Interview with Fernando Valencia
Author: Ella Scurlock | Major: History and Anthropology | Semester: Spring 2022
My name is Ella Scurlock, and I am in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, majoring in History and Anthropology. I was one among seven students who worked on the SoNA Oral History Project in the spring semester of 2022 during my freshman year alongside our mentors Dr. Chelsea Hodge and Dr. Louise Hancox of the Honors College.
In the spring semester of my freshman year, I worked with Dr. Chelsea Hodge and Dr. Louise Hancox as well as six other students collecting interviews to build a history of the Symphony of Northwest Arkansas, or SoNA. We met with several key members of the organization and spoke with them about their time with the symphony. These people included the current musical director, the general manager, past and current board members, and musicians. With their help, we were able to create a history of the symphony as an organization, with its financial highs and lows and the inner workings of the business, as well as the symphony as a community staple, bringing music and culture to the Northwest Arkansas area.
Our mentors Dr. Hodge and Dr. Hancox helped us all immensely. While the other students and I did most of the contacting and interviewing, Dr. Hodge and Dr. Hancox helped us brainstorm ideas, they kept us in check to make sure our work was being completed, and they used their authority when necessary to contact interviewees when our efforts were wasted. Not only that, because of the struggles of the project, we would not have completed as much as we did if we had any less hands on deck, including the seven students on the project, Dr. Hodge and Dr. Hancox, and our friends at the Pryor Center who helped us with the interviews.
Like I mentioned, we worked alongside the Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, apart of the UARK family, to conduct the interviews, polish them, and publish them. We met with interviewees at the Pryor Center in their vault, an old bank vault that now serves as a perfect sound-tight space for interviews. The interviews lasted anywhere from 20 minutes to 50 minutes. While everyone answered similar questions about their contribution and the meaning of their time there, the interviewees talked mostly about their area of expertise when it came to the symphony, whether that be the music and community aspect or the fiscal, operational aspect. We were extremely lucky to talk with such enthusiastic and interesting people about SoNA, most of whom were thrilled to share their stories. When they have been edited, (something that another student in the project, Sydnie Smith, and I will be working with the Pryor Center on this summer), the interviews with be compiled online and be accessible through the Pryor Center website as apart of their Story Vault.
Most of all, getting to talk to real people with unique experiences was the highlight of my experience. Reading about a Symphony’s history is much more boring than talking to real people and hearing their personal stories and opinions about the Symphony. We gained greater insight into the impact of the Symphony and its history in the community by talking to people. However, working with people also provided us our biggest obstacle. Most of the people we interviewed were not full-time employees of the symphony, if any, and had other jobs and time constraints that had to be worked around. Not only that, mine and the other students and the Pryor Center had schedules that needed to be considered. It was awfully hard to find times for the interview to take place that worked with everyone. More than that, the process it took to get there was long. We discovered that emailing can be tricky and getting people to reply can be even trickier. It took many emails back and forth between all parties to schedule a time, and even then, I had two people just not respond. Patience and understanding were necessary when contacting people and organizing the interviews, just as they are important in every other part of life. We hit many obstacles along the way with contacting and scheduling, but we are hoping to fix those problems and smooth out the process using what we learned this semester on future projects. Next fall, I am planning to continue working with the Pryor Center on a similar project involving Theatre Squared.
With the help of the Honors College Research Team Grant, I was able to spend valuable time this semester working on this project. Because of all the time we put in, we got the opportunity to create a history of something that impacts the Fayetteville and NWA community. SoNA, we learned, means so much to a great number of people, and it is one of many things that brings the community in Fayetteville together. The arts and culture of NWA make this a wonderful place to live, and with this project we are able to share with others just how important SoNA and others like it are.