished”: 16 years in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and 28 years as professor of oboe at Indiana University. When I heard about the award, I wrote to offer my congratulations. He responded:

“Receiving the IDRS honorary membership was the last thing I expected. You get into the music business and become so engrossed in what you’re doing that you hardly lift your head up to see what’s going on because of being so involved in your activities. I felt a little funny and didn’t feel like it was deserved. I thought about this for quite a long time and, of course, realized it was a high honor. To be included with highly respected colleagues means a lot to me.”

My immediate thought upon hearing that was: “That’s Jer.” His words clearly reflected the man: someone who is reluctant to accept accolades, someone who feels that he simply did his job, someone his wife says is humble and a bit shy. And his words compelled me to begin to collect thoughts, ideas, feelings, and remembrances of Jerry Sirucek for an article in these pages.

I started the process by contacting Michael Ericson, a fellow former Sirucek student, who has played an important role in helping to compile information for this article. We both felt that some details of his contributions would be interesting and perhaps inspirational to a much wider audience than the man would seek out himself.

Much of what you will find on the following pages comes directly from Jerry Sirucek himself. It was a challenge finding time for our many interviews, for Sirucek is hardly “retired.” If he isn’t performing or teaching, you might find him working his farm, flying his plane or fussing with his computer. In addition, his natural humility makes him a reluctant subject. Nonetheless, the richness of his life speaks for itself throughout these conversations, which I transcribed and paraphrased from taped interviews. We spoke of his musical development, his career with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, his opinions about conductors and other musicians, his teaching career at Indiana University, and his love of farming and flying.

I feel that some of the most important material in this document comes at the end, where you will find commentary from several of his former students. This is where Sirucek as teacher and human being is best described and celebrated for his achievements.

I ask the reader to indulge abbreviations in the text. In my experience, students often referred to Mr. Sirucek as “JS”, so I continue that here. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Indiana University become CSO and IU respectively. Initials used in the interview transcript sections represent JS as Jerry Sirucek, LS as Lorraine Sirucek, JB as James Brody, and ME as Michael Ericson.

Jerry Sirucek was born June 30, 1922, in Cicero IL. His parents were born in Moravia, Czechoslovakia. While living there, Sirucek’s father was a saddle-maker and designer. In Chicago, he was co-owner of an auto body shop. As JS tells it, their turf was “Al Capone territory. They used to repair bullet-ridden cars, but their specialty was designing and building wooden hearse bodies.” (An interesting combination!)

In the shop, they seldom replaced damaged auto parts but thoughtfully found ways to make damaged materials good as new, even creating special tools with which to do it. JS recalls that his father was proud of this creative work, saying: “It’s an art, just like your music.” This artful resourcefulness is much in evidence in JS’s approach to the oboe, music and reeds: figure it out, make it work!

JB: Did your parents encourage you to pursue your musical interests?

JS: They encouraged musical training, but they wanted me to pursue dentistry as a profession. They thought musicians were a bit like wandering gypsies. I made a weak attempt to pursue dentistry, but my mind was so made up, there was no other way. Me, I lived music. I had decided very early, at the beginning of high school, that I was going to be in music. I was studying violin and piano well before then. [JS met his wife because they studied with the same violin teacher. His violin career was effectively ended when he accidentally ice-skated over the little finger of his left hand.] In high school, I ended up on the oboe after asking the national contest-winning bandmaster, Louis Blaha, what I might play in the band and was offered two choices: French horn or oboe.

JB: Too many saxes, clarinets, or flutes?

JS: He never gave me the reason, but that’s where he needed players and I picked the oboe because it was easy to carry. I knew a little bit about it because in grade school we used to listen to the Walter Damrosch Hour. Before television, there were radio/speaker systems in the classrooms and we listened to children’s concerts out of New York City. I was impressed by the oboe at that time: it was “latent” with me.

In high school, I went way beyond the call of duty as far as involvement. We had a different set-up from what you see today. We not only had our usual rehearsals during the day but at night, also. I’d be at school at 8:30 am and wouldn’t get home until 10:00 pm. I was involved in the library, became an officer, played in the orchestra and the band. Blaha was an exceptional man. I became one of “Blaha’s Blasting Bohemians” [so-called because of the ethnic background of the students]. We had practice studios at school, and anytime there were five minutes available, I’d practice. We sometimes rehearsed six hours a day. It didn’t take me long to realize that if you wanted to enter music professionally, you needed complete experience with the music. I participated in everything available to me, attending rehearsals at Chicago Musical College, DePaul, and the Chicago Conservatory, for example.

We covered a lot of music. There were some good, experienced and talented teachers who conducted these groups, so I was involved in a really good atmosphere, associating with “high grade people.” That all helped. The most important thing in my mind was: “Cover the music, learn the music!”

JB: Who was your oboe teacher at that time?

JS: I didn’t study with anyone for about two years. My first real teacher was Ferdnand Demange. He was a student of Alfred Barthel, a French oboist of the Tabuteau generation, and principal oboe of the CSO. Demange was a free-lancer and teacher in the Chicago area and was hired by my band director to coach the high school oboe section.

JB: How did you get by during those earliest years?

JS: The section would help me out. I would play on a reed for six months and it would become really resistant. At section rehearsals, Demange would take a plaque and carve the “stuff” out of the reed, and then I would almost fall through it, it blew so easy! It probably sounded like a kazoo, but I was elated. Around 1939, the Chicago Symphony School of Music was created. It was a studio school created by musicians from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra [hereafter CSO] to teach young musicians. I won a scholarship contest to study there with Robert Mayer, English horn player in the CSO.

JB: Would you consider him to be your main teacher?

JS: Yes. Robert Mayer was very good to me. When I was short on money during World War II, he gave me lessons for no charge.

JB: What were the best music schools considered to be when you were a young man?

JS: We would talk about Curtis, Boston, Eastman, Juilliard. Curtis was the first school that was on my mind. If there were some way I could have studied with Tabuteau, I would have, but didn’t have the means or financial help because of the Depression of the 1930s. My parents were poor and it [Curtis] was far from home. I wanted to study with Alfred Barthel, who was nearby, but we didn’t have the money, and couldn’t do that, either. Maybe if [Barthel] saw good talent, perhaps he would have just said “come on in here.” That was the tendency in those days. That’s what Robert Mayer did for me. You didn’t let someone with good potential go without lessons just because they didn’t have the money. But I didn’t even get to Barthel. It would have been a good experience. Although different from Tabuteau, Barthel was an important oboist.

JB: Did you listen to a lot of recorded music?

JS: And how! Also, I just hand-copied music. I played so much music in the groups I was in, and was able to get access to a lot of music parts and add to my collection.

JB: That copying must have been time-consuming.

JS: To me it was always a known fact that you would have to work like a dog, there was just no question about it. And I wanted to work like a dog! But there was one difference as opposed to today: I put all my time towards music. When going to college, you have to pursue a degree, so your time is divided. It becomes more difficult for you. The old fashioned “super-dedication” is a little harder to instill in a person who has to do all the other things, also.

JB: What would a typical lesson with Mayer be like?

JS: Scales, long tones, we looked at reeds, an exercise, a solo and occasional duets.

JB: What were the exercises?

JS: Demange started me with the Niemann/Labate method. With Mayer, it was the Barret book. We also did a little Ferling, Gillet, Hugot-Bruyant.

There seemed to be two different paths that teachers took. One was the “set” system of channeling from one book to the next according to immediate needs. Or there was a “central” system: for example using Barret and then adding what I call “side books” for specialized work on scales, melodic and phrasing work, orchestral studies, rhythm, etc.; picking books and exercises depending on what they wanted to focus on to enhance the central text. I came from the central book system, with a lot of organization on technique. I probably spent more time on technique and rhythm than on the rest, and there could have been more on other elements. In that day and age, teachers didn’t detail instruction. Mr. Mayer would assign an exercise, he’d tell me something about it, and the advice included playing with the metronome, starting slowly, gradually working your way up in tempo. That was pretty much it. He didn’t have to say any more. If you were faithful and persistent, really took the time to get used to a metronome, you would have success. A metronome can be something that is hard to “get with.” Stick with it, and you finally realize that you like it, because you can see what you’re getting from it: a perfect steadiness. If you take it further, into sub-divisions, then you become very accurate in your rhythms.

JB: What about reeds?

JS: When I studied with Mr. Mayer, we made short scrape reeds. They played beautifully, but I didn’t like the thin quality in the high notes. I had a slightly different sound in my head, but didn’t know beans about how to achieve it. I wanted a sound with less edge and possibly more depth. So I figured the reed would sound better by chopping it. The sound improved, but it was less flexible. Pretty soon I was playing on a plank. I’d fight that all week long, come back for a lesson, he’d fix it back to everything playing well. I wouldn’t like the high notes and I’d go home and chop the reed again.

JB: What was the next step?

JS: I began to experiment on my own, started to use the long scrape. Everybody tended to go that way. But at that point I was not studying, and instead read books and talked with other oboe players while experimenting. I searched for things that worked.

Later, in the CSO, I usually scraped on three reeds at a time, practicing the same scrape. I had at least three new reeds a week for CSO playing, and would always play on whatever I had just made, to maintain strength and build up a reserve of used, but good, reeds.

Having just finished high school, the 18 year old Sirucek won his first professional orchestra position in Tulsa OK in 1940. (Interestingly enough, one of JS’s sons lives in Tulsa now. JS and LS often fly there to visit him.) This turned out to be an important break for JS, as the Tulsa conductor led the Chicago Grant Park Orchestra and a small touring group.

After Tulsa came an audition for the Chicago Civic Orchestra (the training orchestra of the CSO) where JS attained the first chair position. In 1941, before his first season with the Civic was over, the manager of the CSO sent JS to the Houston Symphony to replace the English horn player who had been drafted into World War II service.

JS: I went on tour with Houston and finished the season there. Ernst Hoffman was the conductor and we met about ten minutes before the first concert of a tour. No rehearsal, just right out on tour. Dvorak’s New World Symphony and Roman Carnival Overture were on the program. It wasn’t a problem. Mr. Hoffman just let me alone and I played. They offered me the job the next year, but I didn’t accept it. I felt there was the possibility to go into the CSO. In the meantime, I played as a replacement in the Stokowski Youth Orchestra on English horn. The situation was tenuous. Mr. Stokowski was replacing a lot of players. I considered staying, but they wouldn’t guarantee me the rest of the season. Long-story-short, I turned the Stokowski orchestra down, and sure enough, I was invited to play the 1942 CSO summer season, and it all worked out. Those six weeks I played in Chicago served as my audition.

In September 1942, JS joined the military. He served with a Navy Band (sometimes playing violin in a café orchestra), but was frustrated musically. His desire for satisfying musical experiences led him to seek outside opportunities. When his Navy duties interfered with his musical pursuits, his solution was characteristically resourceful.

JS: I asked for permanent KP [Kitchen Police] duty, a transfer from the band to the mess hall, which gave me better hours to play outside. I had the men’s room cleaning job, “Captain of the Head”, for a long time. That was fine, as it gave me the necessary time to go into Chicago [to play]. I also did a lot of night work, like squeezing oranges. I drank almost half [of the juice] because it was so good. The Chief began to complain: “We don’t get enough juice out of these oranges!”

These years of service allowed JS to take advantage of educational opportunities, studying ship navigation and flying. Because of his abilities, he was transferred to Alma College in Michigan for officer’s training. He did well in the accelerated study courses and was accepted for aeronautical engineering training at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. Completing the degree would have resulted in a commission, which would have meant further military service. However, the war ended, and he was discharged in March, 1946. JS later completed a college degree (a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from Roosevelt University) while playing full-time in the CSO.

Sirucek was encouraged to return to the CSO after World War II, but problems existed. Complicated WWII and contract issues almost cost him his position. JS had to work his way back in to the CSO. At first, he rejoined the Chicago Civic Orchestra and stayed in constant contact with the CSO manger.

JS: I had friends in Chicago. That’s one thing I have to emphasize about Robert Mayer and Florian Mueller: they were true friends. They backed me up. It wasn’t a dog-eat-dog business in this case. They stood behind me through all problems.

Plans were being made for the next season. All of a sudden [in June, 1946], the management sprung a fast audition on me, saying: “Mr. [Désiré] DeFauw [CSO conductor] wants to hear you play now, down in the library.” DeFauw said: “Don Juan, opening.” I faked my way through it, but I was on time, the rhythms were accurate, and the style was there. Whatever notes I couldn’t get were manufactured. I finished and he looked at me and said: “You have no trouble with technique, do you?” And I answered: “No, sir.” (Laughs) After playing a few more things, I was back in the orchestra. They had probably decided to take me back, but wanted to be sure.

JB: Boy Scout training? “Be prepared” and all that?

JS: Well, I was prepared. I lived music.

JB: Were you ever tempted by your interests in engineering and aviation, the security of life-long employment, to consider taking that path?

JS: A chance to get back into the symphony? I never looked back.

JB: Please talk about your Chicago Symphony Orchestra career.

JS: Artur Rodzinski was conductor for only one year. He was trying to change the orchestra. I don’t know how many people he would have let go had he lasted. He set up the NBC Orchestra before Toscanini and that’s why they called him an “orchestra builder.” I liked him as a conductor, but less as a person. He was a terror during rehearsals, but during a concert, he wouldn’t pay any attention to you whatsoever. Completely left you alone. Good stick technique and good interpreter, a highly experienced man.

JB: What would he do during rehearsals that was so difficult?

JS: For example, while rehearsing another orchestra, he picked on a violinist on a back stand. “You! Play that alone!” He started doing that so often that when he asked for that, the whole section would play. He tried a little bit of that in Chicago. Rodzinski was obsessed with very accurate technique. I remember being on the stage one time during a break, fixing a reed or trying something, and he hadn’t left the podium yet. We were doing Daphnis. “Sirucek! Every one of those notes must be played!” I said: “Yes, sir!” This was the era when some of these greats were very hard to get along with. They were “dictators of the baton.” If they didn’t like you, good bye.

JB: Was the orchestral world more “conductor-controlled” at that time?

JS: Definitely! The conductor was God. Fritz Reiner was another one. By the time he became our conductor, we were ready for him as we had already gone through it. It wasn’t as difficult with him as with Rodzinski.

But it was an immense change from the earlier life of the orchestra. A lot of players were adversely affected. This is a sensitive business and you can lose something from somebody parading on you all the time. I was just fortunate by never having that problem. When Rodzinski came in, I was playing assistant first. He asked me if I would play second. I wanted to remain as assistant first because of my interest in first chair playing. Eventually, he said: “All right, you play second, and when Mueller [the principal] doesn’t play, you play first.” That went on for awhile. It must have been under Reiner when the third oboe position became precarious, and [the third oboist] finally asked me if he could do some first playing on children’s concerts so that he could be heard. I knew what might happen: if I gave in on that, then all of a sudden the original plan would fade away and I would no longer be playing what I wanted. I could have been stern about it and refused, but that’s not my nature. So, from then on, I played second, although with Kubelik I occasionally played English horn.

JB: Who were strong influences on you musically or personally?

JS: I’m not sure how to answer that. I had a different kind of flexibility in mind, which came from my violin background, and that influenced my outlook on how to play the oboe. To this day, I think that. When you play the violin and make an interval, there are certain actions and feelings involved which are more than just “move your arm and clamp down over here rather than there.” The different sort of attacks, fluency, everything that goes on with a string instrument, I wanted to do on the oboe. A lot of people patterned after voice; I patterned after the violin.

I was wild about some of the top soloists, such as [violinist Jascha] Heifetz, [pianist Vladimir] Horowitz, [pianist] Arthur Rubinstein and [violinist] Isaac Stern. I used to listen to them carefully and was very interested in how they did things. For example, Heifetz in the last movement of the Brahms violin concerto (sings). I think I spent a month trying to copy what he did with the first theme. He tore into it in a certain way. When somebody like that performs and you like it so much, the desire is there to play it that way and yet it doesn’t sound quite right no matter what you do. Zino Francescatti was a fantastic technical performer, but he tended toward a high-pitch approach. Some of the bottom I wanted to hear was missing. But what a player! Nathan Milstein was very good. Sitting close to him was a disadvantage: he sounded “scratchy.” Heifetz did a little bit as well. Apparently, that turned into brilliance in the listening area. Bassoonist Leonard Sharrow, to me, appears to have a slightly harder quality up close, but in the audience, a beautiful, clear and centered sound prevails. Oboists can learn a great deal from this.

Learning strict accuracy in rhythm and meter can also make you a stiff player. That’s when you begin to wonder, when you listen to people like that [those mentioned above]. They’re very accurate but they’re flexible. So you try to figure out what they’re doing. That’s where a jazz feeling might come in: having a very strong foundation and then loosening a little against it. That’s what makes a fine player. You could be 100% accurate and not sound good in other ways. It was this sort of element I was always looking for.

I grabbed anything musical from anybody. Horowitz had a peculiar kind of tension in his arms and that’s why he could play double octaves so fast. He did it with a “quiver.” It didn’t look like he moved his arms, it just happened. Sitting right there, you could feel his tremendous strength. I was very interested in the way Rudolf Serkin phrased, how he was able to draw just the right effect out of the piano. I felt something very special in his playing. There was much to be learned about musical ideas just by careful listening.

JB: Were there other people in the orchestra who you would single out, or was it more a matter of just playing in a great orchestra?

JS: More the latter, I think. Tubist Arnold Jacobs’ approach to music was beautiful. I could sense that what he was doing with his breath was special. Ray Still did many great things. But if we’re talking about something that really grabs you, it’s true: the orchestra really grabbed me. Sitting on a shallow, wide stage, one can’t figure out how the people on one end know what the people on the other end are doing. And I was sitting in the middle, so I could hear if we’re together or not. And we were together! How? Why? It’s not just that beat, it’s far more than that. During a big work like a Strauss tone poem, you would hear all this musical effort going on, a bow falling on the floor, and you’re sitting right in the best seat in the house. It was thrilling. When you had a good concert, you walked out feeling so good. When you had a bad concert, sometimes you went out through the alley exit.

At this point in our conversation, JS, LS and JB were looking through a wonderful scrapbook that LS has kept over the years, and we came across a very evocative picture of Fritz Reiner.

JS: The BBC is now doing a radio retrospective on Reiner. They have appreciation for his recordings, and feel that he needs greater recognition. They interviewed many of us from the CSO: Janos Starker, Philip Farkas, Robert Mayer, George Gaber, Leonard Sharrow, Ray Still, Bud Herseth, Arnold Jacobs. The BBC people wrote me recently to thank me for the interview, saying that I might be amused to know that in all the interviews, nobody really said anything against Reiner. (Laughs)

JB: From the grave he’s still controlling what goes on!

JS: Well, he was a great man, I have to admit it. Reiner was very good, especially in his younger days. He had a stick technique and an inherent musicality that worked, no question about it.

JB: What did you tell the BBC?

JS: They were interested in personal things that went on.

JB: So tell stories, tell stories! There are so many that may or may not be true, such as the bass player using binoculars to see Reiner’s beat, and Reiner holding up a little card that said: “You’re fired.” Did that sort of thing really happen?

JS: Sure, but not with us. That happened elsewhere. We [the CSO] had to get used to him. Occasionally, he would show his temper. I remember one time coming late to a rehearsal because of a tire blow-out or something, and I ran into the dressing room after the rehearsal had already begun. I got my oboe out, gulped a few times, and thought: well, here goes. While I started up the steps, he began stamping on the podium like he was out of control. So, I stopped, listened to a few words, put my oboe down and went next door for a cup of coffee. I didn’t go up until intermission, and then was careful that he didn’t see me until after I was on, and got away with it. (Laughs) There were no questions asked. I probably would have been kicked out of the orchestra by coming in earlier, walking in like the lamb to the slaughter! He was different during concerts: not so nasty. After all, if he started to destroy you on the stage, then you weren’t going to be able to play and that would reflect on him.

But, he had greatness. (When JS related the following, I very much got the impression that this story was most evocative for him regarding his relationship with Reiner.) One time, I missed an entrance somewhere, only for a moment. Right away, I saw his eyes shift over to me. Then, I’ll be damned, up ahead was a repeat which meant going back through that same passage again, and that meant trouble. I knew it, he knew it. (Laughs) So it was a question as to what would happen when we came back the second time. I was ready for the entrance sixteen bars ahead: bringing up the oboe, not looking at him much, testing the reed, looking very prepared, and knowing what was going to happen. Then came the world’s biggest cue, which was inevitable, but I wasn’t looking at him much. It wasn’t over yet. We went on, and at some point, I was going to have to look up at him, and he knew it. He had to win, I knew I had to lose, and wasn’t willing to give in! (Laughs) So, maybe five minutes later, I carefully looked at him, and he was waiting for that. He looked right at me, and gave me that knowing look, and that was it. (Laughs) I have to say that I felt that he liked me. I think that he liked the whole oboe section, because we got away with a certain independence at times.

JB: Could you explain that?

JS: Well, sometimes Ray Still would arrive on the stage a bit late and I’d be giving the “A.” Or Ray would be making reeds on stage and Reiner would say: “Still! Stop that scrrretching! You make me nervous!” Once, Reiner issued an edict: the oboe section was to be on stage ten minutes before every event. Apparently, there were too many episodes when Reiner would be coming in from one side of the stage and somebody from the oboe section would be running in from the other side to sit down just before he reached the podium. The instrument might even be in the case.

JB: That seems a bit risky.

JS: So, we were there early for one or two weeks, and gradually life went back to normal. But we were more watchful, a little more careful. He was like a scolding father, that’s how I looked at him. That was the type of relationship we had.

JB: But was there a certain affection, too?

JS: What little affection you could have with Reiner. It was not to be, because he would attack anybody, from the top on down. It didn’t matter. He was always looking for any weakness, and he would find one.

LS: If he didn’t pick on you, then you knew that he cared about you.

JS: Well, he might pick on you anyway. He never hesitated putting anybody on the spot. The BBC was digging for human interest material from us [former CSO players]. [The BBC people] felt that Reiner was maligned in that he never got the recognition that [other conductors] received. [The BBC] asked me to comment, and of course there had already been some remarks about how difficult Reiner could be. I said there was another aspect to this. Because of the very tough attitude that Reiner had, everybody [in the orchestra] had to protect themselves, and I had my own system to control nervous moments. I built a psychological brick wall between myself and him. Every time he stopped in rehearsal and really got on somebody’s case, I laid another brick. I figured by the time he got to me I’d have a good wall and he couldn’t reach me. (Laughs) It was a good way for me to handle the situation. Not that I was in any trouble. That’s where my flying and farming come in. I always looked way ahead. There was a method to my thoughts and actions. I didn’t want any confidence or relationship problems. In some ways, I liked Reiner.

One time, we had a situation where the whole orchestra was to enter at the same time, and we couldn’t get it together. It was ragged. With Reiner, you had three chances. Nothing was said the first time. We went back and the same thing happened. By that time, everybody was looking around and he was looking around, also. The third time, the same thing happened. He stood there for a moment, didn’t say anything. Finally, he quietly said: “Vatch der elbow.” He put his hands up, everybody “vatched der elbow” and we all came in together. Everybody thought it was fabulous! (Laughs)

JB: Another story I’ve heard about Reiner concerns a recording session. There was a squeak in one of the chairs in the cello section, and he allegedly said: “If there is another squeak, I will remove all the chairs!” Does that sound familiar?

JS: The difficulty of recording with Reiner was that even though we were using tape and splicing cuts, he insisted on recording an entire side of a regular disc before stopping. If anything was wrong, he would do the whole thing over. Others would patch in two bars here, four bars there, but not Reiner: he always went back.

JB: Which Reiner CSO recordings really stand out for you?

JS: I think that the Spanish album is out of this world, and, of course, all of the Strauss tone poems. I used to look forward to those pieces. There was nobody who had a better grasp of that music. What an experience to play those pieces with him! He did very well on Brahms; his Wagner was great; Ravel, Prokofiev, Kodaly (anything Hungarian, of course), Berlioz, Shostakovich. I was less impressed with his Mozart, and yet others just rave about it.

LS: I always felt that his strength was his interpretation. It was like he was painting a picture, and it was a good one.

JS: That, together with the tension that he put into the orchestra made the orchestra very brilliant. There have been discussions about whether Reiner’s kind of discipline is good or not, but that’s the technique he used, and it worked.

JB: Before we leave the symphony world, I want to ask about the many conductors you saw in your career. Did you have any favorites?

JS: I wouldn’t be able to say who my favorite conductor was and don’t see how anybody could. I can only say who the greats were to my mind. They all were strong in different ways. Being very serious about the job and very attentive to what was happening resulted in my gaining from all of them. Once in a while, somebody would do something special. I particularly watched Reiner. He was the epitome of stick technique. He could do no wrong.

I liked [Frederick] Stock very much, but it’s pretty hard for me to judge him objectively. You have to realize that was my first year in the orchestra. I was only 19 years old: it was bound to be the greatest! But others hold him in high regard as well. It was a different world at that time. He was a man with a tremendous repertory. He conducted all the concerts and had an impact on me even beyond the fact that it was my first year in the symphony, a big moment.

Whether I liked them or not, both Rodzinski and Reiner were great conductors. Rodzinski was a strange person. On several occasions, he asked a big, burly stage hand to pinch him as hard as possible, until he almost passed out. Then, [Rodzinski] took a whiff of smelling salts to get himself back, and came out [on stage]. He would get himself psyched or “hyped” up in this way. To play the Bizet Symphony under Rodzinski was really something. It just sparkled, bubbled; he did something special with that piece.

I liked Pierre Monteux very much. We performed often with him at Ravinia. I always felt he deserved better performances. He was a gentleman and the orchestra tended to take advantage of this, which was wrong. He had a lot of wisdom, expertise, and gave a lot of support to the orchestra. There was a period when we were having problems with Claudia Cassidy [the Chicago music critic]. Monteux got up on the podium and said: “I used to be a viola player. When I couldn’t play the viola anymore, I became a conductor. When I can’t conduct any more, I’m going to become a music critic.”

Monteux once conducted The Rite of Spring at Ravinia from memory. A wrong cue right in the worst place, one of the odd meter sections, threw the whole orchestra off. He then proceeded to bring everyone back together by pointing, cueing. I looked at that man and thought: “You are great!” To have that kind of mental command, to be able to do something like that, because that situation was a lost cause. He did it: we couldn’t have done it. I always looked forward to him.

I liked Ormandy though some didn’t. His emphasis was definitely on the strings. It was something that I could go with because of my interest in strings. Stokowski would be on stage at the podium before rehearsal, putting his hands out so that they could adjust the lights to fall on his hands. It was part of the “act.” I didn’t get to play for Toscanini. Bruno Walter was most enthusiastic and committed to his work. William Steinberg was another one from the school of the impeccable beat, at least initially. When we first played with him, he could do no wrong. It was very impressive.

JB: The best conductors were the most direct in approach?

JS: There was not much talk. The fine conductors tended to try to show you through their stick technique rather than talk about it. Those that talked too much didn’t get anywhere. They had to be careful what they talked about.

JB: Which recalls the famous Bruno Labate comment to Klemperer: “Klemps, you talka too much.” You told me that Paul Paray called the CSO “gangsters.”

JS: [In French accent] “Gungstairs.” (Laughs) We just became tired of his talk. Finally, somebody stood up and told him to conduct and we would play. He was just trying to be friendly, but he overdid it.

JB: At the risk of sounding ignorant: would there be “artistic battles” with a conductor? Perhaps the orchestra was accustomed to playing something one way for a long time, felt comfortable with it, and somebody else comes along and says: “No, we will do it this way.”

JS: Most of the time, no battles. There were disagreements with some conductors about bowings. I remember in the bass section, somebody was trying to get them to change a bowing and the remark was made: “Our pages are so marked up now that if we change it one more time, the music is going to fall apart.” Reiner often made changes in the percussion. I’m sure any artistic problems were solved in a private meeting.

JB: Playing in a “training” orchestra is so different. Lots of starting, stopping, trying again and rehearsing sections of the orchestra.

JS: Some of us felt that there was a conductor’s “Rehearsing Book” circulating out there. Comes the famous cello part in La Mer [sings a parody of the popular standard Am I Blue?], approaching it for the first time, you knew you would have ten minutes off while the cellos rehearsed. Another problem some conductors tried to stick their nose into, and it almost always was a failure, was intonation. It was better if they would say: “It’s out of tune, gentlemen.” But if they tried to tune it, then they stuck their necks out. We would always try to fix it ourselves.

We only saw [guest] conductors for a brief time. In order to judge a conductor, you have to determine just how much they know. That means you have to spend more time with them. The minute they showed any weakness, the orchestra would immediately lose respect. “He doesn’t know this work well enough; he’s learning on us.” You could spot that in a minute. Stock conducted everything the CSO did. Conductors don’t do that today. They travel the world with just several programs for a whole season. That seems to be the tendency nowadays.

Leaving the CSO (and the farm)

JB: When and how did you decide to leave the CSO and take the teaching position at Indiana?

JS: There were several factors that played a part. We formed an Orchestra Committee in the CSO in 1959. Phil Farkas, Ray Still and Lenny Sharrow were in the original group of six or seven that were involved. Our necks were on the line, because we had little support. Even the management quietly encouraged us to drop the issue.

JB: I recall that [the tough, legendary union organizer James] Petrillo was someone you didn’t want to upset.

JS: Yes, I had to deal with him. In the second year of the Committee, I became chairman. On many occasions he’d press me to “keep your men in line.”

JB: What did he mean?

JS: Well, everybody was grumbling. One problem the CSO had was the inadequate retirement policy. Job security was another issue.

Fighting the symphony wasn’t my goal: I loved it. Some players wanted to use strong labor tactics, but that didn’t seem right to me. I wasn’t afraid to take something on, but didn’t want to mix “coal miner’s union” politics with art. The one thing I did for the Committee at that point was just hold it together.

Also, our season became a seven day a week job. In addition to the regular season, there were radio and then live television broadcasts, and we couldn’t take any time off.

LS: One of the only times the kids saw their father was on television.

JS: Yes, it became that bad. The job became very commercial: seven days a week, union tactics, get in there, play a concert, go home. There was very little chance to be musically creative. It was too much.

LS: They went to Milwaukee Monday nights. Sunday was television. They had Saturday night programs, Friday afternoons, Thursday nights, Wednesday afternoons, every other Tuesday afternoon, and then rehearsals in between.

JS: Then, [Dean of the Indiana University School of Music Wilfred] Bain offered me the IU oboe teaching position in 1961. I didn’t accept immediately, but Bain did a good selling job, telling me I would have plenty of playing opportunities with the Baroque Chamber Players and the American Woodwind Quintet. That was interesting, and I thought about it more seriously. It finally became a choice between staying in a very secure position in one of the greatest orchestras in the world, at a good salary, and playing commercially, or leaving for a new musical life, and also a new family life. I went around and around about it. It took me about half a year to make the decision. Family issues and reluctance to leave the farm also figured in strongly.

The Siruceks purchased the 153 acre Buddland Farm (near Woodstock IL) in 1955. They raised cattle and hogs, corn, soybeans, hay, and definitely learned about hard work. They wanted to live out in the country, away from Chicago, in a healthy, physical environment. LS recalls Buddland as “a pretty place, with four acres of gardens surrounding two houses.” Even in 1996, JS and LS speak about their first farm with great affection.

JS: My first tractor was a bulldozer. I used to pull a big plow with the dozer. It was crazy. No one used a bulldozer to till land except a dumb symphony musician!

LS: He would come home from symphony concerts late at night and then would go out to feed the cows. The neighbors would all ask: “Why do we hear your cows yelling at midnight?”, and Jerry would say: “They don’t care when they get fed!” It was relaxation for him, to unwind from the day.

JS: More than once I came home from a concert and jumped on the tractor and went plowing. I remember one spot on the farm that I always liked to get to, about a “half mile from everywhere.” I’d get off the tractor, shut it down, stand there, breathe the air and say: “This is ours!”

LS: We had a runway on the farm and used to land the plane there, get out and walk to the house.

JS: I was trying to work out an airplane commuting arrangement to Meigs Field [on the downtown Chicago lakefront]. I could get there in twenty minutes by plane. After we moved to Bloomington, I used to go back and check on Buddland all the time. Not knowing how the Indiana position was going to work out, I was still teaching many students in Chicago and used to go up there every other week, fly or drive. Eventually, we sold Buddland and bought a farm here.

JB: I recall a story about a forced airplane landing on a highway during those air commuting days.

JS: That was below Lafayette (IN) and potentially very dangerous. It just proved that if you planned ahead, if you had that instinct, you could get along with problems much easier. I left Chicago at about 7 pm and all of a sudden the engines began to sputter. I took it back down and then it was running fine. It seemed like an icing problem of some kind, which is controllable, so I decided to take off again. It was already dark. I flew up to Palwaukee Airport to consult with a mechanic before making the trip. While en route, I was thinking: where am I going to set this thing down if something goes wrong? There were beaches along the lake, but there were piers, also. The plane was acting antsy, but with a lot of power, and I was able to smooth it out. The mechanic diagnosed it as carburetor ice. I even called my brother-in-law, who had been a career Air Force pilot. It sounded like ice to him, also. I took off again and flew the “airport route” [from airport-to-airport for safety reasons]. The plane was not acting normally, but it had power and I was able to keep it running smoothly. Over Crawfordsville [IN] Airport, the engine blew up.

JB: Aha. It wasn’t icing.

JS: A valve broke and put a hole in a piston. My luck: the Crawfordsville Airport was closed. I radioed the flight service station to tell them what was happening, where I was, what I was doing. They called radar to find me, but were homing in on the wrong plane. I kept telling them: “I’m over Highway 43.” I used to drive that route, and was familiar with the road. A good part of it is very straight. That was in the back of my mind. I kept going, getting lower and lower. The best power available gave 70 mph and dropping 100 feet/minute: on a descent but still moving forward. 70 mph isn’t far from the stall point: you can’t go too much slower. I asked the tower operator about the terrain ahead. It couldn’t have been worse: trees, a river, a quarry, and the airport up on a bluff. I probably would have ended up in the quarry. I made up my mind to land on the highway, but had to turn around, and at slow speed and low altitude this is difficult and hazardous. I can still remember seeing the trees. I went directly for the road, and overshot the damn thing. The airplane was going down, so I hit the landing gear switch.

It was a perfect landing on the highway at 2 am. Luckily, there were no cars on the road. The engine was still running as I coasted, looking for a place to stop without putting the plane in a ditch. I tried to turn off on a side road when the engine quit and couldn’t get off the highway. A woman came by, and it became amusing at that point. She pulled up, rolled her window down, I walked up to her nonchalantly, mentioned a little problem, and asked if she would call the police. She exclaimed: “Is that an airplane?”

The police finally arrived. They woke up a homeowner who came out in his pajamas and robe, and the police asked if we could park the plane in his yard. He stood there scratching his head, looking at it all, trying to figure it out. It so happened that the people in the next house down that side road were IU alumni. They saw what was happening, and asked: “Would you mind putting the plane in our yard? We have a big German shepherd. We’ll tie him to the plane and he’ll guard it for you.” That was a break!

The police took me to the Purdue [University] Union and I called my wife. Then is when the shakes took over! The next day, while getting a hair cut at the union, the barber said: “Did you hear about some dumb SOB landing an airplane out on the highway? He could have killed himself!” I couldn’t decide whether to say anything. After a while, I told him: “I’m the pilot.” He looked at me, took a step back, started apologizing.

Getting the plane out of there took a little work. The wingspan was too wide to tow it out, so we would have to close roads to get to an airport. Permits from the city, state and county weren’t forthcoming. Phil Farkas came up with a good idea: get a trailer and put the plane on sideways, because the airplane was shorter than it was wide. When we did that, we got narrow enough, got the permits, and only had to move one sign. I found out what was wrong with the engine, and just bought and installed another one.

When JS finally decided to leave the CSO, management thought that he was negotiating for a raise. An unpleasant battle ensued.

JS was no stranger to publicity, as he had been featured in Chicago newspapers several times during his CSO career. He had been the subject of a Chicago Tribune article about the extra-curricular business successes of CSO musicians, where the public learned he had a machine shop in his basement and was partner in a music store. (But that’s another story.) In another article, JS was given “end-of-the-season cum laudes” (along with hornist Phil Farkas and concertmaster Israel Baker) for his exemplary performances with the Grant Park Orchestra. However, the On the Aisle column from 1961 (included here) had a less than laudatory tone, and gives the reader a sense of what JS was fighting.

Unfortunately, the eventual circumstances of his departure were not entirely pleasant. Even today, discussion of the 1961 CSO management and (especially) the Musicians Union can bring an extra edge to his voice. However, he remains a faithful supporter of the CSO and is a Gold Card union member.

Teaching

JB: Many of your IU students agree that we were never certain when our lessons would start. Fifteen minutes late was typical, but it could be as much as an hour. Your schedule was intriguing, to say the least.

JS: I was terrible on that score. I know that, but it was based on something. You never could cut off a lesson in the middle of a problem. That was the wrong thing to do. You might not go further in the lesson because of all the time you used, but you had to solve the problem, no matter how long it took, before you let the student go. I wrote many excuse slips for tardiness to their classes.

JB: What would be an example there? A reed problem? Articulation issues?

JS: A rhythm problem, such as slowing down or exploring subdivision, phrasing problems, whatever. I might have to start talking arithmetic, anything to get the student not just to play it but think it, too. If they just by accident played it and then you moved on, that wasn’t good enough, because that wouldn’t be successful in the long run.

JB: How did you know when someone really “got it?”

JS: You could feel it, just as you can tell when a person has talent. It’s a little hard to put into words.

JB: Did you ever have a student who just never “got it?”

JS: Some just don’t have it deeply enough, in their blood. For example, if a student can count, if they work hard enough and go far enough, slow down and take things apart, they can apply it. Some people just don’t realize that they have to go that far back and for how much time.

In my teaching career, I taught many high school students without much musical background. You expected that you were going to have to work hard with them, so I was used to it. I would get annoyed when college students would come in and were not aware. That was my short fuse.

LS: That always amazed me about college students, because in our time we had such a tremendous high school music program. I guess that’s what baffled me when we came [to Bloomington] and we could see college students that didn’t know what we had learned in our high school.

ME: During your IU career, did the preparation level of incoming students change over the years?

JS: You have to remember that when I first taught at IU, Dean Bain was starting to build, so the whole approach was different. At first, we were short on students. We eventually got to the point where we were much more selective. Things just got better over time. Each generation progressed beyond the previous one.

I never felt that I had a priority on the best students. I had students of varying capability during my entire tenure. It’s hard to speak to that. Take an oboist like Steve Colburn. He attended IU in my very early years, and look what he was able to do. [Colburn is principal oboe in the Milwaukee Symphony.] Sherry Sylar is another one with very high accomplishment [associate principal oboe in the New York Philharmonic], and there are many others.

JB: I felt that I went through an organized program of study with you at IU.

JS: That wasn’t my own invention. When I studied with Robert Mayer it was: “Scales! Scales in thirds!” I took it further with fourths, octaves, and chromatic minor thirds. I could see that these were things you encountered in actual music. There were certain patterns that became part of you. Mayer concentrated on scales and using the metronome. That was something you became accustomed to. If you didn’t, it was a battle. If you stuck with it long enough, you knew you were correct.

There was a risk. I was really interested in a super-accuracy on certain things, such as rhythm, scales, tempos. When you finally perfected that, you became super-accurate and stiff. Music isn’t supposed to be played that way. If you’re tied to something very permanent and secure, you can swing away from it, but you snap back like a rubber band. You’re organized, and then you can take your “indecent liberties.” Its a whole different feeling. You’re always tied to something and you have flexible, accurate rhythm, something stable from which to work.

I felt very strongly about that and just kept after people. Some gave me a battle there. I told them: “If I’m going to teach you, you’re going to have to let me teach. You’re going to have to do what I want. Then you evaluate it for your own use.”

ME: Some teachers are very prescriptive about their approach, as in there is only one way to do something in a piece.

JS: First of all, I very much believed in the individual: no two of us are alike. But I felt that when you were going to play something new, I wanted you to know how I felt about it. But when the door opened, I wanted students to be individuals.

ME: Was there anything you found hard to teach?

JS: If a person didn’t have a good sense of an emotional approach to musicianship, if they just didn’t feel it, then you really searched for what to do. It amounted to that about all they did was play louder or softer.

I remember a particular case in my early life. There were auditions for a play and I was asked to read the lines of the King, which I did in an immature monotone. I was told: “You’re the King: you have to act like the King. You have to show his high stature, put yourself into the position.” But, I was too embarrassed to act, couldn’t get myself to do it. I had some students who were not very musical and weren’t “saying” anything. Though I couldn’t act, I had no problems in music and tried to convey musical expression to students. Possibly it was an embarrassment to them, to suddenly feel something. When you’re at a younger age, there are certain things you might be very reticent about. I have a hunch that in some cases, students just couldn’t allow themselves to “let go.” Expression is problematic, especially if there is anything to this inherent embarrassment of exposing your feelings. It’s difficult to put into words or music, to get the point across, because you’re not talking about words, you’re talking about feelings.

ME: What about the discipline that it takes to be a good musician: to sit down and practice, to examine things in a certain light. Doesn’t that carry over into other fields?

JS: Sure, the hard work, the desire, the ability to problem solve. There’s no easy way in music. Some of the people I competed against in performance, all they could do was play the one piece they knew at the time. It didn’t take much to figure out that they were taught by rote and were very short on fundamentals. This wasn’t acceptable to me, even in high school, because I was taught another way. I spent the time, put in the hours.

ME: I don’t remember you ever telling anybody that they should practice a “set” number of hours. It was more of a feeling of: “This is what is expected, get it done.”

JS: My teacher never told me how long to practice. That’s not the solution, when you sit there looking at the clock. For some it takes more time, for some it takes less. I think I made clear what was expected.

ME: Do you think that [having other interests and capabilities] makes you a better musician? Perhaps you can approach things from different angles, without tunnel vision?

JS: It can provide a different confidence. One philosophy is: “You must be dedicated.” I agree with that. However, you have to eat, also, or you’re not going to be able to be dedicated. The way this business has developed, jobs are an effort to get. I think I did quite well by my students. Comparatively speaking, when I look at them and where they are, we’ve done well.

ME: There are also students who did not continue in music but who were strongly influenced by you.

JS: From day one I talked about the music business with my students. I felt much better if the student had another field so if one thing didn’t work, the other would. Even some of the very best students in the whole country don’t know which way they’re going to go or where they’re going to end up. So, you’re dedicated to what? You have to be able to make a living. I’m more interested in your future down the line. I want you to be able to make money and lead a good life. Here at the university there are many possibilities, so you should also pursue other interests. I always gave the same lessons, the same chance in ensembles to all the students. If you could play, you had a spot. You couldn’t argue with that. The only problem then was all the time you spent on the other subject.

I believe that our one-sided educational system, with a specialty as the main focus, is not the best way to go. You may be great in your field, but you’re missing a lot of things. I saw that when I was at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Watching these fantastic professors, mathematicians, aeronautical engineers walk down the street, you knew there was something incomplete with them. They were lost in their specific field. I think music is helpful to any other field because it affects life in such a positive way.

In the CSO with Reiner, for a while you didn’t know if you were going to keep your job. One time, I thought I was fired. I received a letter with ominous wording and concluded: “This is it.” My wife and I were up half the night talking about our future plans and already had some ideas about life after the orchestra. But the manager just wanted to let me know how much Reiner enjoyed my playing. Given the lack of security, I learned early on the practicality of having another direction.

I remember very well a statement from an IU student who majored in computer science and also studied piano. She played a recital and graduated. Somebody asked her: “Didn’t you find it difficult to have to spend all that time on two areas? Why not just drop the music and put all your energy into computers?” Her response was: “What other school could I attend where I could study piano [as an avocation] with a top teacher while planning for my career?” With that remark, I could justify all the students coming to IU. Actually, we are building our future audience to appreciate classical music. You have to justify things, or you’re just sitting there to make a buck.

ME: Do you think a student should try to copy someone else’s sound or try to develop their own?

JS: That depends on what’s in your ear to begin with. If you really haven’t thought about it, you should probably copy somebody you like. Then, after you’ve started in a direction, you should become an individual. [As stated earlier] I had a sound in my ear pretty early on, but didn’t quite like the product. So, I just kept experimenting, looking for solutions.

The whole oboe playing scene is a changing one. You’re always doing something different. You experiment with your breathing a little bit, your posture, trying to find out how to make it better, easier. It may not be possible to be perfect, but the closer you can get, the better. I remember Phil Farkas and Schilke mouthpieces. He would say: “I’ve got the mouthpiece!” He would play it for a while, then all of a sudden he’d say the same thing about another mouthpiece. He had a concept of what he wanted to hear. He wanted [the mouthpiece] to respond in certain ways, to help him speak through the French horn.

Thus, experimentation is in order. I don’t mean just experimenting, but always trying something a little different. You almost have to with reeds because no two pieces of cane are the same. You can use your standard technique up to a point, but from that point on you’re trying to feel your way into the finished reed.

ME: Spending so much time on reeds can be a limiting factor for oboe players. If we didn’t have that, our technique might be that much better, for example. Perhaps that’s a personal excuse, but nonetheless I think it’s true.

JS: That’s right, less time to practice. The less time you have to spend on reeds, the better. Another problem: you have concerts to play tomorrow or two days from now, you don’t know how the reeds you make today are going to be tomorrow or the day after. In my reed case, I didn’t want similar reeds. I wanted reeds with differences in them because, hopefully, one or two will be good at concert time. When I first came to IU, nothing would work. It got so bad that I went back to Chicago and sat on the stage at Orchestra Hall, played on the reeds that I had made in Bloomington, adjusted them, and got them sounding fine in Orchestra Hall. It was necessary to go back to Chicago to “hang on.”

Some people like to make a reed and play on it right away. I never had great luck that way. About the third day, mine would decide what they were going to do for me. Of course, you wore your embouchure out in the meantime trying to break them down. This is a world only an oboe player is going to understand. Even a bassoon player doesn’t understand what an oboe player faces in terms of reeds. Non-reed players don’t understand at all. I laugh at clarinet players who want to make their own reeds. It’s all right to learn how, but don’t do it! You’re putting yourself in the same pot with the oboe player, and you don’t have to.

“Retirement”

ME: It impresses me that you’ve continued to play after you retired. I’m not sure I would do that. The playing is great, but the reed making?

JS: I got around it bothering me. Keeping playing is a difficult thing to assess. Long before retiring, I thought about my future, considered my other interests. I always thought I would stop playing, but might teach, with interest in short-term substitute work, anywhere in the world.

Then I thought about the playing. It’s crazy to let go of the one thing you really know. Did I really want to do that again? I had some health problems and didn’t play a note for a year. Picking up the oboe and starting back, it felt like I’d never get back. But persistence paid off. A daily practice routine and experimenting with new musical and technical elements was very beneficial.

I’ve been in music all my life. You would think it’s time to pursue other interests because there are more years left behind than are ahead. I know that there are people who are in music all their lives because they know nothing else. Even though I know a lot of other things, I’m still hanging on to the music.

In her wonderful book about the great French flutist Marcel Moyse, Ann McCutchan quotes from a letter Philippe Gaubert wrote to Moyse; a letter from teacher to student, one great fluztist to another. In the letter, Gaubert wrote about praise and publicity. Gaubert’s words could easily apply to Jerry Sirucek.

“People have written a lot of good things about me, but I’ve never made anything of it... It’s the artist in a true sense who makes a reputation as an artist, and not photos and press releases. An audience made enthusiastic by an artist or a work does more for the name of a man than all the clichés. I don’t have to tell people who I am. People judge me, and that’s all.”

Words from his students

Emily Agnew played second oboe in the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra and is currently on the faculty of SUNY-Geneseo.

As a teacher, Mr. Sirucek was a wonderful combination of organization and enthusiasm. In four years, we covered every possible scale in thirds and fourths; studies of Barret, Hugot, Singer and Gillet; and numerous sonatas, concertos, suites and other solo pieces, some well-known, some less so. His specific goal was to address the basic technical difficulties and interpretational challenges in a variety of works, leaving me with a sort of library on which to draw for future recitals and teaching. I have often appreciated this broad exposure to the repertoire and meticulous approach to technical problems which provided me with a facility that has stayed with me.

I only wish that (as a teacher) I could demonstrate in lessons as did Mr. Sirucek. He would whip off passages with cool authority, then look at me appraisingly. I fell for this basic motivation technique week after week but could never “catch up”; which, of course, was just the point! I was all the more impressed knowing that on many mornings he had come directly from the farm where he had been rounding up his cows before dawn. (They always seemed to be escaping.) At the time, I had no idea how important it was for me, seeing a teacher as committed and dedicated as he was who also clearly had a much beloved life and identity away from the oboe.

Now that I teach a great deal, I understand both the difficulty and the crucial importance of giving one’s full attention to each student at each level of talent and accomplishment. I learned this egalitarian approach from Mr. Sirucek. He assigned repertoire thoughtfully and carefully rotated students in and out of the half-dozen IU orchestras and bands, making certain that each student played repertoire that would challenge but not overwhelm.

My teaching style comes directly from Mr. Sirucek. Like him, I give students of all ages a weekly three part lesson assignment: scales and tone production exercises, etudes, and solo repertoire. On a more general level, I strive, as Mr. Sirucek did, to nurture my students’ independent thinking by revealing and analyzing the way I solve problems on the oboe. And I try to respect each student’s individuality with uniquely suitable assignments. Finally, I emulate his perseverance by really hanging in there with a problem until I see that light bulb go off for the student. As for knocking the socks off my students with impromptu renditions of devilishly difficult passages: give me a few more years, JS. I’ll catch up with you yet!

Stephen Colburn is principal oboe of the Milwaukee Symphony.

Jerry Sirucek is a great player, teacher and human being. I initially studied with him (as a beginner on the oboe) at a studio in Des Plaines IL. My first eye-opening experience with him was when he suggested that I go to Aspen with him in 1962, where he was the primary oboe teacher. It was a revelation to be exposed to such a high level of playing. He then encouraged me to attend IU. I wasn’t proficient enough to be accepted on oboe, so I actually auditioned on bass clarinet. Somehow, he got me admitted.

While at IU, all the oboists performed in a series of studio recitals. My first recital performance was pretty “rough.” When we spoke about it the next day, he said: “So it didn’t go well. It was your first time. Pick up the pieces, learn from the experience, and next time — it will go better.” I then determined one thing that I could control: that I would work harder than anyone else. After many, many hours of practice, my next performance went well. From that point on, I started to develop some confidence in myself.

When I walked into a lesson one day, Jerry asked me what I had “going” that week. After telling him my schedule, he told me that he had already arranged to change my rehearsal schedule because I would be going to Memphis to play principal in the symphony! Their oboist was ill, Jerry was unable to go, so he sent me. Again, thanks to Jerry, it went well, and it helped to further develop my self-confidence.

Jerry was always there to help me with reeds or through a new piece of music. He took phone calls at any time of the day or night, and would even teach a lesson at his home if it seemed necessary. He always knew there was a way to solve a problem if you looked hard enough.

Jerry was demanding and tough to please. But he instilled in you a tremendous desire not to let him down, because you felt that he had made an investment in you as a musician, an oboist and a person. Without his patience, enthusiasm and musical knowledge, I never would have become an oboist. He is an unusual man. I always wondered how I could pay him back. One day, I asked him that question. His response was that I should do those very same things for my own students.

Michael Ericson has taught at Western Illinois University since 1986.

I have many wonderful memories of my studies with Mr. Sirucek. After reading the testimonials of others, I was struck by the similarities. We were all professionally challenged by his methodology. He believed that if you studied anything in a careful and structured manner that you would be prepared to handle whatever challenges that might be presented. He was and still is consistently and ultimately musical. He never believed that there was one “perfect” way to play a phrase. Yet, to satisfy his demands, you needed to be able to justify your approach. I remember a lesson where I thought I had a phrase worked out “perfectly”, even though it didn’t agree with what I knew to be his interpretation. When he questioned my performance, I presented him with my justification. I’ll never forget his response. “Well, it’s up to you. You can do it that way, but if it was me, I’d play it musically!” Ouch. Point taken. It’s a phrase I’ve used more than once with my students when no other explanation seemed to suffice.

Even though I had not met them, I felt as though I knew former students through his stories. He would often make his points by saying: “Marc Fink did [this] while playing this concerto. Sylar did [this and this].” It was part of your education, your motivation to hear about former students who were “successful.”

Like a very few other students, I had the pleasure and privilege of flying with him in his plane and working closely with him on his farm for four years. During those times out of the studio, I learned things about life and the “other side” of being a college professor. I realized that Mr. Sirucek didn’t mention his former students only to motivate us. He talked about them because to him they were (and still are) his extended family. He genuinely cared about each and every one of his hundreds of students. More than anything else, he wanted them to be successful in life. He was fully aware of the difficulties in putting food on the table as an oboist. While pushing all of us to be the best players we could be, he also encouraged the development of other skills that would provide a good life after graduation.

Mr. Sirucek loved teaching and I believe he loved his students. For my part, it was an honor to be his student.

Marc Fink received the BME and MM degrees from IU. Since 1973, he has been professor of oboe at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is currently First Vice President of the IDRS.

Jerry was and continues to be a major influence on me as a teacher, artist, and person. From my first meeting with him, Jerry impressed me as not just a fabulous oboist, but as a complete human being who was as much at home on the concert stage as behind the wheel of a tractor on his farm.

Our class of students was really like a family, and from the perspective of twenty-plus years of college teaching, I can appreciate how important and rare that is. Although the competition among us was present, Jerry created an environment of respect, good humor, and humility because of his personality and approach to teaching. During orchestral excerpt classes, the time was not spent on seeing who could play the fastest or loudest, but rather how you would approach the phrase in question, where each note belonged within the phrase, how to practice the difficult passage, what is happening in the rest of the orchestra during the solo, etc. These classes were always interspersed with anecdotes and stories and, at times, jokes accumulated from his orchestra career. I remember a particular story of a contest he had with Ray Still during a rehearsal of La Mer. The rules: start scraping a blank [unscraped reed] as the conductor gives the initial downbeat; the first entrance must be played on that reed. A pretty good test of reed making, no?

The inspirational, beautifully organized, thorough and complete lessons were always complimented with a tremendous personal touch. In the days before it was common to tape record lessons, I spent the hour after each lesson in the student lounge, writing up notes about it. To this day, I refer to that notebook for suggestions in practice technique, phrasing, or other performance aspects. In the years since my studies in Bloomington, I have had many occasions to visit with Jerry, and have hosted him in Madison to give classes. His vitality for life and absolute love of music-making and teaching are as fresh as they were thirty years ago when I first met him. Our generation of oboe students at IU was unbelievably fortunate and this tribute to such an outstanding mentor, humanitarian, and friend is most appropriate.

Jill Marchione currently performs and teaches in Spain.

JS spent some time here in Spain as the oboe professor with the Spanish National Youth Orchestra. Though his time here was limited, I still encounter oboists who remember JS fondly. Some of these players hold important positions here. Mr. Sirucek’s enthusiasm for everything, not only the music, definitely made a lasting impression on these students.

Now, nearly ten years after my last year of study at IU, I realize that some of JS’s most lasting influence on me came from the things he taught outside the classroom. I had the good fortune to play in the IU Summer Festival Orchestra with JS as principal. Having the chance to see JS using his ideas “on the job” was quite enlightening. They really worked! His interpretation of Scheherazade was gorgeous, something very special.

I have another lasting impression of JS. One warm, spring day I was walking down a street in Bloomington. A car pulled up behind me and I heard a loud wolf-whistle. I whirled around, prepared to tell off the sexist jerk, when I realized it was JS in his bright yellow Corvette, laughing his head off. He knew I was mad!

Kevin Schilling received the DM in oboe from IU. He teaches oboe, bassoon, and theory at Iowa State University, and tours with Basically Baroque, playing oboe, Baroque oboe and bassoon.

Jerry Sirucek deserves notice for his mastery at preparing students for oboe careers as well as being a caring, dedicated mentor.

I came to IU in the fall of 1969 to pursue a masters degree in oboe. I was fortunate to be his Associate Instructor (IU’s classier-sounding name for a TA). The experience I gained by teaching as many as twelve students each semester was very important. Mr. Sirucek was always there to support and guide me, but he also trusted me to fulfill my teaching responsibilities as I saw fit. The supportive, almost collegial attitude I sensed from Mr. Sirucek was characteristic of the IU faculty, a fact which might be surprising to those who only know IU by its “factory” reputation.

In the studio, what I appreciated most was the constant awareness of the music. He had ideas about how to do everything. There was never a sense of the music “taking care of itself.” While we didn’t always agree (and perhaps agree less now that I have become a Baroque oboist), there was never anything I could “find wrong” with his suggestions. After orchestra excerpt classes, I would listen to recording after recording, only to find that most were pedantic compared to what we had been taught. One challenge I made for myself was to walk into a lesson someday knowing how my teacher would approach a piece. I never did succeed. No matter how well I thought I did, he always had some terrific ideas that had never occurred to me.

I’ll relate one tiny, but interesting experience. I had returned to Bloomington for exams, and was waiting outside the oboe studio. Mr. Sirucek played one of the Barret melodic etudes for a student. It was so incredibly expressive that I felt very humbled thinking about my renditions which I had thought must be so inspirational for my students.

Sherry Sylar studied with JS in the 70s, was second oboe of the Louisville Orchestra for 2 1/2 years, and has been associate principal of the New York Philharmonic since 1983.

Jerry Sirucek’s teaching style has had a lasting influence on my skill as an oboist. I will always be grateful for his insistence on technical studies, scales (ad infinitum!), and orchestral excerpts. My technique and confidence in my technique are a direct result from those years at IU.

After each lesson during my first two years as his student, I wrote down every word he said to me. Every semester, we had orchestral classes that I always found challenging and interesting. I also remember “New Music” class recitals, when I scrambled to find music which had not been performed. He encouraged the avant garde. I became intrigued with Baroque performance practice through his infectious love and involvement with his Baroque Chamber Players group. His recording of the Vivaldi G Minor Sonata is still one of my all-time favorite oboe recordings.

JS was such a solid, steady, and fair teacher it would have been difficult not to learn from him. I count myself very fortunate to have had his supervision at that point in my career.

William Wielgus plays second oboe in the National Symphony Orchestra.

After studying with Mr. Sirucek at IU in the 80s I’ve often reflected that the real mark of a teacher’s contribution occurs during those decades when the student stands alone. Now we see the reason for those endless technical exercises: with 4-5 concerts a week, finding practice time is a miracle. Now we see the reason for learning all those obscure repertoire pieces: audiences really like to hear them! Yet no matter how immaculate the technique and refined the phrasing there still had to be something that came from within. “Soulful” was his word, and not just in Czech music.

My strongest memory of Jerry Sirucek as a musician was his performance of Juan Orrego-Salas’ Oboe Concerto with a student orchestra, a performance devoid of the foot-stomping, eye-bulging, hair-tossing histrionics so alarmingly encouraged nowadays among soloistic wannabes, but totally satisfying with his feet-on-the-floor integrity, warm sound, and (need I say it?) immaculate technique.

But unquestionably my most memorable experience occurred when we were going over a list of excerpts for an upcoming second oboe audition. When I got to the infamous slow movement opening of Dvorak’s Seventh Symphony my big, beautiful reed with delusions of grandeur was just plain missing every other note. This provoked an immediate, indignant response, and after a sensitive demonstration on one of his ancient, coffee-blackened reeds, he growled: “When I was in Chicago, we took this on tour —with Reiner, — and I got it every time — AND I USED A HARD REED!”

Kerry Willingham received the BM degree from IU in 1977. He is principal oboe with the United States Army Field Band in Washington DC.

I have a small town, farming background. As soon as Mr. S found out that I knew my way around a John Deere 4020 tractor and was not afraid of a Shredder (a huge, lawn-mower type implement that chops corn stubble), he put me to work. One summer, I lived on his farm, tending to the cattle and crops.

One year, he had a party at his farm, including an old-fashioned hay ride and a spelunking expedition in the main cave on their place. Most of the students were city kids, so this was a unique experience for them. We went several hundred yards back into the cave. We were all cold and wet; fortunately, our flashlights were strong. Mr. S had us all sit down, and said: “You really need to hear and sense what total darkness is like, so turn off your flashlights and sit still!” We obeyed, and found that the darkness and silence was unnerving. After about a minute, Mr. S started singing (in his coarse voice) one of the more difficult Barret etudes. It was totally unexpected and quite funny! He always had a sense of the dramatic.

Mr. S was quite frugal in making purchases for his farm. (Some might even call it “cheap.”) Once he and I were putting up a very large grain storage facility. It had a corrugated metal floor, and we were using electric drills to install sheet metal screws. The “cheap” extension cord being used wasn’t adequate for the amperage, and one of the cords short circuited, burning the rubber coating off while Mr. S was holding it. He dropped it on the metal floor, and it started dancing like it was alive. I jumped on a wooden 2x4 that was nearby, and Mr. S dove out the 2x3 foot opening in the side of the bin. Smoke was everywhere. He may have thought he had an opening in his oboe studio at this point! The electric box on the pole outside melted down and shut off, and no further harm came to either of us.

His farm was his respite from IU and the oboe. We never talked oboe out there, just soybeans, cattle, and how to fix a D5 Caterpillar. He could be very aggressive at the wheel of that machine! I was amazed at his physical conditioning: in the 70s, he could outrun me, which I discovered while chasing cattle that had wandered from the pasture.

Recordings

You can hear JS (as second oboe, occasional principal, and oboe d’amore) on CSO recordings made between 1946 and 1961. JS recorded a great deal of chamber music with the IU Baroque Chamber Players and the American Woodwind Quintet. Unfortunately, much of this is either lost or only in the IU archives.

His solo recording on the Coronet label (which contains works by Ben-Haim, Bitsch, Vivaldi, Wolf-Ferrari, and Jacob) is available on cassette from Coronet Records (4971 N. High St., Columbus OH 43214; $10.98 plus $3.50 shipping). As of press time, I am investigating the possibility of re-release on compact disc.

Thanks/Acknowledgments

My first draft of this article was twice this length. Obviously, much fell away in the editing process. I thank all of the former students who provided words that are not included here, and assure you that Jer has those in hand.

My thanks to Mike Ericson for his help with interviews and contacting former students, and Emily Agnew for her invaluable contributions in editing.

I would be very remiss if I did not sincerely thank Lorraine Sirucek. She is an important presence in this story, often in ways that are not entirely obvious here.

This writing has been a great privilege for me. I thank JS for being a wonderful inspiration and exemplary model. v

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