Sketched June 9, 2015
The Seattle Symphony let me sneak backstage during a recent rehearsal to sketch bass player Nancy Page Griffin, who is retiring this summer after 54 years with the orchestra.
Looking back, Griffin said it’s been a lot of fun to play an instrument that you hug like you would a loved one. She’s played five since starting out as a freelancer in Chicago and has fond memories of each. An English-made “Thomas Kennedy” bass helped her pass her audition for the job in 1961. Since 1986, she’s played an old Italian bass that she holds dear to her heart. “I’m quite smitten with it,” she said, “It makes me happy.”
Taking the bus to Benaroya Hall six days a week for rehearsals and weekend concerts isn’t something she’ll miss of her job. But she will miss her 80-plus peers in the orchestra and performing for a live audience.
Music goes into the atmosphere, she said, but “the thing that endures is the experience that people have when they go to a concert … we make these musical emotional memories for
people, and that lasts.”