Madam Music

Himmelstrup might have seemed an unlikely artistic director, having had no administrative experience, but, she says, “I learned by doing.” Initially, she conducted business out of the laundry room (“I wrote a lot of grant proposals on a typewriter in there,” she says). By 1985, the couple’s daughters, now forty-one and thirty-eight, had left for college, and Himmelstrup moved operations into one of the empty bedrooms. Five years ago, she got her first part-time assistant and her first office. Today, the program’s annual budget is more than $150,000.

Shortly after the series launched, Himmelstrup intended to professionalize it. A volunteer-based organization wouldn’t have the longevity she wanted, and in 1987, the series broke from the SAPAF. She built a board of people who loved the neighborhood as much as the music and credits them with much of the series’ success. She acknowledges that many people have helped her, not least of whom is Anders, now retired from his graphic design business. “I couldn’t have done all this if I wasn’t a kept woman,” she says. “I never thought of myself as entrepreneurial, but being married to a businessman helps. Anders is a connector. The way he ran his business, he made it work by working together with people. I feel like I’m a connector too, between the musicians and the audience.”

Toronto, where she was studying piano after graduating from the University of Minnesota. She had a job accompanying famed Danish singer Aksel Schiøtz, and Anders had come to Canada from Denmark to study with him. “I met Anders on the stairs and thought, ‘What a cute guy. Would I like a date with that!’”

Schiøtz set them up, and the relationship continued after she returned to the United States. “We had only ten or fifteen dates total before we married,” says Anders, who’s her most ardent supporter, offering practical as well as emotional support. “What she has done is great, productive, wonderful. It’s about what’s most important in life.”

From the beginning of the series, he’s served as stage manager. “I move chairs,” he says proudly.

Himmelstrup has been passionate about chamber music since childhood. “My earliest memories are of my mother playing violin duets with my older brother’s fourth grade teacher. I couldn’t wait to learn to play the piano. We had little else,” she says of her working-class family. “But I was always so nervous as a soloist. I hated it. I’d be dying up there. To get up with someone else was easier. I loved the camaraderie of that. Chamber music has always been my inspiration.

“My definition of chamber music is inclusive of lots of different forms. I consider jazz to be chamber music too.” This season features The America Piano, in March, with a program influenced by African-American and black Creole roots, and Mark O’Connor’s Appalachia Waltz Trio, in April, blending classical and folk traditions.

She brings in major ensembles too, such as the New Zealand String Quartet this month, but much of her focus is on young talent whose careers are just taking off, including the Cavani String Quartet, which performs in April. “I pick groups that are of significance, not just part of the star system,” she says. “I look for qualities that make them special. The prerequisite is how well they can communicate with the audience.”

“She has a great musician’s ear for spotting talent,” says Carlson, who programs Schubert Club’s seasons. “Her programs are always first-rate. She has maintained the highest of standards.”