GREAT FALLS — Another episode of the McGonigal’s Chronicles podcast is available for download.
The latest guest is Great Falls Symphony conductor Grant Harville, who after eight seasons at the podium will lead a final performance, featuring “Mahler’s Symphony Number 2”, on Saturday, May 10.
Between the choir and orchestra, there will be more than 150 musicians onstage for the performance.
“Great Falls has been really good to me, and the symphony's been really good to me,” said Harville. “But it’s time for a new chapter.”
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After eight years of leading the Great Falls Symphony, Grant Harville’s musical journey is about to take another turn.
After his final performance, he’ll join his wife and daughter in British Columbia to become a full-time family man.
His time as conductor has had many memorable moments, from the performance of Hayden’s 104th Symphony to sharing the stage with Native American artist ‘Supaman’ to working with the symphonic choir. And he’s proud of the symphony’s education program, which he likes to associate with a quote from Maya Angelou.
“They'll forget what said, they’ll forget you did, but they'll never forget how you made them feel,” said Harville. “When we bring kids in, I always want them to remember the feeling of it more than the actual facts.”
Being the musical man in charge has also had its share of challenges, like the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020, when the symphony offered free tickets.
“People could just sign up for a ticket, and then we just sort of asked the community to help us through that, and they did,” said Harville. “It was, a really nice thing to see that kind of support come through.
From the people he has answered to the performers he’s directed, Harville leaves a lasting impression.
“Grant is one of the finest human beings I've ever met,” said Hillary Shepherd, director of the Greta Falls Symphony. “He is, brutally honest in all the things that he does and he holds himself accountable to very, very high standards.”
“He's raised the level of musicianship in the orchestra quite a bit,” said Dusty Molyneaux, a Great Falls Symphony Board member and orchestra member. “He is very demanding. But not in a negative way. His expectations are very high.”
“One of the things that I really appreciate about him that he brought with him to Great Falls was, this desire to build out our infrastructure,” said Shepherd. “We, worked a lot internally with processes and with policy so that it can be easier for the next generation of music director to stand on his shoulders, essentially, and really take off. I'm going to miss him a lot.”
“Another thing that a lot of people don't realize about Grant is that he was a or is a very talented composer, so he did a lot of arranging and transcriptions and things like that for the orchestra,” said Molyneaux. “So, if we didn't have the music for it, it wasn't necessarily a stumbling block. Grant could just figure out how to write it out for us.
“I always say that symphony is a service organization,” said Harville “It's like habitat for humanity. Our job is to make our communities better. We just happen to use music instead of build houses.”
A nationwide search yielded more than 230 applicants for Harville’s replacement. A committee chose their top six. Those finalists will each get a chance to conduct a performance of the Great Falls Symphony’s 2025-2026 season before a permanent replacement is named.
To learn more about the six candidates in the running to succeed Harville, click here.
