It's not every musical group that stays together for a half-century. Even extraordinarily long-lasting British rockers the Rolling Stones, unquestionably the standard for togetherness in popular music, have only been kickin' out the jams since 1962 -- 46 years and counting. So it's impressive that, after the first note of the Utah Valley Symphony's Autumn Concert is sounded at the Covey Center for the Arts Wednesday, the nonprofit volunteer will have commenced its 50th season.

Well, it depends on who you ask. The symphony, known during its earliest years as the Central Utah Community Orchestra, was formally organized in 1959, but violist Marilyn Hales said that the players actually performed together for two years prior to that time. Hales, 72, would know -- she was there.

Symphony publicist Laurie Sowby and general manager Cornelia Madsen said that there are seven current symphony participants, six women and one man, who were founding members of the orchestra in 1959. All of them have been involved for impressive stretches of the group's subsequent history, and some have never taken a break.

There are also many former participants whose dedication has kept the symphony alive. The late Beverly Dunford, Rytting said, a violinist and former general manager of the symphony who died of complications resulting from surgery in 2004, was in at the beginning and became the driving force behind the venerable ensemble for most of the years it's been around.

Musicians like to play with other musicians, but the commitment to the Utah Valley Symphony has generally been even deeper. Dunford and others, Rytting said, "thought that they were creating something special for the valley. They were devoted to it as kind of a cause."

Violinist Colleen Dinsdale, 77, put a little of that feeling into words when she said that orchestral music is "just a part of culture that we need." The members of the symphony, Dinsdale said, don't want live classical music to "fade out as years go by, and other interests come along."

Or, as Hale put it, "Way back, I just decided that this group was the group I would put my effort into. That was it."

The energy apparently hasn't flagged. Rytting, who's 55 and chair of the music department at Utah Valley University, said that, in his 10 years as conductor, he's sometimes shown up to rehearse with the orchestra "dead tired, or upset about my day, or fed up, or depressed. One of the things that has happened again and again and again is that working with them lifts my spirits.

"I end up feeling much happier after the rehearsal than I was before it."

With that kind of vitality behind it, it wouldn't be surprising to find the Utah Valley Symphony still going strong at 100. Perhaps the generation of musicians who will carry it for the next five decades are stringing up their bows, or practicing their circular breathing, right now.

• Cody Clark can be reached at 344-2542 or This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

If you go

Utah Valley Symphony Autumn Concert

Where: Covey Center for the Arts, 425 W. Center St., Provo

When: 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday and Thursday, special concert preview with conductor Bryce Rytting at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday

Cost: $12/general admission, $10/seniors and students

Info: www.utahvalleysymphony.org

SIDEBARS

MAESTRO LIST

There have been 8 men who have served the Utah Valley Symphony as conductor since 1959. They are as follows:

James Mason and Jacob Bos -- 1959 to 1962

Harold Goodman -- 1962 to 1966

Lawrence Sardoni -- 1966 to 1968

Glenn Williams -- 1968 to 1978

Ralph G. Laycock -- 1978 to 1990

Clyn D. Barrus -- 1990 to 1997

Bryce Rytting -- 1997 to present

ORIGINAL ROSTER

According to symphony management, there are seven people in the current Utah Valley Symphony lineup who also played in the symphony in 1959. Some of them have never taken a break, while a few others have moved away (and since returned) or taken time off for work, family or other obligations. We found out a little bit about each of them.

Shirley Allred

Age: 82

Instrument: Cello

Day job: Retired (former administrative employee of Provo School District)

Allred started out playing the violin -- and loving it. She switched to the cello while in the seventh grade at the behest of her father, a music teacher at Snow College in Ephraim, who wanted the family orchestra to have a cellist. "He told me, 'If you're a cellist, you'll always be in demand,' " Allred said.

One of the first times that her father's prediction was borne out was when Allred was asked to play in the faculty string quintet and string quartet while a junior at Utah State Agricultural College (now Utah State University) -- there was no faculty cellist until the following year. Since then, Allred said, "I've never lacked for opportunities."

Despite being in her 80s, the grandmother of 24 and great-grandmother of 16 still loves her instrument. In addition to playing with the Utah Valley Symphony, she rehearses weekly and performs with the American Fork Symphony.

Richard Barker

Instrument: String bass

Day job: Retired (former music teacher for Provo School District)

Barker was out of town and unable to be contacted by the Daily Herald, but Utah Valley Symphony General Manager Cornelia Madsen said that he's been valuable to the symphony for many years in more ways than just as a musician. Barker is the symphony's stage manager. "He's the one who sets up and takes down for all of the performances," Madsen said.

Shirley Allred, a cellist in the symphony, said that Barker had a brief hiatus while serving a religious mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the eastern United States with his wife. Barker was especially pleased about serving in the eastern United States, Allred said, because he and his wife were able, on occasion, to attend live performances of classical music by large professional symphonies.

Another symphony member, violist Margaret Larson, remembers Barker from high school -- when he was her teacher. "He still has the same twinkle in his eye that he had when he was teaching high school kids," Larson said.

Colleen Dinsdale

Age: 77

Instrument: Violin

Day job: Retired (former nurse)

When she began working as a nurse while in her 50s, Dinsdale found that she had to step away from the symphony for several years. "I was working graveyard shifts at the hospital," she said, "and they just didn't fit in with the practice schedules." After retiring, she found that she was eager to start playing again. "It's such an incentive to keep my skill intact," Dinsdale said.

Her life is "filled with music," she said, and that's the way she likes it. Her seven children (there are now 28 grandchildren and 31 great-grandchildren) grew up with their own passion for classical music because of frequent attendance at their mother's concerts.

Dinsdale switched from piano to violin when she was 12 to make her father happy. "My father owned a violin and had played it as a boy himself," she said. "I was the youngest of seven children. It was his last chance to have a child play the violin." Other people helped with her decision. When she didn't sign up for orchestra after switching to the violin, her school's music teacher came and found her in a math class.

"He said, 'Miss Dinsdale, you don't belong in math class, you belong in orchestra,' " Dinsdale recalled. "I never left it after that."

Carol Jean Gibson

Age: 65

Instrument: Violin

Day job: Medical receptionist

After playing in the Utah Valley Symphony while still in high school, Gibson went to college, married and moved away from Utah for several years, returning in 1970. She's been sitting with the violins ever since.

For many years, one of Gibson's favorite pieces of classical music has been Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2. "Whenever I listened to it, I would think, 'I hope that sometime before I die I'll be able to play that with the symphony.' " Near the end of the tenure of conductor Clyn Barrus, who worked with the symphony from 1990 to 1997, Gibson suggested the piece to him and he agreed that the symphony should play it. Not long after they began to rehearse the piece, Barrus was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

Eventually, Gibson said, "we performed (Piano Concerto No. 2) with Bryce Rytting as our conductor. It was the first thing that he conducted for us."

Gibson took up the violin in childhood on a whim, so that she could accompany a friend to a music lesson, and has played ever since, but she's never stopped learning. "I wonder if I'll ever learn to play it," she said, when asked what keeps her interested after so many years. "It's the challenge. It's the challenge of trying to master what it takes to play such a magnificent instrument."

Marilyn Hales

Age: 72

Instrument: Viola

Day job: Legal secretary

"I started out on the violin in the fourth grade in San Diego," Hales said. "I just loved it from day one. I actually didn't change to the viola until my second year of college." She found that she liked the "lower, deeper" sound of the viola. "It just resonates with me better," she said.

Years after making the switch, Hales and the Utah Valley Symphony performed in concert with acclaimed violinist Mischa Elman, who was surprised to see Hales's "new" instrument. "As a younger girl, I had studied with him in Los Angeles," she said. "When he saw me and he saw I was on viola, he shook his finger at me."

Most musicians know the sensation of momentarily forgetting how to play what they've practiced. In her decades with the symphony, Hales said she's occasionally seen something even more alarming. "Sometimes members in our section have forgotten (to bring) their whole viola, or their bow," she said. "Sometimes I bring an extra bow, and it's come in handy."

Margaret Larson

Age: 64

Instrument: Viola

Day job: Orchestra teacher at Spanish Fork High School and Spanish Fork Junior High School

She's been in and out of the Utah Valley Symphony a couple of times over the years (her husband is retired from the United States Air Force), but Larson was a symphony violist in 1959 despite being just 15 years old. "I had just that summer returned home from Interlochen Music Camp in Michigan," she said.

One of Larson's strongest impressions of being a teenager in the symphony is her memory of conductor Jacob Bos, who led the symphony (with James Mason) from 1959 to 1962 "It was difficult for me to do rehearsals because he had a very, very thick Dutch accent," she said.

Larson said that she's always played in orchestras and quartets wherever she's lived, and has always kept a special place in her heart for the Utah Valley Symphony. "When we moved back down to Utah County" most recently, she said, after living for a number of years in northern Utah, "one of the first things I did was to get back in touch with the Utah Valley Symphony. It was one of those no-brainer things."

Cornelia Madsen (Utah Valley Symphony General Manager)

Age: 69

Instrument: Trumpet

Day job: Adjunct faculty at Utah Valley University teaching humanities

Piano was Madsen's first instrument, but she switched to trumpet in the fifth grade. "My mother picked it for me because there was a family dance band and she wanted a trumpet in the group," Madsen said.

A former music teacher in public schools for 37 years, Madsen still practices an hour every day. Teaching, actually, was a big motivation for her to stay active in the symphony. "I always felt it was extremely important for me to continue learning in order to become a better teacher," she said.

One educational moment she especially remembers occurred during a UVS rehearsal with former conductor Clyn Barrus (Barrus's tenure with the symphony was from 1990 to 1997). "One time at the very beginning of a rehearsal of a Mozart piano concert," she said, "he stopped and said, 'Let's learn how to play Mozart.' He spent 20 minutes working with us on the phrasing."