Sundays at Spreckels: Inside the Golden Gate Park Band's 144th Season with Dr. German Gonzalez

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Well, good morning, Hermann. Thanks for joining us today here in the green room.

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Hey, thanks for having me, Ray. So today we have Hermann Gonzalez.

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He is the music director and conductor of, what is the name of your group?

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The Golden Gate Park Band. The Golden Gate Park. It started in 1882.

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Wow. Can you believe it?

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So tell me how you got started with this, not the resume version, like the real version.

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I guess it was in 2017 they were looking for a new director so i applied and,

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I auditioned and played and then conducted and

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they chose somebody else and then he quit and then they did the auditions all

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over again and then this time I was one of the finalists and then they chose

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me as the associate conductor and then the guy they chose as first moved to

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Miami and they asked me to take over.

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So I did and here I am in year three of leading the group. It's exciting.

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It's fun. yeah well what's the what's the most exciting part of it for you being

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able to play music a 90-minute concert with only a 60-minute rehearsal with

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professional musicians.

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And you know they're a lot of fun and and it's the rehearsal is hilarious but

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when we get down to business at the concert they just sound great you know all

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this park band music how is it that you You'll have only 60 minutes to rehearse.

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Well, the musicians are part of the musicians union. Yeah. And the contract is so many hours.

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So we have a one hour rehearsal, an hour break for lunch, and then the concert for 90 minutes.

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Ah. And if we go further than that, then it's going to cost us just a little

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bit more money to pay all the musicians. Yes. It's monetary.

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Yes. But you know, I have to say, it's amazing how quickly, and it's the same

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experience, I've had the same experience as musicians, good musicians can learn things so quickly.

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It's just amazing to me. Yeah, and we...

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We send out PDFs of all the music and the order and some instructions beforehand

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so that they can look at it.

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Most of the people, you know, make a conscientious effort of being prepared.

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And it's a lot of fun. The band, according to the audience, the band has never sounded better.

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And we strive to sound better every single week.

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And so you play in, what is it called? Spreckles? Is that right?

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Yeah. The Spreckles Temple of Music, otherwise known as the band show between

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the de Young Museum and the Academy of Sciences.

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And Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. It's beautiful. I mean,

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I've been there many times. It's such a beautiful venue. So peaceful and grand at the same time.

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Right. And then when the weather is perfect, it's wonderful.

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Yeah. I always tell people to bring layers because you never know.

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Yes, especially that area of San Francisco because it's kind of not protected

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at all from the fog just a couple miles away there on the ocean.

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Some mornings I get there about 8 o'clock in the morning to set up stuff and

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it could be foggy and plenty of dew.

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And it's kind of depressing because the number of people that come to watch

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us is relative to what the weather is like. Oh, yeah. So...

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But all of a sudden, a lot of times at noon or 1230, the sun starts to come

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out and then it starts to warm up.

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And it's just it's just the perfect afternoon for a concert. Yeah.

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So you never know. You never know. It can be absolutely beautiful there.

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Like you say, it can be wet and foggy.

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And it can be wet and foggy one minute and then beautiful the next.

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So what do you think? So the band has been around since what? 1880? What?

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1882. This is our 144th season. We play 24 concerts during the year from the

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end of April to the end of September.

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And every single concert is unique and different.

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So if you come to three concerts, you're going to hear three completely different programs.

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Uh we feature we we

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feature guest artists to come and play with us

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and a lot of times members in the

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band volunteer to play uh solos with the band that's always a lot of fun actually

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on when is it june june 14th we're going to have a a concert entitled trombonology,

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And we're going to feature the trombones in a lot of the tunes that we've done.

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We did a trumpet palooza a couple of years ago, which was a lot of fun.

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And so we're going to try to match that with our great trombone players in the band.

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Oh, great. I love the sound of those brass instruments. Yeah. Wonderful. Beautiful.

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So did, I read, I think somewhere that you started going to these concerts when

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you were a kid. Is that right?

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Yeah, I grew up in Pacifica and we would, my mom would insist on us getting

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out on Sundays. So my dad loaded up the car and we'd go to Golden Gate Park.

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After a while, you know, they went to different parks, but I remember us going

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to Golden Gate Park several times. Wow.

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That must be something to now be the conductor for the group.

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It is pretty trippy, I have to say. Yeah. Yeah.

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So what do you think keeps the band going after all these years?

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How has it been able to continue for 140-some odd years?

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I think it's the, the dedication of the musicians, you know,

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all these, uh, you know, the 30 musicians are, like I said, they're professional

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musicians, but they also love band music.

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They, they love performing music and the more of a professional you are,

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the less you like rehearsals.

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So you know it's it's a draw

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for really good players to know that they're only

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going to rehearse for 60 minutes to play a 90 minute

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concert and a lot of times we don't even

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rehearse we don't even rehearse some of the things a lot of the marches we don't

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rehearse we just play them straight on yeah wow but uh that you know we're a

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501c3 i say that we're a 501c3 in survival mode, hoping to turn into a thrive mode.

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And that's one of the reasons why we're talking to people like you.

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But we have a, we have a regular audience every week.

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You know, we take a poll, raise your hand if you've never been to a concert

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and a few people raise their hand and then, you know, how many of you are regulars

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and you can see, you know,

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60, 70, 80 people out in the audience raising their hand.

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And it's, it's fun to meet these people before and after the concert as, as well.

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Yeah. So I think, you know, the regular audience, you know.

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Band members enjoying what they do, I think, keeps this band going.

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And it's an important part of the culture of San Francisco.

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That's why they call us the soul of the city these days. Yeah.

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Yeah. So there's so many wonderful traditions in our city of San Francisco.

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It's like the biggest, the smallest big city in the world.

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I like that. There's so many different

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wonderful traditions and things happening, and this is one of them.

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There's always something to do One of the things that we do for the programs Is we invite,

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Cultural groups From around the Bay Area And actually this week We're doing

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a Polish culture Celebration,

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At the end of the month We're doing Armenian culture We have a pride celebration

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in June We also have a Juneteenth Concert in June.

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What else we also do the Scottish celebration

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we do the we have we invite an Irish dance troupe as well we have this huge

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Ukrainian celebration on August

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23rd and then we celebrate the Spanish culture with a flamenco group,

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and the Mexican celebration with a ballet folklorico mexicano with.

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With a group that we've, we've partnered with for quite a long time.

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And this year we're going to do a German day that we haven't,

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we've never, we haven't done in a really, really long time.

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Oh, okay. So that'll be at the end of September. So we, you know, we.

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We embrace the different cultures in the city, and we celebrate many of them.

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We always have these board meetings about, well, what about this other culture?

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What about that other culture?

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And we're trying to include a few more cultural celebrations,

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because those are probably the meat and potatoes of the organization.

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And that's one of the things that has kept this band going for as long as it's been going on.

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Because they embrace new cultural groups, whereas a lot of times new cultural

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groups are shunned upon.

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There's a lot of racism when a new group comes in.

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But with our programs, we help these groups be a part of our community.

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Yeah, that's a wonderful idea and a good thing to be committed to.

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You know, I've always wondered, what is it that a conductor does that the audience may not realize?

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Well, there are two sides of that story.

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You know, some people think that, you know, people don't need the conductor

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and because the musicians just play the music.

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And and then other people say, well, the conductor really shapes the music.

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Talk to composers. They say, well, and you ask them, well, how much of the music

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that you put on the page is part of the music?

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And he and they usually say a lot of times they say it's about 30 or 40 percent.

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The other 60% is up to the musicians,

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and even up to 20 or 30% on how the conductor waves his arms and shows expressions with his music.

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With his postures and his and his movements yeah there's this one trumpet player in the band that,

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when we get together you know i kind of look at him go i can't believe i can't

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believe what we're doing here today he goes well man you know chill out because

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really with this band you're pretty much hurting cats and then when he said

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that to me i said okay all right,

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It's an impossible task But you just keep at it You just keep on working on the process,

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And then it just happens Now they're looking at the music on the sheet But they're

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also, and peripherally They're watching you Right So we encourage musicians to put the music stand,

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Halfway in between me and them So that they can see me,

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and the music at the same time yeah.

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Because the conductor can decide when the music swells or how long a quarter

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note actually is, or if we want to actually play a half note in that spot instead of what's written,

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or there's so many different things you can decide to do, right?

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Yeah, you help them with articulations, the direction of the line.

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You know you help them with the balance you know if somebody's too loud you

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give them a you give them the hand to play a little bit softer somebody's not

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playing loud enough you kind of look at them and then,

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I've seen that I've seen conductors do that come on a little hard and then when

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they're sounding great you know a big smile on your face and you just keep on trekking through yeah,

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do you play any instruments yourself i'm a trumpet player oh,

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actually last week actually last

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week our opening day we played bugler's holiday and and i played third trumpet

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on that trumpet trio so i i play every once in a while with the band and it's

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it's it's kind of fun yeah do you have a like a substitute conductor when you're

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playing or do you just wing it?

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One of the trumpet players is a conductor too, so I had him conduct while we did the trio.

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I've conducted and played a solo at the same time.

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Sometimes that works when they don't need much of a conductor. I see.

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And what's it like playing outdoors? Is that different than being indoors?

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It is because the sound dissipates.

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You know there's no it doesn't the indoor ambiances is not there but the band

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shell has got great acoustics and.

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I'll tell you a secret what we do also, just don't tell anybody.

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Well, everyone's going to hear. Here we go. Here comes the secret.

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So Mark, the gentleman that records the music, plugs into the PA,

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and there's just a bit of presence from the microphones into the PA.

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And that helps us a little bit.

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Yeah. it's it's not it's not

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super loud and you it's really hard to

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notice yeah but that does make a difference especially

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with music that we're playing that is soft and melodic

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that music's really fun to play and

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the and the band plays all that

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stuff pretty expressively yeah and when

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i first started you know the audiences would complain well

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you know you shouldn't play soft music because we can't hear it

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right right once we started to use once

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we started to use the microphones and and bring up the

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sound just a little bit yeah we're not

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getting those those complaints anymore yeah it makes people are used people

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are used to things being a little louder now than they were maybe you know a

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hundred years ago i i'd say so yeah i mean i do musical theater and when the

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uh If the actors are miked,

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the band has to have a little bit of support as well.

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Otherwise, you just can't hear.

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Yeah. It does make a big difference.

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There's a lot that goes into each and every concert. Yeah. And.

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It's great how it comes together every single week. Well, it's good to have

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somebody who knows how to use the soundboard really well and understand sound

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and can modulate these things too, right? Yeah.

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And we have, actually, one of the musicians in the front row controls the soundboard.

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Oh, wow. So every once in a while she might stop playing it and run out.

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And the audience just to hear how it sounds and then comes back. Oh, interesting.

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We are self-sufficient.

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But it would be great if we could find a couple of people help us set up and put things away.

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Because the 30 of us bring everything out from the dungeon of the backstage and set everything up.

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And then we put everything back. So a couple of stagehands would be great.

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But like I said, our budget just doesn't stretch that far.

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How long has that venue been there?

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Isn't it? It's pretty old, right? I think it's 100 years, isn't it? Oh, my God.

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101 years. I think this is, it's 101st season.

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I'm not exactly sure. Well, I know that that, what is it called? I'm so sorry. The place.

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Freckles. I mean, I remember it when I was a little boy being there.

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Yeah, it's been around. That was almost 100 years ago. So.

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It's like it's getting closer to a hundred every year,

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yeah so the uh the the dungeon must

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be quite something i can imagine yeah we share it with the uh with the groundskeepers

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yeah and they have these cages where we can lock our stuff up i see neat so

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what makes your group different from something like a symphony orchestra or

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the Boston Pops or somebody like that?

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Well, the Boston Pops is an orchestra. Yeah. And mostly of string made up of strings.

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The band is made up of wind players, woodwinds, brass, and we have two percussionists.

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Do you have any string players or is it all? Oh, we have a, we have an electric bass player. Oh, wow.

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That, that the presence of, of Steve and his bass players,

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playing is there's a

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there's this presence to to the bass that

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you don't realize is there because of the electric bass so

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yeah he's the only string player oh okay yeah well i mean it's important to

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have a bass in you know even though you might not consciously hear everything

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it really keeps a lot of the the undertone right in the rhythm yeah it's it's

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the foundation of the of the chord,

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Yeah, yeah. So...

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Gosh you've been in music for what 50 years or more i started playing trumpet

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in the sixth grade yeah wow so have you changed as an artist over that time

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or how how has it gone for you,

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what's been your path it's it's

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it's been take it's taken me an

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entire lifetime to have the confidence to play

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and to conduct without being nervous ah

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yes yes so the musician self-deprecating

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syndrome it is it's brutal

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you know oh god always your worst critic yep

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i think over

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the over the years it's you know i'm finally

00:20:13.390 --> 00:20:16.290
being able i'm finally able to figure out how

00:20:16.290 --> 00:20:20.550
to not be so nervous all the time yeah you

00:20:20.550 --> 00:20:23.350
know telling myself i can do this i'm gonna do this this is

00:20:23.350 --> 00:20:26.090
gonna be great and then when you've got when you've got

00:20:26.090 --> 00:20:29.050
30 people around going this is gonna be great

00:20:29.050 --> 00:20:33.530
you know we're you know don't worry man we're we've we've got you we're this

00:20:33.530 --> 00:20:37.490
is this tune is gonna sound great don't worry about it you know that you've

00:20:37.490 --> 00:20:43.070
got that support system from all these people so is there anything about music

00:20:43.070 --> 00:20:46.390
that still surprises you do you find new things still.

00:20:49.664 --> 00:20:54.644
It's fun going through all the different libraries that we have and i find something that,

00:20:55.284 --> 00:20:57.984
that i've never heard of before and you

00:20:57.984 --> 00:21:01.144
kind of look at it and then you program it and then other band

00:21:01.144 --> 00:21:04.544
members go i've never played this piece before or maybe

00:21:04.544 --> 00:21:07.364
one or two people have played it yeah it's a

00:21:07.364 --> 00:21:10.484
great piece you know where'd you find this oh you know

00:21:10.484 --> 00:21:14.124
you you just keep searching until yeah

00:21:14.124 --> 00:21:16.864
until you find something new make new

00:21:16.864 --> 00:21:20.044
discoveries yeah yeah i used

00:21:20.044 --> 00:21:22.784
to do i used to perform in musicals at

00:21:22.784 --> 00:21:25.604
a company called 42nd street moon who's not

00:21:25.604 --> 00:21:28.724
i don't they're not really doing anything anymore

00:21:28.724 --> 00:21:32.264
since covid but their whole thing was

00:21:32.264 --> 00:21:35.264
to find old musicals from new york or broadway

00:21:35.264 --> 00:21:38.724
that didn't make it or and they

00:21:38.724 --> 00:21:43.024
would have to peep they'd have to go like into libraries

00:21:43.024 --> 00:21:46.204
and find the old sheet music and in

00:21:46.204 --> 00:21:49.144
the in the in the book and stick it all together and

00:21:49.144 --> 00:21:55.904
somehow create something that happened you know 60 80 years ago yeah there's

00:21:55.904 --> 00:22:00.204
a lot of failures out there yeah and there's a lot of failures that are really

00:22:00.204 --> 00:22:05.864
good it's just yeah yeah not bad yeah exactly yeah yeah there's a timing was

00:22:05.864 --> 00:22:07.084
just not right or something,

00:22:08.004 --> 00:22:12.984
who's your favorite composer to conduct there are so many come on.

00:22:14.784 --> 00:22:20.164
Not answerable huh yeah you know i always say that an outdoor concert is not

00:22:20.164 --> 00:22:25.184
a success without some kind of gershwin ah yeah and.

00:22:27.030 --> 00:22:37.310
Gustav Holst is somebody who has been able to write band music over the years.

00:22:39.410 --> 00:22:44.310
Has passed the test of time. California composer Frank T.

00:22:44.410 --> 00:22:49.850
Kelly has written a lot of things, and his music speaks to me as well.

00:22:51.090 --> 00:22:57.630
There are a lot of there are a lot of classics that that are written for orchestra that when,

00:22:58.510 --> 00:23:02.270
transcribed for band sound pretty good but then

00:23:02.270 --> 00:23:07.310
again there are others that don't i mean i mean

00:23:07.310 --> 00:23:12.170
if we had to play beethoven's fifth symphony i'd i think we would lose audience

00:23:12.170 --> 00:23:19.710
members it's just not the same thing but you know the classical favorites we

00:23:19.710 --> 00:23:24.390
play a lot of them we play a lot of marches a lot of jazz and pop music you

00:23:24.390 --> 00:23:27.190
know the movie soundtracks sometimes i do,

00:23:29.010 --> 00:23:31.610
sing-alongs or sometimes i do

00:23:31.610 --> 00:23:38.990
name that tune so we'll play a we'll play a medley of six or seven tunes,

00:23:39.090 --> 00:23:43.170
and at the end of each tune, I stop and then I turn around and then the audience

00:23:43.170 --> 00:23:44.750
shouts out the name of the tune.

00:23:45.110 --> 00:23:46.930
That's fun. Yeah, it is fun.

00:23:48.730 --> 00:23:53.510
Great. So, can you review the dates here so that people know?

00:23:53.710 --> 00:23:54.810
And it's all free, right?

00:23:55.130 --> 00:23:57.170
Yeah. That's the whole...

00:23:59.672 --> 00:24:05.032
That's the whole deal about the Spreckels Temple of Music is they built that

00:24:05.032 --> 00:24:10.812
for the Golden Gate Park Band, and they also said that every concert held there is going to be free.

00:24:12.072 --> 00:24:20.632
So our season runs from the end of April to the end of September every Sunday at 1 o'clock.

00:24:21.232 --> 00:24:26.492
We also have 4th of July, and this year it's on a Saturday, same time,

00:24:26.632 --> 00:24:32.192
1 o'clock. We also have a Labor Day concert on a Monday.

00:24:32.492 --> 00:24:40.152
So we have that Sunday on the 6th, and then again the very next day on Monday.

00:24:41.692 --> 00:24:48.352
Wonderful. And all the information is on goldengateparkorchestra.org.

00:24:48.352 --> 00:24:49.632
Is that correct? It's so close.

00:24:50.692 --> 00:24:53.372
Goldengateparkband.org. Oh, sorry. That's all right.

00:24:55.052 --> 00:25:01.152
Goldengateparkband.org. Thanks. yeah yeah i had the wrong word in my head golden

00:25:01.152 --> 00:25:07.152
gate park band.org for all the information about the performance dates and any

00:25:07.152 --> 00:25:10.172
anything else you want to learn yeah and there's,

00:25:10.932 --> 00:25:17.592
there's bios of all the musicians and a little history on the band right and

00:25:17.592 --> 00:25:23.472
actually we got a it's our website just got a new um.

00:25:26.160 --> 00:25:30.080
Revamped yeah finally yeah so

00:25:30.080 --> 00:25:33.680
we're excited about that and yeah i don't

00:25:33.680 --> 00:25:36.480
know that's really good we can find more people to come

00:25:36.480 --> 00:25:39.220
to every concert a lot of people tell

00:25:39.220 --> 00:25:42.340
me i'm crazy when i say i want 500

00:25:42.340 --> 00:25:45.780
people at every concert that'd be

00:25:45.780 --> 00:25:48.480
nice yeah it would be really nice you know in

00:25:48.480 --> 00:25:51.480
the 20s and the 30s you'd see pictures of band concerts

00:25:51.480 --> 00:25:54.460
and there were just hundreds and hundreds of people out there

00:25:54.460 --> 00:25:57.660
wow but then again there was no there were

00:25:57.660 --> 00:26:04.920
no cell phones and you weren't competing with everything else no but it's live

00:26:04.920 --> 00:26:11.820
music and when it's free you can't beat it no and uh and our programs put a

00:26:11.820 --> 00:26:14.740
smile on your face and and the the music is,

00:26:16.039 --> 00:26:20.679
And it's well-performed. It's really well-performed. I imagine you just have

00:26:20.679 --> 00:26:25.939
a lot of people who are walking by and then stop it and come out against.

00:26:26.139 --> 00:26:32.239
Yeah, our audiences are our regulars, new people that have heard,

00:26:32.359 --> 00:26:36.919
thanks to podcasts like yours and other things.

00:26:37.219 --> 00:26:40.739
And then people that are just walking by, tourists.

00:26:41.539 --> 00:26:47.159
We put a lot of our rack cards at the hotels around San Francisco.

00:26:48.459 --> 00:26:52.879
And we get some audience from there as well. Yeah, yeah.

00:26:54.039 --> 00:26:57.379
Well, great. Thanks so much for being on the show today, Herman.

00:26:57.879 --> 00:27:05.279
I really enjoyed speaking with you. I've always wondered about the Golden Gate Park Band more.

00:27:05.779 --> 00:27:10.759
I listened. I didn't know anything about them other than that they were there,

00:27:10.799 --> 00:27:12.739
and I enjoyed listening.

00:27:14.479 --> 00:27:19.479
I talk to a lot of people in San Francisco, and you'd be surprised how many

00:27:19.479 --> 00:27:23.059
people have never heard of the band. Oh, wow.

00:27:23.499 --> 00:27:28.979
It blows me away, even in the Sunset District. Yeah.

00:27:29.819 --> 00:27:35.499
Right next door, huh? Yeah. But I encourage people to come.

00:27:35.719 --> 00:27:41.579
Yeah. I meet a lot of people at the diet bars up in the sunset. Great.

00:27:42.139 --> 00:27:44.619
And that's how I do most of my audience.

00:27:44.919 --> 00:27:50.079
Not most of it, but I do a lot of recruiting for audience members.

00:27:51.359 --> 00:27:55.599
All right. Well, thanks for being on the show. All right. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.