Bill Bielamowicz and Anne Black
Near the end of the Cold War, Texas A&M became "the raucous midwife" to a Bolshoi Ballet world premiere. At StoryCorps, colleagues Bill Bielamowicz and Anne Black share highlights from their 30 years of presiding over Texas A&M's performing arts programs.
- [Bill] What would you say was the show that you brought here that you thought was one of the best, that you enjoyed the most of all of the performances that you brought to Texas A&M?
- [Anne] In 1989 we did a world premiere. This was before the Soviet Union fell.
- [Bill] Right.
- [Anne] And so we had this artistic director of the Bolshoi, Yury Grigorovich, who decided to have a world premiere of The Nutcracker here in the United States. And they visited 37 venues across the country. Our student leaders were here to greet them, we went on a tour of the facilities. I never imagined they were going to choose us, I mean they went to UCLA, and University of Texas, and all over the country for him to decide and when they called me he said, "We were warmly greeted, the students were very excited, and the facility is perfect."
- [Bill] I don't remember exactly how many performances they did but it was like 15?
- [Anne] Nine. And then they came back and did seven Swan Lakes. It was more than just the performance on the stage the whole city.
- [Bill] Absolutely.
- [Anne] The whole country, we were on the front page of the New York Times. Headline said something like, "Bolshoi Births a New Ballet, Texas A&M its Midwife."
- [Bill] That was so much fun.
- [Anne] Texas A&M had never been in the news for arts ever.
- So that was really special.
- [Bill] I saw every one of those performances from exactly the same spot at the sound console in the auditorium. Honestly I don't think I could tell you that I could watch a show repeatedly that many times.
- [Anne] Yes, it was magic.
- [Bill] And I thoroughly enjoyed every performance.
- [Anne] I think that will always be my memory of just something extraordinary.
- [Bill] What were some of the funny things that you've seen happen on stage?
- [Anne] In 1993 we opened the season with the Red Army Chorus. In those days we opened at eight o'clock and so at seven-thirty they had not arrived yet. We had tried to reach them several times. Well their truck driver was rushing, didn't speak English. They had played the Woodlands the night before right down the road. And the Woodlands people had sent them to Austin to the University of Texas. We were honoring former presidents of OPAS on the stage, most of whom were women. About a quarter of eight these men came running in the back stage door peeling off their clothes as they came through with all these women just standing there staring. That's probably the funniest thing I ever remember.
- [Bill] I don't think I would trade anything in the world for my career at Texas A&M. You know, coming from a very small town, always interested in electronics if you will, and when this opportunity came up for me to learn more and become part of the audio engineering field I thought I was in heaven and I wouldn't give up any of our careers together for anything in the world.