Almost every classical arts organization would like to attract a younger, more diverse audience. The chamber orchestra One Found Sound has made that its mission in every part of its operational plan.
The group was founded in 2013 by a few musician friends, inspired by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra model of collaborative expression and democratic decision-making. OFS is the only orchestra in the Bay Area that is conductorless and completely musician-run. The group’s next concert will be on April 5 at Heron Arts.
In addition to performing, OFS has also created an educational program for underserved youth and prioritized commissioning and performing works by diverse and often previously unknown composers. The ensemble’s annual Emerging Composer Award is dedicated to “the inclusive future of classical music and how it can change our world for the better.”
Clarinetist Sarah Bonomo is one of the orchestra’s founders and serves on both the governing board and admin team. “A big part of our mission is just removing barriers to access to classical music,” she said in a recent phone interview with SF Classical Voice.
Bonomo believes that a conductor facing away from the audience creates a physical barrier. Without a conductor, “the musical responsibility is placed entirely in the hands of the musicians — to know the score, to know everyone’s part, and to communicate with each other more authentically, working together to build the artistic decisions,” she explained.
“In addition, we don’t perform on stages, and we play standing up, [with] the audience about a foot away from the front of the orchestra, so it’s a really intimate experience,” Bonomo continued. “The audience can physically see us communicating with each other when we play, and that invites them to also be a part of the experience. It makes it much more collaborative between the audience and the orchestra.”
Working without a conductor does require more time and rehearsal. Practicing together, the musicians will sometimes all count out loud or use a giant metronome to keep the beat.
Two years ago, OFS embarked on one of its most significant initiatives to date, the Herbert Franklin Mells Project, which includes the world premieres and recordings of four of the composer’s symphonic works. Born in 1908, Mells was a professor and choral conductor and the first Black man to receive a doctorate in orchestral composition. But due to racial discrimination, his scores went unpublished, and he is still virtually unknown.
“The Mells project is near and dear to our hearts and is in a sense what our mission boils down to,” said Bonomo. She related how Mells’s grandson, the baritone Eugene Perry, was cleaning out the attic in his family’s home when he found a trunk of the composer’s manuscripts.
Mells came to OFS’s attention through a friend of Perry’s, a composition professor at Carnegie Mellon University who saw the group’s advertisement for candidates for the Emerging Composer Award.
“We got connected with Eugene, and we just thought it was an amazing opportunity to give a voice to this person who was systemically excluded from classical music purely based on his race,” Bonomo commented. “And it’s really incredible music — it’s an American voice. Black music is American music, too.”
OFS presented the world premiere of Mells’s Symphony No. 1 in D Minor, composed in 1938, on March 4, 2023.
As for Saturday’s concert: Along with Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 and the Adagietto from Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 5, the program will include FLUX//DRIVE by Ty Bloomfield, winner of OFS’s 2024 Emerging Composer Award. The orchestra describes Bloomfield’s music as “characterized by its intimate and patient soundscapes, jazzy undertones, hidden melodies, and emotional complexity.” The concert will also feature Shubho Lhaw Qolo by Sami Seif, 2024 runner-up in the competition.
When asked what has kept OFS inspired and engaged all these years, Bonomo responded, “It’s such a challenge as a musician to have to put so much trust and attention into your colleagues and the music [to make] a really inspiring performance. But also, the response from the audience. People tell me all the time how moved they are, how inspired they feel after our concerts. So I think that what we do is something that is really needed within the classical world.”
