("The Star-Spangled Banner") - Hearing the force of an orchestra play this music.

And I walked out of the Arena Theater and I looked at my teacher and said, "That's what I want to do when I grow up."

- [Students] Hey!

("Hungarian Dance No.

5" by Johannes Brahms) Hey!

- [Thomas] Later as a grownup, I could finally put words to what that experience was.

It was really this music was calling me by name.

("Hungarian Dance No.

5" by Johannes Brahms) - [Students] Hey!

- He puts his whole body into the performance.

He finds a way to make complicated music feel very, very simple, and that's the gift.

(elegant orchestra music) - He likes to set the stage for the players to come to the music themselves.

I can't do this for you.

You have to do it.

You have to bring it to me.

You give you get back.

- Everyone talks about him, not just as a conductor, but as a man.

That's where I think music is most powerful, where it's us being vulnerable with each other and connecting and being open and supportive.

(gentle music) - It was a devastating moment when everything stopped.

I was asking myself questions that I'm sure many people asked, which was, "Are we ever going to have concerts again?"

It was really tough.

(gentle music) - And so, here we are in the midst of this mess, and music still flourishes and beauty gets to have the last word.

(elegant music) (people chattering) (airy music) ♪ With you I can never hesitate ♪ ♪ There's a light here while I sit and meditate ♪ (jazzy music) - [Narrator] In the spring of 2021, downtown Omaha is once again, alive with music.

(jazzy music continues) (bus roaring) (elegant music) - Yeah, so, however, make sure though that by the arrival of the third bar, you really have done it... - [Narrator] Just blocks away, at the Holland Center, Thomas Wilkins rehearses for his last concert as music director of the Omaha Symphony Orchestra.

He's held that title for 16 years.

Like all music directors, Wilkins is more than just a conductor.

He helps create the repertoire, hires new players, commissions new pieces, and connects with the community.

- Right.

- One of the things I love about Thomas Wilkins is that he is an incredible artist, an incredible musician himself.

I love the fact that he, which is a pretty unique talent actually, has his ability to stand on stage and wrap his arms around a concert hall full of people as though he is speaking to only you, and helps them connect, not only with him, but with the orchestra and its broader vision.

(swashbuckling music) - [Narrator] Maestro means master conductor.

And Maestro Wilkins has more than one job.

- I think I see people who've never been in this room before.

Raise your hand if you've never been... Wow!

- [Narrator] He's also the Youth and Family Concerts conductor for the Boston Symphony.

(audience cheering) As principal conductor of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, Wilkins has worked with remarkable talents, Aretha Franklin, Yo-Yo Ma, Diana Ross and Carol Channing, 86 years old when she appeared at the Hollywood Bowl.

- And then she walked out on stage and within 15 seconds she had 18,000 people in the palm of her hand.

Not because she's the great Carol Channing, but because she demonstrated that she wouldn't want to be anywhere else other than in the midst of this music.

And because of that, everybody's sucked in and said, "We want to be there with you too."

That's the power of music.

And how do you fall out of love with that?

I don't get it.

- [Narrator] Wilkins final year as music director also marks the 100th birthday of the Omaha Symphony Orchestra.

100 years of music, 1921 to 2021.

- 100 years, my goodness, that speaks volumes to what this community values.

That's not sticks and bricks.

- The orchestra's very existence helps show the city's priorities, because no orchestra is going to exist without support from its community.

It's not possible.

Here is a page that is Omaha Symphony Study Orchestra, Henry Cox...

When you go back to the early seasons, you see that a season of the symphony was a handful of classical concerts, but now we have six different series that range from classical to pops, to rock and roll, to film scores, to family concerts.

But from the beginning, there has been an understanding of the importance of new music.

This is a living art form.

New composers are taking the sounds that an orchestra is uniquely capable of making and doing very exciting things.

- [Narrator] It's been a tough year.

Just as the symphony began to plan its birthday celebration, the COVID-19 pandemic shut everything down.

But this spring, the worst seems to be over.

Wilkins has commissioned a new piece by Grammy award-winning composer, Michael Daugherty, and the orchestra is playing it together for the first time.

- Orchestra, it's at 2:08 when he says up tempo, it's from that fast eight notes, yes, it's gonna be faster, faster than your think.

- It was great to have the composer here.

He was making changes.

He was listening.

He was making adjustments.

It's always fantastic to work directly with the source.

We don't often get that opportunity 'cause we can't call up Beethoven and ask him what he really meant at this particular tempo transition or whatever, so it's a privilege to get to work with a living composer.

(majestic orchestra music) - [Narrator] Susana Perry Gilmore is the Omaha Symphony first chair violinist, also known as concert master, (elegant music) second in power only to the conductor.

- One of my functions as a concert master is to be a lightning rod for the podium.

So I am trying to have all my channels open and receive the information from the conductor and then direct it out behind me and around me.

(elegant music ends) - Fantastic guys!

- The orchestra is a living organism with individual artists who are bringing themselves and their own talents and their own inspirations to something that works together as a whole.

It's a beautiful thing to watch.

It's a beautiful thing to listen to.

And it's kind of a vibrant example in a way that few things are, of the power of working together.

- We got... ♪ Bom-bom, bom, bom ♪ ♪ Ba-di-um-bom-bom, ba-ba ♪ - Flying that baton.

♪ Ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba ♪ ♪ Ba, ba, ba, ba ♪ - Right, yeah.

- [Narrator] Later that day, Wilkins' good friend, Branford Marsalis arrives to rehearse a John Williams concerto, inspired by a movie.

- You heard bits and parts of it in this movie, "Catch Me If You Can".

And when I heard it, I just wrote an email to the production company saying, "I'd like to leave a message for John Williams and he should turn this into a concerto."

And that's it.

And not long after, the phone rang and it was this lady saying, "I'm calling from John Williams office.

He's been working on it for about six months and it'll be out soon."

I'm like, "Yes, this is great!"

(jazzy trumpet music) - [Narrator] Branford Marsalis grew up in New Orleans, the oldest son in a renowned family of musicians.

Jazz is his specialty, but he and Thomas share a love of classical music.

(elegant music) - I started to develop the other ear for the sound of the music over time because listening to the music is one thing, but suddenly being on stage and having that sound surround you, it changes your appreciation.

In the beginning, it's just an orchestra, but suddenly I started to differentiate between not just the string section from the woodwinds, but the violins from the violas and the cellos and the trombones, are separate from the French horns.

You start hearing the music in very expansive ways.

And that was really kind of exciting.

(spirited music) (saxophone solo) - Brrr.

- [Thomas] Brrr, yeah, man.

That was it.

- Get that checked out.

- [Thomas] That was it, brother.

- Thanks, Thomas.

- That was it, yeah.

(elegant music soaring) - [Narrator] Rehearsals are almost over.

The orchestra is ready.

And months of fear and uncertainty will soon be washed away by the transformative power of music.

- I love the fact that it's my final time with them because together we are fostering the continued life of the creation of art.

(elegant music) Nice.

Nice, sweep just like the bow stroke.

(elegant music continues) Good.

Good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good.

Good, good, good.

Can you take the stick out of your hand once you just... - [Narrator] At Indiana University in Bloomington, just months before a strange new virus changed everything, Thomas Wilkins is teaching orchestra conducting.

(elegant music) Only a few top students qualify every year for a spot in the conducting program.

(elegant music continues) - Keep going, keep going, keep going.

(indistinct) and just relax them.

All you have to do is do a gesture that shows that crescendo as opposed to where's that next bar gonna be, where's that, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta conduct that next part.

- Yes, yes, yes.

- You don't have to, 'cause you got a whole row of conductors over there on the right hand side.

- Yes, yes, yes.

- Right.

- But there's one or two moments that I feel really good.

- Oh, yeah.

- One or two places.

- Again, welcome to the club.

I love teaching, but I know that it does take a different set of muscles.

Whenever you're giving instruction, it makes you more keenly aware of your own doings, my own foibles.

I say to these guys all the time, I say, "You know what?

I can stand on the podium and you can critique me, too.

I mean, it goes both ways for crying out loud, except that that's not my job.

- [Narrator] But what is Thomas Wilkins teaching?

What does a conductor do?

In earlier times, the conductor's job was to keep the tempo.

It was so simple, the great composers like Bach, Mozart and Beethoven would often lead performances of their works from the keyboard.

(spirited music) In the late 19th century, composer Gustav Mahler embodied a new style of conducting, controlling every facet of the orchestra from the podium, never letting go.

(lively music) Jorja Fleezanis, who teaches with Thomas Wilkins at Indiana University, believes the conductor should be more like a rider on a well-trained horse.

- If the horse, which has been trained to jump that hurdle is approaching that hurdle and the rider is not willing to let go at the moment of the jump to allow the horse to take the jump, that horse is probably gonna rear back.

The horse wants to just take it.

That's their job, is to take it.

So if conductors are constantly holding on and just literally not able to just let go of the horse, so to speak, that orchestra's not going to be able to literally do what they're supposed to do.

So you have to know when to come in and guide them through their various hoops.

They need you in certain places, they don't need you always.

(lively music) - [Narrator] Jorja Fleezanis is only the second woman in the US to become a concert master for a major orchestra.

- I had no idea what was waiting for me out in the world.

No idea how difficult or how an effort it would be for me to psychologically think of a woman going into a world that was mostly dominated by men, which was the case when I first got into my first professional orchestra.

So you have to know who you are and you have to be very strong and you have to be totally of a mindset that I earned this job and I should be sitting here.

- [Narrator] The student orchestra is rehearsing a Schumann violin concerto.

(lively music intensifies) - What orchestras respond to is a sense that you know the music, you know what you want from the music, you have a certain respect of their artistry, and you are not pretentious.

The only real power in the room is the music and all of us are here to serve that.

And the minute that we start to over insert ourselves, insert ourselves into the hierarchy of importance in the room, that's when it all goes to pot, I think.

Egos get in the way.

I'm afraid of what she's gonna say, 'cause I'm gonna look bad or vice versa.

We're both trying to get these kids to play better and we're trying to get them to play music.

(lively music) Because ultimately at the end of the day, as leaders, we want to invite the people that we've been entrusted with to be a part of something that's bigger than all of us.

(lively music) (gentle music) I love the fact that you have already done the research on that one orchestra in the cover letter that I read.

One of my slogans is you're not gonna walk up to me 10 years from now, after you failed in the business and say, "Why didn't you tell me that it requires more of me than I was willing to give?"

My answer is, "I'm telling you that now."

♪ Beem, bom, bom, bom, beem, bom, bom ♪ - [Narrator] With his teachers help, Jake Taniguchi struggles to break through the mechanics of conducting into a more human connection.

(Jake humming) - Okay, let's do this.

Right now, this is what you're doing.

(phone ticking) So, is that music?

- [Jake] No.

- And the answer is... - No.

- No, it's not, right.

So, if all you're gonna do is beat time, this is all you're doing, is mimicking this.

But if this is truly a musical statement, it has to have some life and breath.

The less human you become, the harder it is to make music at its best.

(elegant music) - [Narrator] No one can possibly know how hard it will soon become to make that human connection.

(elegant music continues) (jazzy music) ♪ Oh, Lord, I want to thank you ♪ ♪ Oh, Lord, I want to thank you ♪ ♪ Well, You woke me up this morning ♪ ♪ Started me on my way ♪ ♪ Oh, Lord ♪ - [Thomas] There was always music in our home, but there was no classical music.

My mother was a church organist for a period of time, but in one of those little tiny storefront churches in the hood.

So I heard a lot of gospel music growing up.

♪ You woke me up this morning ♪ - I wasn't hearing Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Duke Ellington, Beethoven, Brahms, Haydn, Mozart.

I wasn't getting any of that stuff.

But I was getting sound.

♪ I mean, I want to thank Him ♪ ♪ Because He been so good to me ♪ - [Narrator] Norfolk, Virginia on the Chesapeake Bay.

(seagulls squawking) In the 1960s, while Thomas Wilkins was growing up, America's cities were on fire with anger over racial injustice.

(alarm wailing) (people chattering) Wilkins remembers his first home in the worst part of town.

- [Thomas] Often I remember that my mother and my sister and I would sleep in the same bed because my sister and I were afraid that we were going to get attacked (chuckles) in the middle of the night.

You'd come home and flip on the light and mice would scatter in the kitchen.

So it was a horrible place.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] Life got better when the city began to clear the slums and build new housing projects for the poor.

(gentle music) - [Thomas] So when we moved to the projects, these were all brick buildings.

We had our own little miniature backyard.

♪ And I'll be gone ♪ - [Thomas] I give my mother a lot of credit.

I had a mother who was single, often on welfare, trying to raise a kid during the civil rights movement.

♪ But just walk around ♪ - [Thomas] And ultimately, she did the best she could do.

♪ Heaven all day ♪ - [Narrator] Just a block away from the housing project where Thomas and his mother lived, stood the legendary Norfolk Municipal Arena.

♪ A well'a bless my soul ♪ ♪ What'sa wrong with me ♪ ♪ I'm itchin' like a man ♪ - Elvis played there early on in his career.

♪ I'm actin' wild as a bug ♪ ♪ I'm in love ♪ ♪ Oh, I'm all shook up ♪ - [Narrator] Country bands, The Animals, Pat and Richard Nixon, the Dave Brubeck Quartet, the Harlem Globetrotters.

The Arena hosted them all.

- [Man] Yeba, yeba, yeba (shoes squeaking) - [Narrator] But one performance in particular changed the life of an eight-year-old boy.

With his third grade class, Wilkins visited the Arena to hear the Norfolk Symphony Orchestra.

Many years later, Maestro Wilkins conducted that very orchestra and thanked percussionist, John Lindbergh, for inspiring him that day.

("The Star-Spangled Banner") - He started to play the snare drum, he had long blond hair, he started to play the snare drum, and the orchestra stood up and they played "The Star-Spangled Banner".

("The Star-Spangled Banner") From that moment on, I am totally locked into what's going on on stage.

And hearing the force of an orchestra play this music, I mean, I couldn't stop looking and I couldn't stop listening.

And so now, I wanna hear everything that they're going to play for the whole time, and I'm just fascinated by it all.

And I walked out of the Arena Theater and I looked at my teacher and said, "That's what I want to do when I grow up."

- [Narrator] Until that day, he'd been playing nothing but war games with his toy soldiers.

- I would put them up in various places around the house and take a rubber band and like a folded piece of plastic and try to shoot them down.

But it was also that after that wonderful musical, transformative experience, I thought, "Well, I can set these guys up sort of in big semi-circles to look like an orchestra, and I could pretend that they're my orchestra and I could conduct them."

(gentle music) - [Narrator] In grade school, Wilkins learned to play the violin, the cello, and the tuba.

By Junior high, he was conducting the school orchestra.

But there was a missing piece in his education, one that would later come back to haunt him.

- So, what have I not had in the process?

I have not had a private lesson on piano.

I have not had a private lesson on any of the instruments that I have.

What I did have was the privilege of being in the company of people who believed in me and who gave me opportunity.

I don't take any of this for granted because I know it's all a gift.

And the gift is not the fame or the notoriety, the gift is the privilege of being in the presence of this music.

But that means that there is a requisite set of responsibilities that come along with that gift.

And I can't blow those responsibilities because I dishonor the God who gave them to me if I do.

(seagulls squawking) (gentle music) ♪ Ooh, I should be running ♪ ♪ Ooh, you know I love it when you call me senorita ♪ ♪ I wish it wasn't so so hard to leave ya ♪ ♪ But every touch is ooh, la-la-la ♪ ♪ It's true, la-la-la ♪ ♪ Ooh, I should be running ♪ ♪ Ooh, you keep me coming for ♪ (horn hooting) - [Narrator] In early 2020, a mysterious new virus infected almost 100 people at a hotel conference near the Boston Harbor.

Worldwide, it's a slow wake-up call.

Inside the brick walls of the Boston Symphony, everything appears to be normal.

(elegant music) From toy soldiers in Virginia to the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Thomas Wilkins is the first African American in the orchestra's history to hold a conducting position.

(mischievous orchestra music) Today, he's rehearsing for the upcoming children's concert.

- Well, the Boston Symphony, it's been around for 140 years and has been doing youth concerts longer than any other orchestra, possibly in the world, certainly in the United States.

So, it's part of the mission.

This is a program that gets one rehearsal.

I mean, and so it's not like our traditional subscription concert where there are four rehearsals.

And they play for Thomas.

- He's like an Energizer bunny.

- On coffee.

- He just never, never stops going.

His tempos are always adventurous.

So we know when preparing that it's going to be faster than you expect.

He's amazingly full of energy.

I've never seen him look kind of like pooped out at the end of the concert.

I don't know how it happens.

(majestic orchestra music) - So, he does ten concerts in five days, right?

- Five days.

- It's a lot.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- And he's on the whole time.

- Every one of those audiences gets the best of him.

(Richard knocking on door) - [Narrator] After the rehearsal, an old friend stops by.

(door latch clicking) - Oh, my.

- Oh, my boy- - Oh, my goodness gracious.

- it's so good to see you.

- Someone he hasn't seen in a couple of years.

- It's been a long time.

- I know.

- [Narrator] Richard Pittman is the teacher who challenged Thomas Wilkins to overcome the limits of his musical education.

- Come on in.

(cars roaring) - [Narrator] After he graduated from college in Virginia, Wilkins dreamed of getting a master's in conducting at the prestigious New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.

- He showed talent.

But then, all of these examinations he had to take about his musical skills, he was sorely lacking.

(gentle music) I would play for all of the conductors who were auditioning a Bach chorale, and they would have to write every note in the four parts of the Bach chorale.

These chorales have parts for soprano, alto, tenor and bass.

So they had to write out what I played, hearing the whole thing, and getting that right.

And he didn't, he wasn't very skillful at that.

He just didn't have the musical training that most people needed to have from my point of view, to get a master's degree in conducting.

- He told me that he loved all of the stuff that I did on the podium, but he held up my test between his two fingers and said, "This is ridiculous."

I mean, and he said, "So I don't know if I'm gonna take you."

He said, "But if I do take you, I will tell you this, you're going to have to work really hard.

And if you don't," and we laugh about this now, he says, "I will not hesitate to kick you out of school."

- And so he agreed to that.

And when I actually finally made the decision to accept him, I spelled that out to him.

And so he knew right from the beginning, what was expected of him.

And he worked hard.

He was at the conservatory every morning at 7:15.

- And you said to me, you said to me, "I need to be able to point to any one of these chorales and have you play it before you can graduate from here."

And I thought, "Oh, man, this is gonna kill me."

But, every morning I was at the conservatory by 7:05 at the latest, 'cause that's when, if you got there at 7:15, all the good pianos were gone.

But then when I was your assistant, of course, then I had a studio to myself, right?

- You had our studio.

- So, but no, that makes your brain bleed.

And yet it was the right thing.

- But, when I hear you conduct the Boston Symphony, they sound great.

- We have a really wonderful relationship.

I have never been more in love with music than I am at this stage in my life.

- It's like everything else in human endeavor, there's no limit to the extent of which you can grow.

There's absolutely no limit to that.

I remember the first time I conducted the Beethoven Symphony, first symphony, four different times.

I was surprised that the fourth time, how much better it was than what I had done before.

But it's the experience.

- I remember doing the slow movement of "Beethoven 6" here, and I said to you, "Phoo, I don't think I'm going to come back to this piece until I'm in my 50s."

And you said, "Well, that's ridiculous because how will you ever grow with the piece?"

- I mean, that's this interesting thing, right, about teaching?

There is this passing on from one generation to the next accumulated experience and knowledge.

- We are operating in the midst of an entity that is mysterious and is powerful and poignant when it needs to be.

But the power of it is in its essence and we can't, we don't really have words for that.

(man clapping) All right, let's go!

Good morning!

(audience clapping) (majestic music) - Good morning.

(majestic music continues) - [Narrator] On the first day of Friends in Harmony, free concerts by the Boston Symphony, school kids pour in from all over the city.

- Some of these kids, if you're talking kids from the city, kids from challenging environments, this is the biggest room they've ever been in.

We provide free tickets for all the urban kids that don't necessarily have the means to buy a ticket.

So we have absolutely committed starting with these concerts that Thomas does so effectively.

We've had a real commitment to reach as many young people as we can.

- You know what we'll do?

We'll have you say, "Hey!"

- [Students] Hey!

("Hungarian Dance No.

5" by Johannes Brahms) Hey!

(music continues) Hey!

(music continues) Hey!

(adventurous orchestra music continues) Hey!

(music continues) Hey!

- [Thomas] You are ruining the whole thing!

(students giggling) (gentle orchestra music) (adventurous orchestra music) - [Students] Hey!

(adventurous orchestra music continues) Hey!

(students laughing) - [Thomas] Give yourself a big round of applause.

(students clapping) (spirited orchestra music) - [Narrator] Famed composer and conductor, Leonard Bernstein, created the first Young People's Concerts in the 1950s and they were broadcast live across America.

- Okay, now, what do you think that music's all about?

Can you tell me?

- You know what I appreciate most about it and maybe subconsciously I picked up some of that is that he treats children in the audience as equals.

Kids know when they're being condescended to and they respond differently when they think you're just their friend.

And not only did he treat them as equals, but he also didn't underestimate their intelligence.

And so now I have this whole idea of stepping into Leonard's shoes, in a sense, to sort of carry the torch as it were.

(audience applauding) So what in the world is going on with that music?

What do you think?

- [Student] Kinda sounds like it was adventurous.

- That's one, yes, adventurous for sure it is.

- [Student] It sounded hectic.

- Ah, hectic, I love that word.

Yes.

- [Student] It kinda sounded like war.

- Ah, that is fantastic, sounded like war.

Let's get you way over here.

- Ah- - Wait up, just a moment longer.

- Well... (sighs) - Well, one thing I like about it, it like starts softly and then like whoop, it's like starts going up again with a little like startle.

- Wait, what's the last word you said?

- It's get a little bit startle, it feels you make you feel like you're into something like a problem with something.

- Oh, I'm glad I came over here.

She said a little startle and a... - [Narrator] By the second day of Friends in Harmony, COVID-19 is taking over Boston, and the world.

(cars roaring) - [Mark] The city is shutting down.

All the museums are closed.

All the businesses have sent people home.

- [Narrator] Maestro Wilkins keeps his focus on the kids.

- And sure enough, we had a concert the next morning, but they were only 100 kids in the audience.

But I do remember that concert with the 100 kids as being some of the most fun we've ever had.

One of our jobs is as teachers and mentors, and the idea is that it doesn't matter what condition we're in as humans, we were built for something different.

What people gravitate to most is honesty and earnestness.

And then, they'll walk across hot coals for you if they believe that it will make someone's life better, not your life, someone else's life.

- We're music.

We create sound.

Conductor doing, they're not making any sound.

And so the smart conductors understand the democratic part of it, but also know how to lead.

(majestic music) - We have our Boston Symphony Orchestra!

(audience applauding) - [Narrator] Thomas Wilkins says that whenever he steps onto the podium, all his troubles fall away.

But he flew out of Boston into a world of trouble.

(gentle music) A deadly virus, forest fires, social unrest.

- Say his name!

- [Protestors] George Floyd!

- Say his name!

- [Protestors] George Floyd!

- [Narrator] A little more than a week after the death of George Floyd, Wilkins joined three Black conductors in an international conversation.

Because of the pandemic, they couldn't meet in person, but technology allowed them to share their experiences in the world of classical music.

Conductor Roderick Cox hosted the discussion from Berlin.

- I still get many comments from people, which I know isn't true, but saying, when they say that, "I've never seen a Black conductor before."

And let's be honest, there are very, very few.

There are many orchestras- - Most of us are here.

- I'm sorry?

- Most of us are here on this chat.

- [Roderick] That's great!

- [Narrator] Michael Morgan, conductor of the Oakland East Bay Symphony, is known for his diverse, original programming.

- When people think conductor, they think something that doesn't look like us.

And when people show up that look like us, they don't think that we're the conductor.

- [Narrator] Jonathon Heyward, chief conductor designate of the North West German Philharmonic, joined from England.

- I know that there's a great responsibility, as a conductor of color, that I...

It's not just about going out there and doing my job, going on the podium, and it goes far beyond that.

And instead of seeing it as a pressure, I kind of see it as a great responsibility.

- Almost every orchestra has something about Black Lives Matter on their website right now, this week, almost everybody does.

But if you take that same orchestra and you read their Black Lives Matter thing, then you look at their season, there's almost no Black composers.

There's one orchestra, which again, shall remain nameless, and is at the center of all of this, they had two tiny pieces by Black composers, no Black conductors, no Black soloists, one Black singer along the way.

Don't tell me about Black Lives Matter and then none of it's reflected in your season at all, period.

- That's interesting, isn't it?

- There was one orchestra in the country, I'm not going to say which one, but I noticed that every time they call my manager, it was some kind of Black concert.

And I finally had to say, after giving them two of those concerts, "I'm not gonna do this anymore, because you seem to only want me when you want somebody Black.

Why don't you call me when you want somebody good."

You have to understand that probably, regardless of the hue of our skin, you still have to figure out a way not to survive a career, but to navigate a career and not to survive society, but navigate society.

- I think our job is this beautiful sense of music, this language that we get to kind of partake in.

Travel across, and I'm so lucky, I feel very privileged to have gone into so many different countries where I had no ounce of language skills, and Russia being one of them, Japan being another, but we communicated solely through this beautiful language of music.

- Interesting.

- And I think that this is the power of what we do.

And this is the power of this human connection that I strive for every day.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] Wilkins believes that the language of music is at the heart of who we are as human beings.

- Older civilizations, they have always figured out a way to make music, always, always, always, always, always.

And sometimes it was just for the basic means of communication, but it was still finding a way, coming up with some thing to create sound.

It's in our DNA.

(gentle music) (people singing in foreign language) (cars roaring) - [Narrator] Thomas Wilkins never dreamed that his final season, as music director of the Omaha Symphony would be haunted by an invisible killer.

Many orchestras stopped playing altogether.

The Barcelona Symphony performed to an audience of 200 plants.

- [Thomas] Every orchestra realized that they weren't going to get anywhere by standing still, so they had to be innovative in a whole new way.

(lively orchestra music) - The pandemic forced us to be nimble and adaptable and to rethink what we had planned for our 100th anniversary season.

It could have been a washout, but it wasn't.

- [Narrator] After months of quarantine, the players came back, and so did the socially distanced audience.

But the virus puts barriers between conductor and orchestra.

- When I was younger, I used to just wave all over the place until I got really great teaching that said, "Don't do that.

You're giving way too much information.

You're working way too hard."

And so I became a minimalist to some degree.

I love making music that way, because part of it means you're getting out of the way of the orchestra and you're telling them that you trust them to execute a certain spot.

You're just saying, "Make it sound like that," or, "Make it sound like that."

But the mode that we're now in is what I call COVID conducting.

And there's a lot of beating time, because they can't hear each other from this end of the separated stage to that end of the separated stage.

And so now I really had to beat time and I noticed my shoulders are just exhausted when a rehearsal is over or when a concerts over.

But it's necessary.

(airy orchestra music) - We couldn't see the expression on each other's faces.

We couldn't see the expression on Thomas's face.

And it just felt as disconnected as everything felt in the world at that point.

But here's what changed it for me.

The first concert we did, right in the front row, right near me, there was this petite elderly woman who sat there and I could see her eyes and I could see her eyes glisten with tears.

And that woman came to everything this fall.

So she was in a high-risk group because of her age and she was alone.

And she got herself here to sit with this weird spread out masked orchestra, completely disconnected from the rest of the audience.

And she sat there because it was important for her to hear live music.

So I realized it matters, we matter.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] In early 2021, cellist, Joshua Roman, joined the Omaha Symphony in a Saint-Saens concerto.

(gentle music) - I think it's always an honor to be asked to participate in a celebration and to be here with one of Maestro Wilkins' last three concerts as music director of the Omaha Symphony on the 100th birthday weekend of the Omaha Symphony, was something that immediately excited me.

And there's a real sense that you are working together and that work is play and that that is the work.

- And we could make a certain turn at a moment on stage in the performance that we hadn't talked about, just with a look at each other.

And one thing just feeds off the other.

And that's how I wanted to spend my last season.

I wanted every artist on stage to be someone that I've had a human connection to beyond just a soloist.

(mischievous music) (scanner beeps) - [Woman] All right, enjoy the concert.

- Thank you.

(mischievous music continues) - [Narrator] Tonight, the Omaha Symphony will say goodbye to a music director who's been at the heart of cultural life in Omaha for 16 years.

- I'm here in the Holland Performance Center tonight for the world premier of a piece I wrote for the Omaha Symphony for the 100th anniversary and for Thomas Wilkins, entitled "Lift Up Thine Ears" and I am all lifted up and ready to go to hear the premiere tonight with Omaha Symphony.

(rousing orchestra music) - [Narrator] And for the first time since the pandemic began, he'll conduct without a mask.

- And for a great time link, freeze.

- [Narrator] Multiple cameras and live streaming open the concert doors to the world.

(exciting orchestra music) The solo artist on stage for his final concert is Wilkins friend, Branford Marsalis, playing the John Williams concerto from ""Catch Me If You Can".

(mischievous music) (mischievous music continues) (audience applauding) - It's a hard piece, especially at the tempos that my man, Sir Thomas, has decided to employ.

I mean, the last movement is brisk and there's something exciting about that because it could all go wrong.

But I'm kinda into that kind of stuff.

So I was like, "Yeah, man, no, don't slow it down.

Leave it there, if that's where you want it.

It's your show.

If that's where you want it, let's play it there."

(exciting orchestra music) And Thomas is fun to watch.

And he's also fun to listen to because his passion for the music is in his body language.

He puts his whole body into the performance, and he brings things out.

It's really great.

- This thing makes no sound.

It's nice to look at.

I made it myself.

It weighs exactly what I needed it to weigh.

It fits my hand.

But it makes no sound.

My heart's desire has always been to turn around to these wonderful human beings behind me and invite them to make sound together.

(elegant orchestra music) - The "Enigma Variations" are a fantastic piece.

They're complicated.

I think they're very challenging to play.

There's like a dozen movements or more.

I love that Thomas picked that as his final piece, since Elgar created this piece with all these secret messages to the friends and acquaintances of his life who were important to him.

(elegant orchestra music continues) To be in that moment of performance when it's like you're, I don't know, you're riding down a river with a current and when things are going really well, I think I lose track of time.

And I know when a performance has gone well if somebody asks me afterwards, "How did that go?"

And I truly can't remember, 'cause I was so in the moment.

(elegant orchestra music intensifies) (audience applauding) (audience cheering) We are so fortunate that he has been at the helm for as long as he has been.

And I'm looking forward to the next era and the next relationships that the orchestra forms.

But it's a very bittersweet moment.

I think that if there's ever been a time to try new things and with courage, it's now, and I think that's something that many of us feel in many levels of our lives with the pandemic that there's no time like the present.

- [Man] Oh, my God.

(woman chattering) (gentle music) (gentle music continues) - Here's the thing, politics and the government will not save us as a society.

As God said to Moses, "Look at what's in your hand."

You are going to save society and you're going to do it with what's in your hand.

And so here we are, in the midst of this mess and music still flourishes and beauty gets to have the last word.

- [Narrator] "Beyond the Baton" is funded in part by Holland Foundation, Martha and David Slosburg Family Charitable Trust, Alan and Janette Stanek, Dean and Maria Jacobson, and Kinghorn Gardens.

(gentle music) - Because you are a lifelong learner, the Omaha Symphony would like to enroll you in the Pinehurst Golf Academy school of your choice.

(audience cheering) (audience clapping) And we will send you to school, as long as you come back and show us your new swing.

- Yeah.

- [Jennifer] A man who has enriched us all, our music director laureates, Thomas Wilkins.

To Thomas.

(audience cheering) - Thank you, Omaha.

Again, God bless you.

(audience cheering) (audience applauding) (gentle music)