A Word on Words; 3240; Martha Ingram

ron johnson the once again welcome to world war i guess it was living room welcome martha was a rumor is that shows leaders in the arts she is the state leader in the arts she is one of the nation's leaders in the arts and it's great that year to talk about your book apollo's struggle and they're now it was watching apollo's struggle on screen and they see apollo there and that might make them on what is this book about tidal power struggle and as you point out he was a leader of the muses and then as you say apollo has had a struggle and bringing them uses to nashville paolo we're is that greeted pilot of music particularly that music and poetry and i chose that title but kyle is so you know it was failing as millions have had a love

affair with the greeks i guess from the very beginning i mean the most obvious is the parthenon and our major buildings on greek architecture and it's done it just seemed an appropriate symbol of what we're attempting to do an end this struggle is really trying to do deal with the whole issue of why hasn't been so difficult particularly in the set to come out the arts to high level of professionalism it just became so apparent to me when i went out to the northeast it to a college that my new friends mostly from the northeast and midwest talk to back here about things that my friends and i grew up with never mentioned music particularly symphony music opera theater dance my friends at home in charleston south

carolina and certainly not stupid we were in no way deprived other than culturally deprive in fact aron consider is quite provides but it was such a culture shock for me to go into this other environment and by my new friends had six different concerns and i really puzzled over that and my life is taking me from charleston to nashville into new orleans for not that three years and i found that the same situations existed and all three of those cities and as i talked to other friends who might be from savannah or rich linden lab to other southern cities their background their growing up with very like mine why you know it's interesting but vassar really open era and while you're there you said yourself this is wonderful why doesn't everyone share it and i said you're of us aggression

what i had not heard was that we went home charleston and talked your father about what you're going to do you wind up with camel and won on fm radio at night and it occurs to me that emmeline won with a program that really sought to bring fine music was chosen and every night you give them programming that made a difference and there's a wonderful wonderful anecdote and book in which your father brings you a family in which you were roundly criticized you earlier in your own name you you have assumed name of what your great grandmother but you know that you and your father and your father of the case the loan and those arcade fire or she loved all that he makes the disclosure but it occurs to me that that early on you were trying

bring something of what you had brought from vassar to listeners of fm radio and trouble free it's chick lit with johnny depp usa also that i was brought up with this notion that those didn't like is given much is expected from one side of the family and the other side of the family said that my grandmother from north carolina said you know you've got to bang the world somehow better because you have been here how are you going to do it it doesn't have to be big it can be small but it's oh do you you are not here just to take up space and look prairie you've got to do something to justify your existence so you know all of this was so i'm running through my head from the time that i was a small child so put that with my new discovery of the arts a dancer in all the sudden i thought whoa maybe this is something i can do to make the world a little better at least for my friends they've missed all it's the glory of these are it's that i've discovered it at vassar near new york and it had so alive in my life actually does to that was

so thrilling so were my father really had in mind because he did on the station's the radio and the television that i would be a successor i was the oldest of three and he said they're now you've got the best education that we could possibly get for you the next thing is i would like to groom you to take over from a and he wears them but rather old for those days when i was born and although i had a younger brother he was ten years younger so i went to work as his secretary because his idea was i'd learned his knees literally his secretary had become ill and he was not able to return so because atlanta tight that was what i was doing that's house wearing the latest it was pretty boring up and know it and i feel creative despite at my father's along the sentences so i finally in reading in the press that some radio stations were beginning to split an airplane which was in those days was simulcast it's hard to believe in today's world that that was the

case but there were not many at ten cents a receiver is available so i knew that i was not dealing with that he sat there but i asked him if he would let me try a programming from seven to eleven at night and the first portion would be candlelight and wine which is mostly a lot of on a set of light eric you have dinner music and then an aide in tow can it was music from the masters and there it was all beethoven that was our tchaikovsky or whenever an leah looking back on it because i thought i knew so much now i it was really pretty fast to its of me i think i could teach anyone anything but it was an attempt to stimulate interest in these things that i've learned to love and of course there were some people in charleston that also had learned to love them not in charleston probably cause we really had very little to offer but perhaps a move to charleston from summer place so i did have some in

some ways there's not many but i had some and most were very high most of the levers i got but i did get their my father got the scathing letter airbag my german pronunciation and that is on his way of handling of ways to ask me if you could read one of my own in letters and so i'm in and he said laughter read the letter out that oh dear just as that sounded that and dancing winnie ewing didn't even if i mean he said you know despite this letter you know you talk about in the book is just chock full of love stories about art culture and its evolution and natural and you get at the very beginning and that goes through all of the decade by decade

and what a rich history it is if you go all the way back to eighty know seven which and that's where he takes an then using about apollo struggle with all of history how tough it has been to provide a performing arts center and you tell the story about where you first heard a bi national speak before lots of it was that johnson had a meeting and he'd be the first to save money from a us ally pro soccer is i get people in the metro center an enviable voice their own a bank where the invasion of allowing arts and then you know this can win some of those softer than it and ran with it and you write in this but it is curious he had dared ask about twenty women fell into aladdin industries victor had and he was really showing us the

concept of metro centers city within the satiric the city and there was my new residential hear light industry here in cultural things here he said by the way over here we were going to put a performing arts center down by the river but the city fathers have turned it down and then he went on to other things and at the end he said any questions and i said yes what'd you do with that land down by the river that the city fathers turndown he's that was building and i say well would you give the city money is a shot at it and he said why so are busy i think and so in that group of women really became the nucleus for what became a whole movement in tennessee we have actually had the new grace of twenty and i think by the time we'd edited one or two members to this all female committee we're about seventy five women across the state and their job was to work with the

individual legislators from that particular area you have like have them for coffee whenever they could get to a yes for their vote when this comes up before the enemy in the park for a rodent in the arm and the legislature and so we did and we did have to be fair we also have people like jack nancy wilson and some others too had sort of the the moneycard in mind and they were the ones that were beginning to collect some money to create that what turned out to be an endowment but then it was the women who really praised the legislature to agree to build this building as part of the office building known as the museum underneath and stayed out on top but it was when we first talked to and then i went to a damn about this in an intent well jews and commissioner of fema they said well where would you want to have such a performing arts center and we said well we've got an offer

of land at metro center that they did johnson is offering un reviewed lee ann wilson and eighteen years and i saw an n wilson is the one who had made the appointment because that wilson had really raised the money for wind and she had access the others of us had dug on a different direction at that time but tye he was most gracious as you can imagine when filled with the cell and when we said whoa we've got this land and they said well if the state is kind of participate it would have to be downtown in there in the state capital area and we so we felt kind of well sort of this year's dining fare but recent but wearing a symbol where we do it again we said what his downtown why not reveal andrew jackson hotel has just been demolished now it's not this is going on there and somehow that was just the light bulb that flipped on we said well why not lifted up and

slide the performing arts center an old reporters and you won't have to buy more land and ten welch in love buying them when to lift each other and they said why not usually where the story is that after you leave the governor says the ted you think more thoroughly have the stuff to stay with us all away through you've proven you do for those of you just joining us i'm talking with mothering room about her new book apollo's struggle and it is a struggle you recount in their reactions of politicians with whom you had to work then so amazing so bummed how you've been able to educate politicians about the need for the arch i mean the thing about winfield anything about them according to think about jon brion then another string of mayors we've had annual count conversations with all of them

but it's really been necessary to educate political structural as an orator it's a portfolio it's i hesitate to use the weight educate out and prefer to use the word may be informed by tried to cultivate maybe because you know these people these are very educated people but doubts for now fargo there aren't because they lived in the south they did and did not have the advantage of these exposures are culturally and a tremendous love her new immigrants who have more footage for a while it very well it's likely the reasoning he said you know you taught me how to spell whoa whoa let's most money just say you take of from from a family of delphi to the

mundo to be used to have before riyadh served time on something so i think in this vote there is something for every person who is interested in a helmet all the arts and this so much so i mean i had just spent some time delving into the history of political history to the city and i thought in writing a book about james k polk i knew everything there was to learn about sam houston you told me something i thought about the families and he was terrified me on the stage are dressed in casting he threatened to kill the previous there is thirdly if you laughed at him for saying he was not so easily

now a level of the new republic pictures of him and there was even cost of torture so it's a little bit about how you how you researched the book a nobody had some support where i like to talk about that devil's candy the kellogg for its laughter with your head your previous regime did you weren't we weren't we weren't together in what i call a bison book earlier and she's an excellent researcher an excellent interviewer and wonderful in organizing material and so you know i also have a daytime job and this would've taken me probably ten years not to if it all i consider myself a trained historian from vassar but she really was just excellent and what we really did is we started with the performing arts center and we went backwards and then we can come forward from its opening some twenty plus years ago but don't

seize the a lot of times nine libraries but in the basement of libraries going through material that was not yet call it means she has spent hours and must like a musty dusty basements and so i'd do a heart goes really that the credit for that the really fine research and i win the bank my life on the fact that it's accurate she is so careful and has also done the indexing four for the book so and that was i learned a great deal from her research also and then we have also worked with then people in the main public library cow kaplan is the one who has also been over the manuscript so i think that what we've got is as accurate as one can enter a muscle is inaccurate and it is insolvent depth and they're a wonderful stories and where you bump into people that you know as well as people you don't know when you

find out things about people didn't know wonderful story about jimmy stallman when he was thirty years old bringing rudolph valentino tonight show and they're making enough honored to have some left over the car and the star of the bounty you know getting there late and leaving the audience and and then one night my wife was working and she said you know you're a lot of what i said no and then sure enough i did have to learn to othello and so little puppet duchy of shakespeare in the park so i can testify that is there and he's accurate about it at first i have to do well and there's some interesting science sidelines and as stan and as unbound zion with vanderbilt university and we are deceptive a fine institution but i was amazed that in the early days that day or every state and they came to vanderbilt had to sign a pledge not to go to sell worms horse racing are that they either because basically they spent

mcateer was the chairman of the board of that vote in those days now that was rescinded after his dig out because them they're young people were going any how they were going to whistle is horse racing in the piano sitting next to people who were some of the biggest churchgoers whose churches were also preaching against going to the theater and so it's been a it's harder than please pull candidate and they've been a lot of influences that don't have perhaps a retarded some of the growth that it's been the big thing really was a civil war the big thing was the collapse of the economy at the time of the civil war the occupation of nashville by northern troops for three years i mean this midnight and wrecked everything physically mentally emotionally people were absolutely devastated here and after the war was over nobody thought about the arts it appeared other than at the literary arts because you could buy a piece of

paper and a pen but the performing arts ms yards just simply disappeared and that is what we're still recovering from you know and people talk about the fact that americans have never lost a war one is they're not seven american the cause the people that dad grew up in the end they aren't lived in that period were absolutely devastated humiliated they were in charleston they were you write me it's it was a horrible horrible time in until i really got into this i'd not focused on that i had as i had no reason to focus on it it's behind as it's over but it helps explain why we've had so little art here in the er that we got away from the pre civil war dance the less interest there was in the arts and what we've done in the last generation in nashville is really quite remarkable week to reinstate of the arts as a legitimate part of this society and it's so it's it's been the work of thousands of people but you know in doing it you know there's a really interesting

story you know oh from the reconstruction period suppose or perhaps more period was it was an excerpt from an article in the national gazette and the writer is condemning that stage play of uncle tom's cabin and i mean and you get that sense from that critique that there was an idea that we really don't want us to lincoln jedi actors bring in their stuff down here and that part of the history of this region and contributed to the other side of that is you also find when you come to that segment on fisk the great row julie saying his play in keeping the issue alive and how they're singing and rich the culture of the community is this came into being right

at the end this and why it was there before amanda you say in a barracks yes they're so it's a it is all there and then you take as from very early on to until contemporary times in and i guess right through work the contributions of of all of the accounting messy and how maybe it's in that ask him who says early in the book that the genius in your leadership was that you've got everybody in the community involvement that any effort to promote the arch you included everybody and certainly even flu that everybody follows trouble well i hope so and you know in the book i hope is a celebration of where we come from but even more typically where we are now the thing that i hoped to do with this book is to cut but the whole issue of sustainability at the air for people to consider because

other efforts earlier worked for a while but they were not sustainable post civil war ongoing and in times of prosperity and you've got to have a strong economy for the arts to survive at a very high professional level ghazi people have to be paid in theaters have to be built and maintained but death dave that the efforts earlier efforts post civil war had not been sustainable i want these efforts to be sustainable i want this debate part of our own ongoing fabric for our city as we go forward into the to the future and it's not going to happen unless we have a general awareness of the fragility of the arts the arts collapse unless the community loves the arts in the precincts and by attending by studying them by encouraging children in school to have the arts and it right now it's sort of a golden time there are our teachers in the schools both visual art and performing arts we don't have

enough music instruments musical instrument so we've got to provide those for the children because once a play an instrument their mind and stand more about what it is they're hearing at the symphony nra that the studies through the children who study music or better students a learned better map they learn history behind everything more readily so we've got a challenge ahead of this or we can decide to say well we're here is that nice we're here in but we've got to keep fighting that living forward to sustain that you have a couple minutes left was alone point apollo struggle the bankruptcy of the symphony i mean you were faced with a real challenge to bring something back from that point it was then it was certainly a low point i think the lowest point of the whole thing though is way and got a black and tell me he was going to kill them the piano part of that building and put

a parking garage instead that that took the air out of a tire is terribly but for his slave name authorities say the day that we got the aromatic tires but done that the bankruptcy of the symphony ways really of them are terrible issue because here we had such potential going forward and we were not able to sustain it because money's that we were counting on that we promised musicians did not come through it was right after by actor were of ninety seven in early ninety eight we could see we were in financial trouble will enable to make a deal with the musicians with the union and bankruptcy with curried i hope that never happens again i don't think it will we've gotten excellent relationship with the union and went back without a six year contract that takes us through the opening of the new how i just don't think it's going to happen again but i tried would you say at the very end of the book well

apollo stroller been difficult there as well and you do oval there is hope i i just i just want there to be an awareness though of the fragility buckeyes it's it's not going to unless we all work together if it can disappear again but i don't think it will or we wouldn't be building this wonderful spam was like a you know i think it's it's indeed one of the decimated best in the world it's going to give the national a whole nother dimension and we're very proud of that thank you so much modeling to come to talk about a novel struggle thank all of you for watching and johnson didn't offer a word on words