Aaron Hollander played bassoon in the University Symphony Orchestra from 2011-2019.
Did you participate in any special projects, such as performances with guest soloists or commissions, that were particularly impactful during your time with the USO?
My last year in the USO, the Imani Winds were in residency at the University, and we had a number of sectionals and lessons with them, which was already an incredible opportunity, but then a group of USO students (myself included) were selected to play alongside them in a performance of Jeff Scott's Sacred Women. I don't think I've ever worked harder to master a work of chamber music, but the experience of playing alongside musicians of their caliber, humanity, and generous nature was absolutely unforgettable and a clear high point (well, okay, along with Shostakovich 9) of my time with the USO.
From what I understand you have been pretty involved with the New Conductors Orchestra in New York. Are there other ways that you continue to engage with music, either as a performer, listener or any other way?
When we moved back to New York after the end of my PhD, I was looking around for an opportunity to keep playing in an orchestra, and by happy coincidence some friends of our family had just been involved in launching a new community orchestra called the New Conductors Orchestra, which is dedicated to cultivating new conducting talent by giving them the chance to conduct a full orchestra for a concert cycle and be mentored while doing so by the NCO's music director, an established conducting professor. It's a beautiful concept and I had a wonderful time playing with them for the first two concerts—before the pandemic turned everything upside down. They've started up again, but these past couple of years I haven't been able to manage an orchestra commitment on top of everything else. I'm counting the days until I can do so, and getting back in shape for the USO alumni concert has been incredible motivation.
Share with us some things you love about living in New York.
I was born and raised in New York City, so there's a certain level of hometown comfort in moving back there after graduate school. But now that I have a family it's a different reality entirely. I wouldn't say that we really get to "do New York" the way the twenty-somethings do. We adore the diversity and accessibility of food, not needing to own a car, the fact that our kids are learning Spanish in school from kindergarten on, the diversity and energy and rough-around-the-edges kindness. And it's not all urban bustle—we have the last old-growth forest in NYC two subway stops away, which we spend as much time as possible enjoying. I'm ashamed to say that, between the pandemic and two kids, we only went to our first NY Philharmonic concert last fall—well, that's got to change.
What is the last great book you read?
I'm reading Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man now, which is a painful but gripping book. Before that, though it sounds cliche to say, it's got to be Moby Dick. I turned 40 and decided I would commit to reading some great works I had never had the chance to dig into, and you know what? Moby Dick is incredibly fun. I suppose I bought into the stereotype that it's 500 pages of dreary descriptions of whale guts, but that's not it at all—it's wildly alive, it's philosophically profound, it's hilarious. I'd gladly read it again.
Favorite food in favorite place?
My work now is with a Franciscan interfaith and peace-building institute, and we offer a three-week summer course in Rome every year. I get to go to Assisi pretty regularly as a result. There's a dish you can find around Umbria, a short pasta with a dense sauce of wild mushrooms, black truffles, and red wine. Enjoying that with a glass of something local, on a restaurant's terrace looking out over the green valley, the starlings wheeling overhead—glorious.
What’s a piece of advice you’ve received that was particularly formative?
This is my dad's advice that he's given me since I was a kid, and you know what, I've used it basically nonstop ever since. If you're feeling paralyzed by a difficult choice—just make the choice within yourself before you make it concretely in the world. Practice being the person who's made that choice, even just for a day. More often than not, once the choice is "made," you'll know quickly if it's the right or wrong way to go, and then you can do the other thing instead if you realize that's what you should have chosen instead. That strategy certainly helped me feel confident about uprooting and heading to UChicago instead of Columbia for graduate school.