Classical music is family tradition for Henigbaum, Arps

By Lynn Hotaling

He might have wanted to retire, but no one would let him, said his oldest daughter, Cathy Arps, a Sylva musician and violin teacher.

A frequent visitor to the area, Henigbaum succumbed to the beauty of Western North Carolina and moved here in 1985. But even before he became a full-time resident, he and his violin were in demand.

"Every time Dad came to visit, he'd end up playing somewhere," Arps said.

Henigbaum began violin lessons at age 8 and was playing second violin with the Quad Cities Orchestra in his hometown of Davenport, Iowa, by the time he was 14. Except for the four years he spent as an infantry platoon leader during World War II, Henigbaum played continuously with that orchestra for 50 years, becoming its concertmaster after the war.

"When I was growing up in Davenport, there were orchestras everywhere," Arps said. "I've played in orchestras since third grade."

Having the youth orchestra was a "great opportunity" for the kids, Arps said, because "playing in an orchestra is more fun that playing by yourself - it's like a team sport."

Henigbaum soon found himself conducting both the youth orchestra and the Western North Carolina Community Orchestra; he merged the two in 1995 to form the Western Carolina Civic Orchestra, the 55-piece ensemble he currently conducts.

"It just made sense to combine the two," he said. "There was a lot of overlap."

The Civic Orchestra, which will perform in concert Sunday, Nov. 4, in Bryson City, offers a more advanced and challenging repertoire, Henigbaum said.

Sunday's free concert, which will begin at 3:30 p.m. at the new Swain County Center for the Arts (next to Swain County High) because of renovations currently under way at Western Carolina University's Coulter Recital Hall, will consist of music for a chamber orchestra, mainly strings along with flute, clarinet, bassoon, trumpet and tympani, Henigbaum said.

Among Sunday's selections will be "Symphony in F Major" by von Dittersdorf; Largo from "Xerxes" by Handel; "Brook Green Suite" for strings by Holst; "Rumanian Folk Dances" by Bartok; and "London Symphony" No. 104 by Hayden.

Featured during Sunday's program will be area Suzuki violinists, who will perform group solos accompanied by the orchestra. Arps teaches according to the Suzuki method, which she said is much like the way traditional mountain fiddlers learned to play.

"It's getting (students) to learn the sounds while emphasizing technique to prepare them for classical violin," she said.

"A fiddle and a violin are the same instrument, though sometimes fiddlers use a flatter bridge to make it easier to play more than one string at a time," Arps said.

"Fiddling is more of a tradition - the old-time fiddlers didn't study, and their technique is different," Henigbaum said.

"The two don't have to be mutually exclusive," Arps said. "There's a lot of fusion going on, and Amanda (Dills) is a good example. I didn't teach her all those fiddle tunes."

Dills, one-half of the popular Fiddling Dills Sisters of Wayehutta, began her violin studies with Arps and now is Henigbaum's student. While she performs throughout the region with her sister, Sharon, and the Cullowhee Valley Boys and recently won first place in the fiddling competition at the Mountain State Fair, Dills remains a member of the Civic Orchestra. In spite of her fiddling success, Dills has continued her classical violin lessons, because "it makes you sound better," she said.

Henigbaum is "an incredible musician," Dills said. "He's so patient and willing to work with you. He pushes you to be the best you can be. He can hear everything - he has such a good ear and knows so much about music."

Occasionally, during joint programs like last year's "Messiah" at WCU that included the Civic Orchestra, Community Chorus and WCU's chorus and was conducted by WCU's Bob Holquist, Henigbaum puts down his baton and leads the orchestra as concertmaster. In programs like that one, Dills plays her violin alongside her teacher.

"I love to play along with him because he sounds so good," Dills said.

Arps described her childhood home in Iowa as one filled with music. When she and her sisters were small, she said, her father and other orchestra members held chamber music rehearsals in the Henigbaum living room.

"My sisters and I were supposed to be in bed, but we'd sit at the top of the steps and listen to all the beautiful music," Arps said. "I didn't have a fiddler on the front porch, but I had that in the living room."

Arps inherited more than her talent and love of music from her father - the violin she uses when she teaches is one he brought home from World War II.

"That violin was liberated," Henigbaum said.

Henigbaum and his infantry platoon were in Italy, bogged down somewhere around Bologna, he said. His group was a "raider platoon" and patrolled at night. During one patrol they stopped at an abandoned farmhouse, and one of the soldiers found a violin case with a violin wrapped in a gold cloth.

"It had strings and a bow, so I tuned it and started playing," Henigbaum said. " It was surprising to everyone because they didn't know I was a musician."

After the war, Henigbaum stayed in Italy for six months and took lessons - on that violin - at the Cherubini Conservatory.

"It's an old German violin," Henigbaum said. "That's about all you can say about it."

Longtime orchestra member David Teague, a Western Carolina University math professor who has been playing double bass with the group since James Dooley first formed a community orchestra in 1970, said Henigbaum has the respect of all the musicians.

"He's a good conductor. He's a consummate musician who knows how to extract the best from both professional and amateur musicians," Teague said.

Dooley, WCU professor emeritus and former music department head, said Henigbaum has brought the Civic Orchestra to a new level of stability and capability.

"It's really gratifying to me to have an orchestra that can do what it does, and a lot of the orchestra's strength is due to Bill's quiet, confident leadership," Dooley said.

"Bill is first of all a very fine gentleman who adds a tremendous amount of experience to our musical community," Dooley said. "He's cooperative, dependable and competent with a quiet stability that makes for good and predictable musical outcomes."

When he formed the community chorus and community orchestra in 1970, Dooley said, he did so because he wanted to see WCU become a community-centered musical force.

"It's important for the community to have the benefit of the musical strength the university offers," Dooley said.

Henigbaum agrees that the cooperation between WCU, local musicians and the Jackson County Arts Council, which sponsors the Civic Orchestra, is key to the group's success.

"An orchestra in a community usually has to have a school or university nearby - a place that has facilities," Henigbaum said. "Those are available here, and that's why the orchestra is here. It's the only one of its kind west of Asheville, and people come from almost every county to play in it."

Henigbaum, who taught music at Augustana College in Rock Island, Ill., in addition to his performing and conducting career, said he's still doing what he's always done - teaching violin, playing violin and conducting, but that he's doing it more at his own pace.

"It's not as full-time, and it's not in a big city," Henigbaum said. "Everything's more relaxed here."

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