Sweatshirts and jeans brushed against silk dresses and suits, leather and corked dress shoes creaked across the same carpeting as sneakers and sandals. Attending any night during the five programs and 10 performances of the Eureka Symphony’s 2024-2025 season pulled one into a bright, buzzing world peopled by an audience from every stage of life, all mingling in the chambers of the Arkley Center for the Performing Arts like an exotic hive. More often than not, the seats were filled from the orchestra lights to the far shadows of the balcony, with some performances sold out to capacity.
It wasn’t always like this, as conductor and artistic director Carol Jacobson will confirm. The symphony’s 33rd season was built on a foundation that took decades of work, not only from the institution of the symphony, but music and educational programs, and the bedrock of the Humboldt Country music scene. Throughout those years, as youth educator and eventually symphony director, Jacobson has been a central figure. It is something of a surprising achievement, considering that for the most part, she didn’t plan her trajectory at all.
Jacobson hails from Tracy, California, a small town with a ketchup plant. “In the summer, the smell was unbearable, spreading everywhere and getting into your clothes,” she says, perched over a large coffee drink on a saucer, her eyes and face animated enough to mock whatever kick its caffeine can offer. “My father was an attempted professional violinist; he grew up on the Lower East Side in New York. A child of the Depression.” When things didn’t work out with his career, he went west and raised his family in a house full of music, starting with piano lessons for Carol at an early age.
Piano gave way to her primary instrument, the cello, after her father forbade her from pursuing an early interest in the French horn, declaring, “There will be no wind instruments in this household!” There was no hint of professional love for the instrument until she moved to Humboldt to attend then Humboldt State University, following in her father’s footsteps as a yearly devotee of the adult chamber music workshop. He, nonetheless, encouraged her to get an education and find a “real” career outside of music.
While studying for a sociology degree, Jacobson found a new love and dedication to the cello via her work with her instructor John Brecher. This renaissance with the instrument dovetailed with a growing love for Brecher, who would eventually become her husband. When a grant came for him to study chamber music in Denmark, he asked her if she would like to go with him. Although she hadn’t yet finished her undergraduate degree, there was no ambiguity about her answer.
“Is the Pope Catholic?” She laughs, recalling her excitement at 22, finding a ticket to expand her love of chamber and orchestral music, united with a new understanding of her instrument as well as a burgeoning romance. What followed was a year of studying chamber music with her husband, after which they both decided that they wanted to stay abroad as musicians, so they had better “get practicing.” Many auditions followed and a job offer came for the couple in Oslo, Norway, with the Opera Orchestra. Brecher got a permanent seat, while Jacobson, younger and less experienced, took a year-long position filling in for a woman on maternity leave, until they were able to negotiate dual spots. This was the genesis of a period of professional employment for the couple in the European classical music scene from the 1970s to 1990. It also cemented Jacobson’s lifetime career in music, sidestepping her father’s earlier wishes as she found her all-consuming passion could sustain her artistically and financially.
The couple returned to Humboldt in 1990. Brecher was offered his old teaching position at the university, having found himself in a rut in his career, stuck in a provincial orchestra with limited material. Jacobson, meanwhile, having escaped ballet repertoire for a position in a radio symphony in Holland with a larger budget and wider programing, was more reluctant to return. She had an unfinished degree in an unrelated field and no job prospects in music waiting for her.
“I was miserable, I hated it here,” says Jacobson. “For three years I just cried.” She laughs, skipping ahead to better days and the beginning of her life as a conductor. “I got involved in the music academy up at Humboldt [State University]. I started teaching cello lessons up there. The person they had hired to conduct the youth orchestra decided he didn’t want to do it and left them high and dry. So I was asked to do it. And I had never conducted in my life. Or worked with children before.”
Despite some initial trepidation, she soon found she loved both experiences, and the challenges which arose from her inexperience as a conductor translated well to tutoring her high school-age students. She soon branched out, creating opportunities for younger students who were taking lessons, starting a junior orchestra for them to play in a group environment. She eventually created a chamber orchestra as well, now overseeing three youth orchestras every Saturday, collaborating in developing young talent with Eureka High School’s respected music program director the late Don Moehnke.
Inspired by her work with young musicians, Jacobson acquired her teaching credential in 1995 and started teaching at Arcata High. She took on running the orchestral music program there after being prompted by several parents of her students who, envious of the program in Eureka, approached the school administration wanting something similar for their community. This began a 20-year career teaching high school students and the creation of the consolidated McKinleyville/Arcata Armack Orchestra.
Meanwhile, the Eureka Symphony had been foundering after the passing of its early member and conductor Kenneth Hannaford, and in 2003, Jacobson was approached to conduct.
“At the time I was dedicated to my work at the schools, even though it was a part-time job, I was giving it all of my time. I finally agreed to conduct, but only if it was understood that I would just be choosing the repertoire and conducting the rehearsals and performances,” she says. “Luckily, there were some great people on the board who understood and worked hard to do the rest.”
Jacobson drew from her experience working under many acclaimed conductors during her time in Europe, including Henry Lewis, the double bassist-turned conductor who was the first African American to attain an instrumental chair and later become a conductor in a professional symphony in the United States. Known for his demands for precision in realizing his vision, as well as an occasionally harsh and passionate attitude toward his players, he was one of her many introductions to the oversized talents and personalities inhabiting the world of professional conductors to this day.
Eureka Symphony General Manager Nancy Stephenson appreciates the honest passion Jacobson brings to the dais. “Before I started, I was told that Carol was ‘intense.’ I was familiar with her ‘force of nature’ reputation, but I gravitate toward passionate, creative and eccentric people, so I figured it would work out and it has,” she says. “I never have to wonder what is on Carol’s mind! We have great respect for each other, and we both set a high bar for the quality of work we want to do.”
With Jacobson at the helm, the symphony grew in size over the better part of a decade, both in audience and musicians, eventually outgrowing its homes in three churches in Eureka, the last being the Assembly of God on Hoover Street, before settling into the Arkley Center.
With the new venue came a musical expansion, including the inclusion of professional soloists, many from larger orchestras. Eureka Symphony violinist and concert master Terrie Baune, who is also the co-concert master of the Oakland Symphony, works closely with Jacobson to find talent through word of mouth and Baune’s connections in the professional music scene of the East Bay.
In addition to national and international professionals, there are also visiting soloists with ties to Humboldt Country, such as vocalist Clara Lisle, who grew up in the county and has been based in New York City for the last 11 years, where she works as a freelance classical soprano. Lisle was featured in the Eureka Symphony’s production of Handel’s Messiah in December of 2024. A former student of Jacobson’s who first performed as a youth with the symphony in 2008, Lisle has a love of the institution that radiates outward to Carol’s teaching and contributions to the fertile grounds of the Humboldt musical education scene, where Lisle spent her formative years.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that had I been born and raised in any other small Northern Californian town, my life would look very different today.” — Clara Lisle
“There’s no doubt in my mind that had I been born and raised in any other small Northern Californian town, my life would look very different today,” says Lisle. “It’s such an incredible gift to have grown up in a place that has all the wonder and freedom of a rural community with such a vibrant and active performing arts culture. It’s shaped who I am in so many ways and I’m endlessly grateful to be a Humboldt kid.”
Viola player Katie Swisher, also a former student of Jacobson’s, has a similar appreciation for her upbringing in the Humboldt music scene. She has been playing with the symphony since 2022, upon returning to Humboldt after years of living in Portland. She is an alumnus of Jacobson’s Junior Orchestra, which she started in at the age of 8, and continued as a student of hers throughout high school. According to Swisher, as a teacher Jacobson was “enthusiastic, focused and encouraging, and she consistently pushed me to become a better player.”
This positive formative experience was enough to convince her to take up Jacobson’s offer to play in the symphony, despite not having played music regularly for 15 years. “I had just moved back,” says Swisher. “I had never intended to stop playing, and Carol’s invitation was a huge gift to be offered the chance to join the symphony and play again. To play without feeling the pressure of ‘developing my potential’ like I had in high school is so freeing.” She says playing with Jacobson again in the symphony has been surreal. “For the first few months it felt like time-traveling back to when I was 17 and we were picking up right where we left off. [Now] it’s my weekly meditation, exercise and social hour all-in-one. Just as importantly, the feeling of community in the orchestra is incredible, and the friendships I’ve made — or rekindled with childhood friends — are a significant part of my life.”
Swisher and Lisle’s youthful educational experiences, as well as that of her other former students, is still important to Jacobson, and she laments the decline of many such opportunities, while still looking to the future with characteristic optimism.
“I want more music programs in this country for young people. All kinds of music, not just orchestra and chamber music, and for all kinds of kids with different tastes,” says Jacobson. “There’s nothing like an early musical education for someone. It helps them, it helps create new music, it helps their community, and the world.”
Stephenson notes that along with the work of running the symphony, Jacobson and the board are doing their part integrating youth education into the larger institution. “We’ve had a program for many years each spring called Schools to Symphony,” Stephenson says, explaining how the symphony works with Humboldt County Office of Education on an event where schools across the county are invited to attend a concert geared to fourth and fifth graders. “The feedback this year from the schools, the enthusiasm from the students and musicians, aligns with how important this program is to the community, and we’ve received a lot of funding and support for it. We also support musicians going out to schools to get the students and faculty excited about this kind of music, and it was very successful this year. We might expand it next year but we will definitely continue to explore new ways to engage diverse local youth in the live symphonic music experience.”
With this emphasis on the next generation of musicians and finding resources for their education, comes an inevitable reflection on the future. “Terrie [Baune] and I have a deal,” Jacobson says. “I don’t want to be up there past my ability, in a decline or causing a decline for the symphony. I said, ‘Terrie, you have to tell me when it’s time for me to hang it up.'”
Watching the energy coming off Jacobson, onstage or up close, one can be forgiven for forgetting her career has spanned five decades. Her memories of the past are often eclipsed in conversation with a flood of excitement for the future and the new repertoire programmed for the coming 2025/2026 season. It opens Oct. 3 with a program titled Contrast and Transformation, featuring work from Borodin, modern German-American composer Paul Hindemith and finishing with Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4. The last features longtime pianist and collaborator John Chernoff, who is a veteran of the music department at Cal Poly Humboldt, where he is, among other positions, the staff piano accompanist. He also, with Baune, provides the Musical Notes talk, a popular free presentation thatprecedes every symphony performance. Between these talks and the $15 tickets available at the box office at 6 p.m. on the night of every performance, the symphony continues to grow in accessibility as well as attendance. (In general, balcony seating is priced as low as $21.)
Stephenson reflects on the success of the last season, the grand finale of which played to a full house, followed by the annual reception for the musicians in the downstairs portion of the Arkley, where they mingled with large donors and board members in an air of appreciation and completion. July 1 marked the first anniversary of Stephenson taking on the general manager position. It was also the first day new subscribers could purchase season passes, with single event tickets going on sale later that week.
For her part, Jacobson’s enthusiasm for the new season is foremost on her mind, with an eye toward change and innovation, married to an appreciation for the music that has drawn audiences in the past. The early December show Winter Tales is an example of this balance of old and new, and Jacobson lights up discussing it. “We are doing the Nutcracker Suite, which is great, a classic. But we have also brought in a Hanukkah piece by Michael Isaacson.” The show ends with a symphonic-theater hybrid performance of Howard Blake’s The Snowman, featuring local theatre icon Michael Fields.
This diverse programing continues into the spring, for a program which Jacobson is particularly looking forward to, featuring the work of living Chickasaw composer Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate, with a performance of his bassoon concerto “Ghost of the White Deer,” inspired by Chickasaw mythology and performed by visiting bassoon master Rufus Olivier. She practically vibrates when talking about these and other collaborations, reveling in the central motif of her life, music.
“It gives me total purpose in life, and I believe it is very important to have purpose in life. It grounds my emotions. And I really feel that spreading the joy, and the commitment to something bigger than yourself, whether you’re reading music or improvising, and working with other people to make something beautiful together, is so important at every stage of life,” says Jacobson.
While reflecting on her teaching methods with children, Jacobson reveals a larger truth about all musicians, including herself, and the institution she has helped grow into a symphony she expects will continue flourishing long after she has gone.
“The key is: You never criticize the individual; it’s always about the music.” — Carol Jacobson
“Kids build their own self-esteem by being proud of what they produce, and that takes work. The key is: You never criticize the individual; it’s always about the music. You say, ‘That music is not the standard to which we should be playing,’ and no matter who you are, or where you are from, you will want to work harder and do better. It’s always about the music, not about the person,” she says. “It’s always about becoming a part of something bigger that will outlast your life and continue growing.”
Collin Yeo (he/him) writes the Journal’s weekly music column the Setlist.
This article appears in The Conductor.