Interviewing Paul Haas, SoNA Music Director, in the Pryor Center Vault

Author: Eleanor Nations | Majors: English and Earth Science

This past semester, I had the opportunity to work alongside Dr. Chelsea Hodge, Director of Grants and Research Innovation for the Honors College, Dr. Hancox, Director of Career Innovation for the Honors College, and Alessandro Salemme, a video producer at the David and Barbara Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, on an oral history project detailing the history of the Symphony of Northwest Arkansas (SoNA). In addition to these three mentors, I worked with a team of other students from the University of Arkansas specializing in varying fields of study. Our goal was to produce quality student-facilitated interviews of key players in the symphony orchestra’s history, while also analyzing SoNA’s significance in the Northwest Arkansas community from various angles. Initially, as a freshman English major, I was daunted by the high-tech equipment, complicated historical ethics, and prevalent economic themes involved in this project; however, through this semester of research, I learned that being successful in oral history does not take a certain specialization, but instead a keen eye for detail and an enthusiasm for uncovering people’s stories.

Initially, I learned about the project through my roommate, a History major and friend who shared my interest in SoNA. When I told her about attending the SoNA Christmas concert, she mentioned the SoNA oral history project at the Pryor Center and put me in touch with Dr. Hodge. After speaking with Dr. Hodge, I attended a research team meeting with my roommate and several other students to commit to the project. In the following weeks, we visited the Pryor Center and met with Mr. Salemme to learn oral history techniques and ethics, as well as control room basics and the overall landscape of the project. At the beginning of the project, we had around thirty prospective interviewees; we soon learned that the logistics of contacting and scheduling made this number nearly impossible to achieve in a semester, so we settled on around ten to fifteen interviewees. For every week thereafter, each student on the team was assigned interviewees to contact and schedule with the Pryor Center, and the team (including Dr. Hodge, Dr. Hancox, and Mr. Salemme) would meet on Mondays to discuss possible interview questions and the central themes of the project.

One of the most challenging portions of this project was getting in touch with potential interviewees. Some interviewees would list invalid email addresses or incorrect phone numbers for their contacts, or they simply would not answer any messages our team members left them. One of my potential interviewees would have had an incredibly valuable contribution to the project, and I worked hard to get in touch with her. She had no email listed on the contact list, so I received her phone number from the SoNA Executive Director and proceeded to call her there. I had multiple conversations with her, and we both attempted to set up a time for her to come in, but the plans ultimately fell through after around a month of discussions. In addition to this instance, some interviewees for the project simply didn’t feel comfortable coming in for an interview with the COVID-19 situation at the time, and some interviewees couldn’t come in for an interview because they lived outside the area. As a team, we had to investigate options for holding interviews on Zoom and for flexible scheduling while still striving to create a project that showcased SoNA’s value in the Northwest Arkansas community.

While scheduling and contact logistics were difficult for this project, they didn’t stop me from learning valuable lessons during this semester of research. For the interviews that I didn’t conduct, I sat in the control room with Mr. Salemme and learned basic operation of the camera and audio equipment. I even got the chance to work the sound board for several of the interviews. By having to pay attention to every slight fluctuation of volume picked up by the microphones during interviews, I became incredibly tuned into often hour-long discussions. Through my time in the control room, I became both more invested in the success of the project and I learned the incredible focus that goes into preserving what may initially seem like a casual conversation.

In addition to my time working the sound board, I had the incredible opportunity to interview Paul Haas, the Music Director for the Symphony of Northwest Arkansas (who I am pictured with above). Haas is a graduate of Yale University and the Juilliard School, and he has served as Director since 2010, bringing innovation and community engagement to the symphony and growing SoNA’s operations substantially. I was nervous to interview such an influential person in SoNA’s history, but after sitting down with Mr. Haas, I realized we shared a passion and a love for the community of Northwest Arkansas. “This community…I can’t even tell you what it has meant to me,” Haas said when I asked him about his time spent in the area. He told me how various families involved with SoNA had invited him into their homes and even given him a place to stay on his visits, and how Northwest Arkansas is a community of caring people. Through my interview with Mr. Haas, I learned that the success of an organization like SoNA comes not just from the strengths of its constituent members, but from a support system of families, companies, individual donors, and community members who continually commit to preserving and upholding orchestral music in often challenging and uncertain times.

I am incredibly grateful for the Honors College Research Team Grant that gave me this opportunity to interview Paul Haas and to learn oral history techniques from Mr. Salemme and other members of my research team. I am also incredibly grateful to Dr. Hodge and Dr. Hancox for letting me serve as a member on this team. In the future, I look forward to possibly participating in more oral history projects, such as a new project with TheatreSquared in the Northwest Arkansas area or the TEXT study abroad program with Tibetan refugees in India. In the future, I hope to integrate the oral history skills I’ve learned into communication and storytelling aspects of my Senior Thesis with the Honors College at the University of Arkansas.