Soprano Uta Graf, violinist Isaac Stern, pianist Van Cliburn. These eminent names of the classical music canon all played in San Antonio before they achieved worldwide fame, thanks to the Tuesday Musical Club Artist Series, celebrating its 100th anniversary this year.
Without tooting its own horn, the women-only club dedicated to performing, discussing and presenting classical music has brought top-tier musical talent to San Antonio for a century. But the 100th anniversary season is reason to tout its accomplishments, said Deborah Moore, co-chair of the centennial season artists series booking committee.
“It’s pretty amazing to talk about a concert series that’s managed to survive for 100 years with nothing but volunteers,” Moore said.
The Tuesday Musical Club for ladies was founded by Anna Hertzberg in 1901, after the classically trained pianist followed her husband from New York City to San Antonio. During its first year, six members met to perform classical favorites for each other. Membership quickly grew, and in 1923 the club produced its first annual concerts, then called Musical Teas. The group raised money for the construction of its clubhouse, built in 1949 at 3755 N. St. Mary’s Street in Brackenridge Park, where it stands today.
Big names
While some invited performers’ names will be familiar to classical music aficionados, several performers stand out in the club’s history.
Graf performed during the 1949-50 season, the same year she performed at the Town Hall in Manhattan. A 1985 New York Times obituary noted that she also sang with the San Francisco Opera, the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall and the Royal Opera in London.
Stern performed in 1940-41 before he became a Carnegie Hall mainstay and “one of the most recognized and recorded classical musicians in the world.”
And by chance because the scheduled performer was unavailable, Cliburn performed in 1956-57 just before he achieved worldwide recognition by winning the inaugural International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1958.
Moore credits the club’s longevity and consistency to the imprint left by Hertzberg’s forward-looking perspective.
“This group of women were very progressive in their approach to presenting music and musicians,” she said. “The women of Tuesday Musical Club that have planned the artists series over the decades have been very forward thinking,” helping young artists at the beginning of their careers and supporting them through their careers.
Returning artists
For the centennial season, Moore, along with co-chair Anna Armstrong and the artists series booking committee, decided to bring back some favorite performers of past seasons who have gone on to great renown.
The season-opening Oct. 24 concert at Temple Beth-El will feature the popular Eroica Trio, which first visited the Tuesday Musical Club for its 2005-06 season and have since landed a recording on the Billboard Top 20 list, among many other accomplishments.
On Nov. 28, pianist Olga Kern will revisit San Antonio after performing for the club in the 2002-03 and 2005-06 seasons. Kern began her career in 2001 with a gold medal win at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth. She will perform at Trinity Baptist Church with her son Vladislav Kern, also a notable musician and composer.
Organist Nathan Laube returns in February after a visit during the 2017-18 season. A graduate of the highly regarded Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, Laube has gone on to become a prized organist invited to play venues around the world. The Feb. 6 concert will take place at the Margarite B. Parker Chapel at Trinity University.
Tenor Lawrence Brownlee is regarded as a luminary in the bel canto opera contingent and has won acclaim for his solo recital program Cycles of My Being, a song cycle that centers on the Black male experience in America today with performances at Opera Philadelphia, Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center.
Brownlee performed for the Tuesday Musical Club during the 2007-08 season, and returns March 6 at the Laurel Heights United Methodist Church.
A friendly place
The Tuesday Musical Club Artist Series is not the only purpose the organization serves.
Pianist Daniel Anastasio arrived in San Antonio in the mid-1990s as an 8-year-old seeking a piano teacher. He found Rebecca Wilcox, who trained at the Eastman School of Music and The Juilliard School and introduced him to the Junior Tuesday Musical Club for youth in grades one through 12, which had its origins the year after its parent club started.
The monthly meetings helped students learn to perform in front of others, Anastasio said, in a generally noncompetive environment. “It was a friendly place to fail in front of others,” he said.
However, when there was a competition, Junior Tuesday Musical Club students also felt prepared and confident. In 2008, Anastasio won the Bowman Award, the top prize, at the annual Young Artists Competition. Then in 2017, he and cellist Christine Lamprea were invited to perform as professionals for the artist series.
“When you’re young, you have this feeling that it’s literally impossible to be at that level,” Anastasio said, taking a stage once shared by such internationally renowned musicians. But the experience give him the confidence to realize that he, too, could perform at a professional level among such luminous company.
“Nowadays, I feel like I could play with anyone in the world at any level and feel fine,” he said. Anastasio currently performs regularly around San Antonio with the Agarita chamber ensemble and with the Brooklyn-based Unheard-of Ensemble and teaches piano at San Antonio College.
Community mandate
In its 100 years, the only times the Tuesday Musical Club has missed performances are after 9/11 and during the coronavirus pandemic year of 2020, Moore said.
She noted that the influenza pandemic of 1918 occurred while the Tuesday Musical Club was flourishing and that Hertzberg “encouraged and actually challenged [club members] to be involved in the community, to help in any way needed, whether it was as volunteer nurses, or just giving comfort and providing services wherever anyone was needed.
“Community has really been a strong mandate” throughout the club’s existence, Moore said.
And, Moore said, presenting classical music is part of that mandate. “I think of the artists series as being our primary gift to the city of San Antonio,” she said.
Tickets for the 2023-24 Artist Series are specially priced at $100 for a five-ticket subscription package or $30 each for individual tickets. Students with ID are always admitted free, Moore said.
