Waiting for 'Job' took patience

How does the Utah Symphony decide what to play? Sometimes a bit more goes into concert programming than you might expect.

Next weekend's concert, titled "British Masters," features the music of Britten, Elgar and Vaughan Williams. But for Utah Symphony and Opera board member Jeffrey Smith, there's more to the program than meets the eye.

"It is tribute to men who reach out to help boys," Smith said, adding that he's been trying to get Vaughan William's work "Job" (as in the biblical Book of Job) programmed with the Utah Symphony for about five years.

The piece, Smith said, has personal significance because of a boyhood mentor, Dale White. "He was a friend of my dad's. Dale White (played) a fat, obnoxious little guy on 'The Jack Benny Show,' and he would come out and torment Jack. Since Dad knew Dale, we watched 'The Jack Benny Show,' and we would laugh when Dale came on."

White, he said, lived near his family's home in Southern California. "Dale was a bit of a madman, an actor, a kind of moviemaker. He had a production and a recording studio in Pasadena. We'd go over to talk to him or borrow his equipment. He was a bit crazy, and we loved him.

"Always, when we walked in the door ('Job') was playing. I took my reel-to-reel tape recorder and copied his tape of it. It's probably the first piece of music like this that I ever owned, and I listened to it incessantly and I fell in love with it."

Years later, Smith said, he and White both moved, independently, from California to Utah. Although they didn't stay close, White has remained a dear character in his life. "My dream was to get the symphony to perform this —because I wanted to hear it and also because I wanted to invite Dale and Marie White and surprise them.

"Well, it's taken Keith (Lockhart, Utah Symphony music director) five years. And the day I learned that Keith had programmed this piece of music, I learned that Dale had passed away." But White's wife and children will come as guests of the Utah Symphony to enjoy the performance, Smith said.

The work is seldom played. In fact, according to the American Symphony Orchestra League it's only been performed twice in the past 40 years in the United States. "It's not one of those pieces of music that would be in your top 50. However, it's a grand, wonderful illustration of the story of Job, which is the story of a man of great faith and great countenance and dignity and integrity who was unwilling to be destroyed by the worst tragedies that could come."