It’s a phenomenon well known to violinists that if an instrument is not played, it begins to “go to sleep.” It loses its flexibility and tone and has to be “woken up.” Like musicians themselves, in order to achieve its potential, it needs to do what it’s made to do.
The same might be said for arts administrators. Fortunately, Marna Seltzer, director of Princeton University Concerts (PUC), has not been letting any moss grow under her feet.
For much of the 23 months that the organization’s “Concert Classics” series has been on hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic, Seltzer has had to work remotely. But work she did.
Seltzer notes that, since the pandemic, she has had greater interaction with other departments within the university, as everyone has been trying to feel their way through strange territory.
Now that Richardson Auditorium has reopened, PUC is ready to get back to its core series. For the health and safety of the community, all spring concerts will take place in accordance with current scientific, state, and university guidelines. For those planning to attend, proof of vaccination, including booster info, a valid photo I.D., and masking inside the venue will be required.
PUC has been bringing world-class artists to Princeton for 129 years. On its very first program in 1894, a new piece by Antonin Dvorak, his “American” String Quartet — now one of the most performed works in the chamber music repertoire — was played by the Kneisel Quartet, which gave its premiere in Boston only months earlier.
Other artists heard in Princeton during the early decades of the organization include Marian Anderson, the Budapest String Quartet, Pablo Casals, Jascha Heifetz, Dame Myra Hess, Fritz Kreisler, and Ignacy Jan Paderewski, in addition to the Philadelphia Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
PUC’s mission to bring world-class artists to the Princeton community is one that continues to the present day. In fact, when COVID-19 first broke across New Jersey in 2020, it caused one of the series’ few interruptions.
“The concert series has been through two world wars and another pandemic,” Seltzer says. “One of the things I did was dig through the archive to see what happened in 1918, and there was no significant stoppage. So this is totally unprecedented. There were no breaks for the wars or anything. There are a couple years where things look spotty, and it’s not entirely clear why, but there’s certainly nothing like what we’ve experienced the last two years.”
Seltzer has been director of PUC for the past 10 years. A violinist herself, she was once the personal assistant of Itzhak Perlman, a position that came about through a connection she made while working at the Marlboro Music Festival.
“That was a very unusual job, and it was a very lonely job, because I was the only person in the office,” she says of her time with Perlman. “I had just graduated from college, and I was sort of raring to go, and I really wanted to be in arts administration.” After a year and a half, she made the move to Herbert Barrett Management.
“I was there for six years and really learned the field from an interesting perspective. I started out as an administrative assistant, but eventually I was what they call a booking agent. I was booking a roster of artists all over the country, so I got to know a lot of concert series. You know, that was kind of my superpower. It still is. You can name anywhere in the United States, and I can tell you if they have a concert series.”
From there, she went to work for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. She booked the musicians all over the country, but also did artistic administration for the home series in New York. “That’s what introduced me to some of the elements of my work now, just understanding the relationship between fundraising and marketing and communications and production. I was there for eight years. That was when David Shifrin was the artistic director, so he and I worked really closely together. Then I decided I wanted to try programming on my own.”
After 12 years in New York, she directed the concert series at the University of Chicago. “That was my first job really running something, and then I really felt like I found my home, like that was the right job for me. And I kind of had this weird circular thing to get there.”
Seltzer, though born in Cleveland, grew up in Highland Park, a suburb of Chicago. Her father and mother worked in the city, her father in advertising and strategic planning for hospitals, and her mother at Northwestern University, where she taught Classics. Her paternal grandfather was the textile artist Harvey Seltzer. When Marna was 13, the family moved to Princeton. She remained there until being accepted into Boston University.
“I was completely and utterly passionate about the violin for my entire youth,” she says, “and at some point I had to make a decision. Did I want to be a performer or not? It was pretty clear that I didn’t want to be. I had terrible stage fright, and I’m a people person, and I didn’t want to spend a billion hours behind doors in a practice room. So even though I went off to college for performance, I knew kind of at that point that was not where I was headed.”
So she started to think about other options in the field, and that’s when she discovered arts administration. While still in college, she worked two summers at Marlboro, which brought her the introduction to Perlman.
After eight years in her directorship at the University of Chicago, she moved to New Haven, Connecticut. Her husband attended graduate school at Yale. Now with a baby, she was home for the most part, acting as a consultant, when she learned of a job opening in Princeton. And now she’s back with her family in New Jersey.
She continues to play the violin, and in fact plays chamber music with her mother, also a violinist. Her father, while not a trained musician, has a natural talent for jazz piano.
When she’s not working or making music at home, she’s rekindling her love for all things Italian (sparked during her junior year abroad), knitting, and crafting with a Cricut machine, a Christmas present she purchased for her daughter. “I really love to do crossword puzzles,” Seltzer says, “and I suddenly realized that the cutting machine combines my love of knitting, of graphic design, and of crossword puzzles, so it’s like the perfect thing for me.”
Navigating the pandemic itself has been a puzzle. The closure of Richardson Auditorium left an enormous hole in the community. In terms of the area’s performing arts venues — granted, all pretty much in the same boat when it came to COVID — there really are no comparable alternatives, in terms of sightlines, acoustics, intimacy, and historic ambience. Many outside groups depend on Richardson as their home. The Princeton Symphony Orchestra (unrelated to the university), Princeton Pro Musica, and the New Jersey Symphony have all had to scramble to find alternative outlets.
“The collective energy and inspiration that takes place in a room when people gather together to hear music is irreplaceable,” Seltzer says. “We all really missed it. I will say that — and I kind of knew this before the pandemic, but now I know it even more — our mission is about facilitating meaningful connections to music for as broad an audience as possible. We’re really excited about thinking of more ways to change the experience a little bit so that it feels relevant to everyone.”
It has been a long journey back, but “Concert Classics” will return to Richardson Auditorium, beginning on Thursday, February 17, with PUC favorites the Takacs Quartet (appearing for the 22nd time) and Julien Labro on the bandoneon.
The program will include two new works by Brazilian-American composer Clarice Assad and Grammy Award-winning producer Bryce Dessner, who also happens to be a guitarist with the rock band The National. Both pieces were co-commissioned by PUC, as part of a Music Accord consortium of 11 presenters nationwide.
As a bridge to the standard repertoire, the concert will also feature Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet in F major, along with some shorter works, including a Bach arrangement by Labro.
Future events in the eight-concert series will include performances by tenor Mark Padmore and pianist Mitsuko Uchida (March 10), violinist Benjamin Beilman and pianist Roman Rabinovich (March 16), the Mahler Chamber Orchestra with Mitsuko Uchida (March 24), the Ebene String Quartet (March 31), the Dover String Quartet (April 7), the Tetzlaff String Quartet (April 21), and cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason and pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason (April 27).
Sheku Kanneh-Mason gained international attention in 2018, when he played at the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. In 2016 he was named BBC Music Magazine’s Young Musician of the Year. Isata is the eldest of his six musical siblings. Her debut album, “Romance,” topped the U.K. classical charts in 2019. Both artists record for Decca Records.
The Kanneh-Masons were among those Seltzer enlisted to appear virtually, as Richardson had been shut down for much of the pandemic, and PUC, in common with many arts organizations, strove to find new ways to connect with an audience, and to continue to share beauty, hope, and inspiration with the community.
PUC’s popular “Performances Up Close” series was brought back for a time, with audiences socially distanced in pods on stage with the performers at Richardson Auditorium. As COVID numbers rose again, the program was transitioned to take place outside.
Likewise, PUC’s “Breathe in Music” series continued in an outdoor format. Live music meditation events were held at Princeton University’s Graduate College courtyard and D&R Greenway’s Johnson Education Center campus. Listeners were invited to experience music played by a rising generation of classical artists, including cellist Joshua Roman, whose performances of Bach took place under a tent during an unanticipated October shower. Meditation instruction was provided by Matthew Weiner, the university’s associate dean in the Office of Religious Life.
A collaboration with Trenton Arts at Princeton facilitated Zoom meetings between notable performers, including the Kanneh-Masons, clarinetist Anthony McGill, and saxophonist Jess Gillam, and Trenton Public School students, as part of the Neighborhood Music Project.
An “Unmasking the Arts” conversation series, hosted by Helga Davis, was made available for on-demand viewing. Subject matter encompassed the arts and questions of social justice and climate change, how politics play into evolving cultural values, and shaping the future of the performing arts.
Much of this streamed digital content will find its way onto PUC’s new website — yet another project undertaken during the pandemic — for free viewing at concerts.princeton.edu.
Along the way, Seltzer also found time to co-edit a book, with Princeton University Professor Emeritus Scott Burnham and Labyrinth Books owner Dorothea von Moltke. “Ways of Hearing: 26 Reflections on Music” was conceived in celebration of PUC’s 125th anniversary season. Published by Princeton University Press in September, the volume contains reflections by notable musicians, artists, scientists, thinkers, poets, and others on the influence music has had on their lives and work. Among the contributors are Laurie Anderson, Gustavo Dudamel, Frank Gehry, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Pico Iyer, Elaine Pagels, Richard Powers, the Guarneri Quartet’s Arnold Steinhardt, and Carrie Mae Weems.
For more information on the Princeton University Concert Series or for ticket reservations, go to concerts.princeton.edu.
