The Voice Behind L.A. Philharmonic’s ‘Play-By-Play’

Vin Scully is one of her idols. But while the venerable baseball play-by-play announcer must only occasionally wrestle with a difficult, multisyllabic name mixed in with all the Smiths, Joneses and Robinsons, Gail Eichenthal, the host of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s radio concert broadcasts, is routinely required to roll the names of Czechoslovakian, Finnish and Swedish composers and their home towns off the tip of her tongue as effortlessly and mellifluously as 16th notes pour from the concertmaster’s violin.

Monday at 7 p.m. on KUSC-FM (91.5), Eichenthal, 34, will celebrate her 10th anniversary of accenting the proper syllable in Debussy and Dvorak, as she calls the play by play of the Philharmonic’s first concert of the 1987-88 season--a program featuring music by Brahms and Shostakovich, taped in October at the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion.

During those 10 years, Eichenthal has known both the thrills and perils of life with a 104-piece orchestra. She has toured Europe and Japan with the ensemble; witnessed group dynamics under two disparately dispositioned music directors, the shy Carlo Maria Giulini and the more exuberant Andre Previn; been bitten by the dog of a world renowned conductor while interviewing him at his home; filled time--or “vamped” as she puts it--during unexpectedly long intermissions, and, nightmare of all nightmares, almost but never quite talked over the maestro’s downbeat.

She’s also fallen in love and made plans to marry the Philharmonic’s bass clarinetist, David Howard. But, most important, Eichenthal says, she has tried to personalize and demystify the often grand and perhaps inaccessible world of symphonic music-making for her radio audience nationwide.

“I try to give something, anything, that will pique the curiousity of the listener, to perk up their ears, to make them feel more involved,” Eichenthal said in an interview. “There is tremendous amount of competition in the area of symphonic broadcasts. I have to think about why a listener would want to take me over someone else.”

Though Sidney Weiss, the Philharmonic’s concertmaster, claims that Eichenthal is astutely knowledgeable about everything from violin making to the history of almost any symphonic work, Eichenthal insists that she is neither a great music historian nor a critic.

She does report the reaction of the audience to a concert--the time, for example, the audience threw flowers on stage at Giulini for more than half an hour after the final performance of his first season in Los Angeles. Or the time last summer when, she said, Previn and the orchestra “knocked the socks off” a staid, upper-crust British crowd in London, a memory that still gives her chills.

But she refuses to pontificate about the merits of a particular piece of music or performance. Instead, she invites the composers, conductors and musicians on the air to speak for themselves about their music, their inspirations, their frustrations. And during intermission, she often gets inside the individual sections of the orchestra with features about the audition process and rehearsals.

The individual members of the orchestra have grown to accept and trust Eichenthal when she thrusts her microphone in their faces, welcoming the opportunity to step out of their section and speak for themselves.

And over the years, especially when on tour with the orchestra, Eichenthal has been privy to much of the personal and institutional politics--the weariness, the competitiveness--that accompanies most large organizations.

But, she warned, “I am not Barbara Walters. They are artists and (it is) much more interesting talking about their art than exposing any failed love affairs. I can be accused of being a bit Pollyanna-ish when it comes to the L.A. Philharmonic, but I’d rather err on the side of respect for the organization than on the side of being a scandal monger.”

“Most of all, aside from her objective, clear and uncluttered manner of speaking,” said Sidney Weiss, “what seems at the root of her ability is a very deep love and respect for music. She couldn’t do as good a job as she does without that. We are very lucky to have Gail. I hope we have her forever.”

Eichenthal’s love for the Philharmonic dates to when her father dragged her to the orchestra’s Saturday morning Symphonies for Youth concerts back when she was learning to walk. She began playing the piano at the age of 6, and remembers her father’s horror when he caught his 10-year-old daughter secretly listening to the Beatles in her closet.

She continued to study piano and English at UCLA, but she never had any plans to become a performer herself (though she did play the beer bottle once on stage at the Hollywood Bowl in a performance with Dr. Demento and other media luminaries).

Shortly before graduating from UCLA, she accepted an internship that taught her the ropes of classical-music radio production at KUSC. Two years later, Eichenthal won an audition to host KUSC’s first national broadcasts of the Philharmonic in action.

“There were no role models in the business at that time,” Eichenthal remembered. “I grew up listening exclusively to the dulcet tones of older males. You just didn’t hear women on classical radio.

“I was certainly the least experienced of all the candidates, but maybe they thought, wouldn’t that be interesting. There are no women doing this. It added a freshness to the sound, and they decided to take a gamble.”

“She had the most authoritative voice and also the warmest, most pleasant voice,” said Ernest Fleischmann, executive director of the Philharmonic and one of the men who selected Eichenthal over five male announcers.

Fleischmann says that most world-class orchestras sound “not dissimilar” over the radio and that most symphonic broadcasts move along according to formula. But with Eichenthal, he says, listeners never know exactly what they will hear on any given day.

“She may start out with quotes about a composer that are quite outrageous or interviews that are a little off the wall,” Fleischmann said. “She gets your attention. It’s unique. I think Gail’s voice as well as her imagination has given the Philharmonic a kind of unique identity.”

No one associated with the orchestra downplays the importance of Eichenthal’s broadcasts, produced on an annual budget of nearly $500,000, in exposing the Philharmonic to music patrons in cities big and small across the country. Approximately 80 stations nationwide carry these weekly concerts, which, Fleischmann insists, add to the artistic prestige of both the orchestra and its hometown.

“These broadcasts are a way of proving to our friends on the East Coast that there is top-notch, first-class music making in sunny Southern California,” Eichenthal said.

“It’s a great way to show the entire country that the L.A. Philharmonic is a precious resource and that there is a lot going on here besides radicchio and goat cheese.”