“You are what you eat from your head to your feet.” This was a popular saying from Pajama Sam, a computer game I used to play back in the aughts. While I don’t eat “clarinet” or some of my other interests, they certainly do shape who I am as a person and how I make a living, and apparently these interests shape others’ choices as well. Recently I’ve observed a correlation between arts leadership and clarinetists in the Pacific Northwest, and in fact I can think of seven arts administrators / clarinetists I know in Oregon and Washington alone, of which Jennifer Crockett is one. Jennifer is executive director of the Liberty Theatre in Astoria, Oregon, and is also an accomplished clarinetist. 45^th Parallel is working with her on an upcoming Musical Tasting Menu show at the Liberty Theatre this September. The program is chosen by the audience, and performed by the virtuosos of the Arcturus Winds. Audience members are assigned numbers, and if we select their number, they get to select the piece to play next from a musical menu!

The following interview was conducted on June 12th at Mendelssohn’s Bar before some summer fun where Jennifer, James Shields, Ricky Smith, and myself read some clarinet quartet music.

Lisa: Jennifer, you’re both an arts administrator and a clarinetist. I want to ask first about clarinet. When did you start playing?

Jennifer: I started when I was ten. I really wanted to play the cello. but my mom had her high school clarinet in the closet, and so she said “Here, here you go, play clarinet.” I didn’t like it at first, but then we went to the Chicago Symphony, where I saw them play the Nutcracker Suite. It was Waltz of the Flowers that won me over!

Lisa: That’s cool. I wish I had a more inspiring story. I wanted to play saxophone, but I remember being too small to hold the sax at the time, and my dad encouraged clarinet. I don’t know if they did this at your school, but at mine they had the beginning string orchestra play for the younger students who might join in the fall. These were fourth graders, just months into the string program. I thought it sounded so bad at the time. The middle school jazz students also performed, and they sounded so much better to me, so I gravitated towards the band experience.

Jennifer: I’ve taught clarinet over the years, and I’m not even sure what I would’ve done as a fourth grader had I started then. Even with my sixth graders, the pinky keys were hard to reach when they started. Who knows what we were even playing back then? Maybe just a lot of stuff with our left hand.

Lisa: That would be a good thing to figure out, what our first pieces or other musicians’ first pieces were in band or orchestra. I know the Ancient Voices arrangement by Paul Winter is pretty popular.

Jennifer: Mary Had a Little Lamb for TWO YEARS…

Lisa: Or Hot Cross Buns! You’ve been playing a long time professionally, and we’ll get into your background here in a moment, but what was the turning point as a young musician that made you want to play professionally and fully pursue clarinet?

Jennifer: I was really lucky to go to a high school that was super well-funded for music. It was a mega high school in the suburbs of Chicago that had an entire music wing. I played in the pit orchestra for musicals and marching band. Then I started taking lessons, and my sophomore year I went to Interlochen Center for the Arts. From there, I sort of fast-tracked on clarinet into college, eventually going to DePaul.

I started doing auditions around the time I started grad school. I quickly realized it was going to be a lot harder than I expected. Also, when I was an undergraduate, only the graduate students were allowed in orchestra, so when I first started auditioning for orchestras around the country, I hadn’t had orchestral playing experience since high school. That was hard. I was at an audition, and I had been told no for the twentieth or so time… I called my mom right after this and sent her my clarinets and told her I never wanted to see them again… and I quit playing for about ten years. I went into retail and became the district manager for Anthropologie in Portland. I also helped a friend start and open School House Electric, also in Portland.

I never told people I played clarinet until Mark Dubac moved to town, someone I had known previously through friends of mine in Chicago, and he outed me. We were out somewhere with a group and he asked someone “Did you know that Jen went to school for clarinet?” It was like a bomb dropping. I think I had told people I majored in English because I didn’t want to talk about it. I started taking lessons with Mark and getting back into playing. At the time, he was really into Buddhist ideologies, was really relaxed, and had philosophies around playing without judgment and just enjoying playing. It was the right time and right place for me to receive this message. It was exactly what I needed to shake off all the stress of music school.

I got back into playing and moved to Astoria. I lived right up the street from the Liberty Theatre. At that time, the Theater did about 20 shows a year – it had been renovated to be a wedding venue and was in deep debt. I went to a show there and I was blown away both by how beautiful and underutilized it was. They were hiring for an Executive Director. My husband encouraged me to interview, even though I had no experience as an arts administrator. I got the job and it turned out to be a perfect match! With my business experience and my playing experience combined I was up for the task. We’ve gone from a $300,000 budget to a $1,400,000 annual budget and about 150 shows a year.

Lisa: That is an amazing story! It’s so cool to hear about Mark because I too was a student of Mark’s at a time in my adult life when I was feeling really down about playing. I also feel like everything I learned from him I needed at that exact time. So interesting… he’s like a catalyst teacher.

Jennifer: He’s just so laid back about his playing…

Lisa: …and crushingly nonchalant. Also, it’s so crazy for you to jump into the theatre like that and for it to be from that point of deep debt to where it is now. A truly huge amount of growth. Do you ever look back at where you were and that job interview and where it is now and say: …oh my god…

Jennifer: Yeah… it is crazy… When I first started at the Liberty, I was working 50-60 hours a week. I’ve achieved some more balance now. We started with 3 full-time employees and now we’re up to 8.

Lisa: How long have you been there?

Jennifer: Almost 9 years. Next year, my 10th year as Executive Director, will coincide with the theatre’s 100 year anniversary. We are launching some campaigns in the coming year as well.

Lisa: That’s amazing! We are super excited to play at the Liberty in the coming months. What are some ways people can find out about this show and other upcoming programs?

Jennifer: We have an amazing outreach program for students and children in the area, where they’re matched 1:1 with some local support, but everything is exceptionally locally driven. We partner with hotels, restaurants, and local businesses. We are lucky in that every dollar raised is matched by other local businesses. We take equity very seriously, try to remove barriers, and show diverse programming. You can find everything on our website!

Lisa: Here’s a link to Arcturus Winds’ upcoming tasting menu concert, complete with dinner as well!

Lisa Lipton
Executive Director, 45^th Parallel Universe