What do you call a person who practiced guitar in middle school, played the defensive end position in high school football, conducts a regional symphony orchestra, composes original choral music, creates oil paintings, acts as an extra in television and film and referees varsity football games in his spare time?
The term Renaissance man might be overused, but it surely applies in the case of Ronnie Sanders, founder of the South Texas Symphonic Orchestra.
The Jefferson High School graduate conducted church choirs for years after college but said “deep down in my heart, I’ve always considered myself an orchestral conductor.”
In 2017, Sanders started the South Texas Symphonic Orchestra (STXSO) with the dream of providing free classical music concerts to anyone who couldn’t normally afford expensive tickets to the symphony.
The all-volunteer community orchestra performs music “of the highest caliber,” he said. “Music that will reach people, but at no cost. That’s our niche.”
Seeing an opportunity
Sanders’ motivation sprang from awareness that many professionally trained musicians reside in the San Antonio area but only so many can play for professional orchestras like the San Antonio Philharmonic and Classical Music Institute’s The Orchestra San Antonio.
In expounding on this to his colleague Eugene Dowdy, a conductor with experience conducting several regional orchestras, he found encouragement.
“I did say to him, ‘Well, Ronnie, get out there and do it,’” Dowdy said. “Because the musicians are there.”
Dowdy said Sanders is a rare combination of artist and organizer. “He is not only an artistic authority, as a highly trained musician himself, but he’s also an organized doer.”
And as Sanders began forming the orchestra, he had modest hopes. “I was thinking, ‘Man, if we had 35, 40 people, a couple of violins, a couple of cellos, a trumpet, you know, if we had that I’d be happy as a lark.’”
At the first rehearsal, 62 auditioned musicians sat at the ready. When Sanders lowered his conductor’s baton to draw forth the first notes of his new orchestra, he said he heard “almost note-perfect” Brahms and gleefully thought, “What have I created?”
The joy of music
Sanders chose the Brahms composition because it was notably performed by another hero, Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini, who once taught Sanders’ mentor, Milton Katims.
Sanders explained that in 1881, German composer Johannes Brahms was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Breslau. Brahms at first simply sent a thank-you note, but the university asked for a composition, resulting in the Academic Festival Overture.
“I liked that fact, plus, I love the music. It’s an incredible piece of music,” Sanders said, and appropriate for his new orchestra’s debut.
Since its first notes, the South Texas Symphonic Orchestra has performed dozens of concerts for thousands of patrons and students, with concerts including major orchestral compositions by classical composers such as Beethoven and modern composers including George Gershwin and Aaron Copland, whom Sanders briefly met in 1979 at an Incarnate Word College concert and had autograph his guitar.
Sanders recently joined the ranks of classical music composers, announcing in a June Facebook post that his new choral composition Perfectum Artificem garnered more than 700 responses from conductors across the world and was purchased by a choral group in Scotland.
While the composition has yet to premiere in San Antonio, it received its world premiere recently in El Paso, conducted by the composer.
A volunteer orchestra
Naomi Sayre Cavazos has performed with STXSO since day one. An assistant professor in the department of neurosurgery at UT Health Science Center, Cavazos performs as principal French horn.
She had continued performing while studying biology, but as she pursued her doctorate-level studies in San Antonio she realized, “I really missed playing.”
No such community orchestra existed when she began searching in 2010, but when the STXSO finally popped up in one of her routine searches, she “jumped on the opportunity.”
An all-volunteer orchestra will be made up of musicians of varying abilities, but Sanders’ charisma and positive attitude draw out the best in people, Cavazos said.
“His leadership style is really good at bringing all kinds of people in and feeling comfortable and feeling like they want to contribute.”
Sanders also has fun, she said. There have been a number of times he’s “dressed up in ridiculous outfits,” she said, recalling one instance where he donned his guitar and a Willie Nelson wig to open a concert.
“I think a lot of his motivation is finding the joy in music and playing music, and then transferring that to whoever he’s working with,” Cavazos said.
Seeking out casting calls
Sanders is no stranger to dressing in costume. Highlighting another longstanding interest, he has performed as an extra in several television shows including season two of the Paramount+ hit series “1923,” which recently took over downtown streets for a location shoot in San Antonio.
Sanders’ role was in Austin, however, where he played an extra in a set dressed as New York’s Grand Central Station of the early 20th century.
He periodically checks out casting calls sent out by Hollywood casting agencies and occasionally picks up a professional gig.
“When somebody needs a person of my age, my height, my size — sometimes they can be very specific — if I have the dates open I’ll go and do a shoot.”
Sometimes only a shoulder or hand is visible in a given scene, he said, but once in a while, he can point out his face. He has also appeared with Mena Suvari in the 2014 Netflix series “Hysteria,” alongside actor Pierce Brosnan in the 2017-2019 historical drama series “The Son” and the 2017 documentary miniseries “The Long Road Home.”
A calm demeanor
Sanders is sometimes unavailable for a shoot because he’ll be costumed in yet another outfit, that of a football referee. He just finished his sixth season refereeing for area middle and high school games.
Back in high school, as a member of the Jefferson Mustangs, Sanders played defensive end. “I got to eat quarterbacks,” he said, still with the hint of a growl in his voice.
“I love the game of football and I’m passionate about it,” he said of his return to the field, a professional role that requires passing a rigorous test.
Once out on the field, he said, “I can exercise, I can get some sunshine, and it’s just a lot of fun. I mean, you’re right there on the field, it’s the best seat in the house.” He said he has to keep a calm demeanor and make correct calls, even when there’s a really good contact and he’s thinking, “Oh man, that was so cool.”
Sanders said he must keep a similar reserve while conducting, leading each section of the orchestra through complex and subtle passages as the passionate music swirls around him.
And speaking on conducting without sheet music to guide him, Sanders might have been talking music as well as his love of a good football play. “There’s this emotional kind of connection when you don’t have to be married to the score,” he said.
The next South Texas Symphonic Orchestra performances will be Dec. 20-22 holiday concerts of The Nutcracker with San Antonio Youth Ballet at the Scottish Rite Theater.
