By Jamie Jenson<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Accepting the position of executive director of Symphoria earlier this year felt like the next logical step for Dr. Pamela Murchison\u2019s career. Her life has always been influenced by music, and from an early age, she had a passion for it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI grew up surrounded by music,\u201d Murchison said. \u201cMy parents had everything on, from Beethoven\u2019s symphonies to Mississippi John Hurt to The Eagles to Johnny Mathis, so lots of family sing-alongs on car trips and things like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Murchison\u2019s musical training began in kindergarten, when she began taking classes from her best friend\u2019s mom, who played the flute. Her friend\u2019s mom wanted to learn how to paint, so Murchison\u2019s mom, an artist, bartered with her. They exchanged painting lessons for flute lessons.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had just seen James Galway on Sesame Street <\/em>playing probably \u2018Danny Boy\u2019 for Big Bird and so my mom said, \u2018Well, do you want to take flute lessons?\u2019 And I said, \u2018Well, sure,\u2019 and that \u2018Well, sure\u2019 has gotten me pretty far in life,\u201d Murchison laughed.<\/p>\n Murchison pursued bachelor\u2019s and master\u2019s degrees in music before earning her Doctor of Music Arts degree in flute performance from West Virginia University in 2011.<\/p>\n \u201cI loved being in high school orchestra and band and I never wanted to not<\/em>do it, and so I\u2019ve had a really exciting career as a performer,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Murchison played in both the Akron Symphony Orchestra and the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra, and then about six or seven years ago, Murchison\u2019s friend, who was playing with a group called the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, told Murchison her organization needed an executive director. She thought Murchison would be perfect for the job.<\/p>\n \u201cI said, \u2018Well, sure,\u2019 and I really developed a love for being on the other side of things, as well, because it\u2019s not really the other side, right? We\u2019re all kind of doing the same thing, just from different perches.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2015, that directorship led to a development job with the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra, where Murchison was also performing as a musician.<\/p>\n When Symphoria offered Murchison the job in Syracuse, she said she and her husband jumped at the chance to move here.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat Symphoria is doing is really exciting to us, in terms of the passion of the organization, the commitment that the community has and that the musicians have, and so it felt like a really exciting next step for us, and so here we are,\u201d Murchison said.<\/p>\n Murchison said she has much to be excited about here in Syracuse.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you come into a community through an orchestra or musical organization, there are people in the community who love it already, so you have a million friends \u2014 you just don\u2019t know them yet \u2014 because of this thing that connects us all, and so it\u2019s so fun for me to be in a new community and learning stories about people and hearing them talk about why they love the orchestra so much,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Murchison believes it\u2019s a gift that people share their time with Symphoria and look to the organization as a place to share memories.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I see people\u2019s faces light up when they talk about it \u2014 and it\u2019s the people sitting in the seats, it\u2019s the people on the board, it\u2019s the musicians on the stage, it\u2019s the kids who are participating in the youth orchestra \u2014 I feel a little bit like \u2018Well, what can\u2019t we do?\u2019\u201d Murchison said.<\/p>\n Murchison is also excited for the programs that are available next season, which include pianist Natasha Paremski, who will be performing Rachmaninoff\u2019s \u201cConcerto\u201d over two nights, which has only been done one other time in the United States. Symphoria will also be hosting a concert called \u201cEllis Island,\u201d where they\u2019re partnering with Syracuse Stage in order to perform music that\u2019s indicative of the experience of coming to the United States, and they\u2019ll will be showing the Robert Zemeckis\u2019 1985 classic, \u201cBack to the Future,\u201d while the live orchestra performs the music.<\/p>\n Wherever one\u2019s interests lie, Murchison is sure there is an event at Symphoria to peak one\u2019s interest, because music, she believes, is something that unites us all.<\/p>\n \u201cRegardless of any of our differences, everybody has this thing in common,\u201d she said. \u201cEvery culture, every region, every person, we\u2019re all musical. And that\u2019s just a really universal thing. I love it \u2014 I love it so much.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Jamie Jenson Accepting the position of executive director of Symphoria earlier this year felt like the next logical step for Dr. Pamela Murchison\u2019s career. Her life has always been influenced by music, and from an early age, she had a passion for it. \u201cI grew up surrounded by music,\u201d Murchison said. \u201cMy parents…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2576,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99,126],"tags":[157,952,951],"class_list":["post-2575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-health","tag-inspire","tag-pamela-murchison","tag-symphoria"],"gutentor_comment":0,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.syracusewomanmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/mdg20190722-4.jpg?fit=4480%2C6720&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2709,"url":"https:\/\/www.syracusewomanmag.com\/?p=2709","url_meta":{"origin":2575,"position":0},"title":"INSPIRE: Jennifer Covert, executive director of North Area Meals on Wheels","author":"Staff","date":"December 2, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"\u2018We will not let anybody go hungry\u2019 BY ASHLEY M. 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