Witness to History: Joan Stern and a Lifetime of Musical Stories

Above: Joan Stern 

By Judith Kurnick

If you’ve ever doubted that history is in the details, just spend some time listening to Joan Stern’s recollections. As a successful public finance attorney (at a time when few women were in that field), Stern represented the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania under every governor from Milton Shapp to Tom Wolf, and the City of Philadelphia from Frank Rizzo’s time as mayor until her retirement in 2023. Her projects ranged from Jeffrey Lurie’s purchase of the Eagles to the bond issue for the Kimmel Center.

Passionate about education, Stern remains active on the board of the School District of Philadelphia. But her passion for music, and especially The Philadelphia Orchestra, dates from before she started school. She has the stories to prove it.

“I was two when we started coming on Saturday nights,” Stern recalls. “My sister was three. My parents had seats in the Family Circle [at the Academy of Music], and they figured out that it was cheaper to buy a subscription for my sister and me than it was to hire a babysitter. So, my father would take us all the way up to the Amphitheatre. He and the ushers would put us on piles of telephone books. We were on a level with the chandelier, which we loved. And the ushers would buy us the only thing that was for sale to eat during a concert, Hershey bars. We thought it was magical.”

Didn’t they disturb other concertgoers? “My father would say the same thing to us every week: ‘If I hear a noise, I will know it’s you. And I will come and get you, and we won’t come back.’ We were certain that he was telling us the absolute truth. We sat very still the whole time, and he would come at the end and take us back downstairs.”

Of course, they wore their best clothes. “I thought everybody in the city was in the Academy on Saturday night. I had never seen that many people in one place. So, I was sure that was the entire population. I was very surprised to discover there were people who had never been to the Academy.”

Many young children might be turned off by such strict rules. But Stern came from a family of Russian Jewish immigrants who prized music. “My grandfather Stern, who had emigrated from the Russian Empire to the United States in 1895, was a cantor. He had been trained at a cantorial academy in Riga, which was a possession of the Tsar of Russia. My grandparents had a Victrola, the kind you cranked. And 78 [rpm] records. We had beautiful music to listen to all the time. My father studied piano, and he taught my sister and me.”

Her parents had four seats in a Balcony box. “They told us stories about the world premieres they heard, about seeing Rachmaninoff debut his piano works.” And then there are the stories about Stokowski. “I was lucky enough to see him because he was invited as a guest conductor when I was in high school. He was amazing. And he taught the audience to come to concerts on time. He did it by closing the doors to the hall. People had to stand outside. So they learned.”

Stern’s father had his own way of helping Stokowski keep the audience quiet. “My father always carried two handkerchiefs in his jacket. One in his hip pocket and one in his breast pocket. They were big, 22 inches square. And if there was someone sitting near him who was wearing noisy bracelets, he would give that lady his spare hanky to tie up her arm so she didn’t jangle. They used to hold out their wrist, and he would tie up the handkerchief so they didn’t make any noise.”

Joan soon learned her way around the concert hall. “You always sat on the keyboard side of the hall. That way, you see the pianist, the keyboard, the pedals, and you can see that the person uses his or her entire body for the performance. You appreciate it in ways that you couldn’t possibly appreciate it if you sat in the wrong spot. I was lucky. I always sat in the right spot.”

Young Joan decided she wanted to be in the school orchestra. “I looked at the orchestra at school very carefully, and thought, ‘If I can play a wind instrument, I’ll get to be in the orchestra.’” She joined as a flutist, and from then on, she paid particular attention to the flutes at Orchestra performances. “I still do.”

Stern’s family especially loved Russian composers like Rachmaninoff and Shostakovich, and Soviet artists. “I remember when Ormandy was the conductor. The violin was his instrument. He was a wonderful accompanist. He had guests who were significant figures in the music world. I loved [violinist David] Oistrakh, [pianist Emil] Gilels, [pianist Sviatoslav] Richter. Later, [Mstislav] Rostropovich, the cellist, came to play. He was magnificent.”

Stern has a special memory about Oistrakh. “The Soviet Union had a great collection of musical instruments that were taken during military conquests, especially World War II. They allowed their top musicians to play them. But Oistrakh was so successful that he was allowed to buy a violin in Philadelphia to take home.” One of her parents’ friends, a Russian cellist who had emigrated to escape the Russian Revolution, went with him to the shop, the renowned William Moennig & Son, to translate, and he invited Stern’s father to go along. “Moennig had found him a Guarneri violin,” Stern recalls. “My father told me Oistrakh wept tears of joy.”

It was a shock for Joan when Riccardo Muti succeeded Ormandy as music director. “I couldn’t imagine the Orchestra without Ormandy. But then you always saw the conductor from the back. And here was this exciting vigorous young conductor with great hair. He did wonderful performances of Prokofiev’s score for the film Alexander Nevsky, and other Eisenstein films.”

As a regular audience member, Stern formed strong opinions. She has fond memories of hearing pianist André Watts. “He studied at the Philadelphia Musical Academy. Ormandy had him guest many times.” Vladimir Horowitz? “Yes, he was born in Kyiv, Ukraine; he was a magician of a pianist. The closest thing we have to him today is Evgeny Kissin.”

And when Arthur Rubinstein played Chopin, “it was like perfume coming from the piano.” Van Cliburn? Although he became a sensation after winning the Tchaikovsky Competition, he was “not my favorite. People who win competitions are not great heroes of mine.”

Stern recalls when Fredric R. Mann had the idea to start “free” concerts at what was then the Robin Hood Dell. “He was the one who instituted the summer concerts when he was city representative. And he said, ‘People don’t value what they don’t pay for.’ So, it cost a quarter to get a ticket. You had to buy the newspaper—the Bulletin, the Inquirer, or the Daily News. You had to cut the coupon out. You’d have to send in your quarters. And the Orchestra played at what was then called the Robin Hood Dell. Now, we still have the Dell, but the Orchestra plays at the Mann Center.”

When her father died, in 1979, Stern inherited her parents’ Orchestra subscription at the Academy. “I may have been the last person allowed to inherit a subscription,” she says. “And I have maintained it. The only time we had to move was if Great Performances was being taped for television. Our seats were where the TV cameras went.” She is happy to have similar seats now at Marian Anderson Hall.

Even as an octogenarian, Stern notes, “I don’t get tired of hearing the Orchestra and new music. I like that [Yannick] unveils music that was brought to our attention by people like Stokowski, and composers who were underrepresented by the traditions.” In fact, she has traveled with the Orchestra on patrons’ trips and to Carnegie Hall. A recent highlight was hearing Curtis alumna Yuja Wang perform the entire Rachmaninoff orchestra/piano cycle in one day. Another: “I went to hear Sting with the Orchestra, and he was wonderful. A friend said, ‘You really have to hear and see him.’ I was blown away.”

How does Stern feel about the changes she has experienced over her years attending the Orchestra? “I think what Yannick has accomplished is introducing people to the traditions of the Orchestra,” she says. “The music is the most important thing. It doesn’t matter who’s playing it. It doesn’t matter what race the people are. The only thing that matters is that they love the music, and they love sharing it with the rest of the city. And the city loves music. Whether it’s jazz or hip hop or classical music. It doesn’t matter. Everyone loves the music.”

Judith Kurnick has written about music for The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and media outlets in Europe. She was The Philadelphia Orchestra’s vice president for communications from 1983 to 1989 and 2000 to 2005 and held the same role at the League of American Orchestras from 2008 to 2013.