Chicago Symphony Orchestra

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is the professional musical institution that connects Henry DeTamble’s family history to Clare Abshire’s family. Richard DeTamble plays in the orchestra, while Henry remembers his mother, Annette DeTamble, rising to prominence as a singer; years later, Henry’s association with the orchestra becomes a possible route for Alicia’s musical advancement. The CSO thus appears less as a setting than as a thread linking family memory, professional life, and musical aspiration.

Richard DeTamble and the Orchestra

Henry identifies his father as a member of the orchestra in conversation with Clare’s family. When Lucille Abshire asks whether Henry knows a musician with a local connection, Henry explains that the musician and his father sit beside one another in the CSO. The detail establishes Richard’s place in the ensemble and gives Henry a concrete professional tie to the musical world his hosts are discussing.

Henry’s account also locates the orchestra within his family’s everyday history. Richard’s position is not presented through a performance scene; it emerges through conversation, as Henry answers questions and clarifies how he knows the musicians. The brief exchange makes the CSO a point of contact between Henry’s Chicago life and Clare’s family’s hopes for Alicia.

Annette DeTamble’s Singing Career

The orchestra belongs to a broader musical world that shaped Henry’s childhood. He recalls his mother’s career rising under the guidance of Jehan Meek and Mary Delacroix. After singing small roles and understudying Linea Waverleigh’s Aida, Annette is chosen to sing Carmen. Other companies take notice, and the family travels internationally as her work expands.

Henry remembers the practical reach of that career through its places and recordings: the family goes to London, Paris, Berlin, and New York, while Annette records Schubert for Decca and Verdi and Weill for EMI. Her performance as Madama Butterfly at Lincoln Center appears on television; Henry watches it with his grandparents in Muncie, seeing his mother sing in black and white on a small screen. The recollection links professional music to a child’s experience of distance, travel, and recognition.

Plans to move to Vienna after the Lyric’s 1969–70 season further show how music organizes the family’s possible future. Richard auditions for the Philharmonic, while calls come from Annette’s manager, Uncle Ish, and record labels. The CSO is one part of this larger institutional landscape: Richard’s orchestra work and Annette’s expanding career place the family within professional classical music.

A Musical Connection for Alicia

During Henry’s first Christmas with Clare’s family, the CSO becomes relevant to Alicia’s prospects. Lucille asks whether Henry’s musician acquaintance might listen to a tape of Alicia playing. Henry responds that he could pass it to Yoshi Akawa, the orchestra’s first-chair cellist, whom he knows will at least listen. He distinguishes this possibility from asking his own father, who does not teach and would simply discard the tape.

Philip Abshire adds that Alicia already studies with Frank Wainwright in Kalamazoo. The exchange therefore does not present the orchestra as a guaranteed solution or a teaching institution; it offers a specific professional contact who might hear her playing. Lucille responds enthusiastically, and Henry observes that even Philip seems pleased, while Clare looks relieved. The moment gives the CSO a modest but consequential role in the family gathering: its professional network creates a possible opening for Alicia, and Henry’s connection helps ease an awkward introduction.

Musical Memory and Narrative Significance

The novel’s references to the orchestra sit beside recurring scenes of music as a carrier of family memory. Henry’s childhood account of Annette’s recordings and televised performance gives music a remembered, mediated presence; at Clare’s family Christmas, Alicia’s playing is encountered in the church as part of a live ensemble. Later, on Henry’s birthday, Clare gives him a recording of his mother singing Lulu, and the sound prompts him to embrace her. These episodes do not establish that Annette or Alicia performs with the CSO; rather, they show the musical relationships and memories surrounding the institution.

The CSO’s significance is consequently relational. It identifies Richard’s occupation, places Henry within a professional musical network, and supplies a practical connection through which Alicia’s playing might reach a leading musician. Against the novel’s shifting chronology, that brief family conversation brings several generations into focus: a father’s place in an orchestra, a mother’s remembered career, and a younger musician’s uncertain opportunity.