"There was never a but, only all-in"

Saturday evening, November 4, 2023, ballroom of Muri Abbey AG: The musicians of the Siggenthal Youth Orchestra (SJO) take the stage, followed by pianist Oliver Schnyder and long-time musical director Marc Urech. Marc is the reason why I'm here. I've been asked to write an article to mark his departure from the orchestra, in which I myself played some 20 years ago as a young adult.

A woodwind chord sounds, string pizzicati, Oliver Schnyder conjures up a pastoral in the room: the Fifth, "Egyptian" Piano Concerto by Camille Saint-Saëns. From the first note, I am right in the middle of it, the energy of the orchestra immediately infects me. Marc is bursting with emotion, as always. Nevertheless, he seems almost cool, serene by his standards, and I imagine a smile or two, although I can't see any of it sitting behind him. After the interval: Antonín Dvorák's Ninth Symphony. I myself played the piece for the first time in the SJO. Some things sound different than before: more daring, freer. The arc is stretched to immeasurable proportions - and it holds until the final tutti. The applause is huge. In keeping with an old SJO tradition, Marc addresses a few words to the audience, welcomes new orchestra members and bids farewell to older ones, begins in a whisper and leads into a huge crescendo. Full of impressions, memories and emotions, I make my way home.

Sustainable promotion

A few days later, I meet Marc for a chat at the Musikwerkstatt Windisch-Brugg, the SJO's longstanding rehearsal venue. "It was always important to me to create an environment where you can let yourself go - because you know that you won't be dropped. If this trust is there, the young people are prepared to leave their own comfort zone, to challenge themselves and to be challenged. And that's what I demand in every rehearsal. That's how promotion happens in a completely different sustainable way." Fundamental words are spoken early on. Marc is not one for the superficial; it's always about the core, the essentials. And about more than just music. 

During his time as conductor of the SJO, Marc regularly included large, technically difficult works on the concert programs. Saint-Saëns and Dvorák, symphonies by Tchaikovsky or Brahms: "Works that you don't already have in your fingers as a child or teenager. That's only possible because we can spend four to five months getting to grips with them in depth and the younger ones are carried away by the energy of the older ones." In fact, the age range of the orchestra members is unusually wide: the youngest are 12, the oldest 26. There is no entrance audition. "The 12-year-old sits next to someone who has been in the orchestra for eight years and has played 16 programs. Sitting opposite him is someone who is studying violin at the conservatory. That's normal for us. It's a give and take. The younger members benefit from the older ones, and as older members they give back later. The young people are in the orchestra for an average of seven years, that's a third of their lives. During this time, they develop more than ever before. When they are in this protected workshop, they make impressions that are incredibly deep and indelible - like a tattoo."

Enduring the balancing act

When asked about the reasons for his resignation, Marc hesitates. "The SJO has been my family home since I started playing in the orchestra myself at the age of ten. In all those years, I never canceled a rehearsal, even during the pandemic we rehearsed whenever possible, even if that meant triple the work due to the division of the orchestra. There was never a but, only all-in. Even as a child and teenager, I really appreciated this commitment, and even later there was never anything that stopped me from rehearsing with the boys. But this commitment is also draining. As a result, my environment, my family, had to take a back seat too often."

The SJO will be led by clarinettist and conductor Roman Blum, himself a former member of the orchestra and Marc's student. He is also the son of theologian Walter Blum, who founded the SJO in 1979. "As a youth worker - and that's what you are in this job - you have a responsibility to listen and look closely: What contributes to sustainable support? I sincerely hope that Roman can find this out for himself, that he can find the balance, that he can manage the balancing act between the needs of the young people and the demands from outside. Because there is no recipe for this. And I hope that the SJO will always have people around it who are willing to walk the tightrope, because in the end it's always about the young people. In this way, the SJO will be able to preserve the values that make it unique: openness, tolerance, empathy, the desire to be different, and thus come together in orchestral playing."