“Mary Moore, the Bakersfield Symphony Orchestra’s principal clarinetist, is now celebrating her diamond anniversary, her 60th season with the local orchestra,” writes Steven Mayer in Wednesday’s (3/4) Bakersfield Californian. “The extraordinary musician is also the orchestra’s operations manager, stage manager and librarian, which makes her the BSO’s keeper of music…. Each time Music Director Stilian Kirov steps up to the podium, baton in hand, he can be confident that Moore has gathered the requisite number of musicians in exactly the format called for … in any given concert…. The 82-year-old multi-tasking clarinetist says, ‘Sometimes it feels like I’m on 24 hours a day.’ … Moore still loves her work, especially playing the clarinet, her instrument of choice since the age of 10.… ‘Mary never ceases to amaze us,’ said the BSO’s Executive Director Holly Arnold.… She has taught clarinet to countless music students…. ‘Karen Goh is one of my former students,’ Moore said of Bakersfield’s mayor. ‘She was a good player, too.’ … Mary Moore’s late husband, Col. Wesley Moore, who died in 2004, was … also a member of the orchestra, and the orchestra’s operations manager, librarian and stage manager, all jobs his wife took over following his death.”
Mary Moore, the Bakersfield Symphony Orchestra’s principal clarinet, librarian, and operations manager. Photo by Alex Horvath
