ESO’s weekend concerts to pay homage to Brody, symphony board’s first president

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Updated: September 29, 2011 12:52AM

ELGIN — Following one concert many years ago, Elgin Symphony Orchestra’s first president, Edward Brody, called his son, who asked how the pianist was.

The father said, “He was good, but the fourth finger of his left hand was weak.That is how good his ear was,” said Robert Hanson, the symphony’s musical director.

Brody died May 30 at Tower Hill Healthcare Center, South Elgin, at the age of 95. In his honor, each of the ESO “Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff” concerts set for 1:30 p.m. today, 8 p.m. Saturday and 3:30 p.m. Sunday will begin with an homage to Brody.

“It would be fair to say that the symphony would not be what it is today if Ed had not been involved in it,” Hanson said. “He was one of the few people involved in the orchestra since it evolved.”

Elgin’s symphony, which began as a community orchestra under the auspices of Elgin Community College, is now in its 62nd season. Brody was the first president of the ESO board when it became its own entity in 1981. His wife Pearle was the first president of the Elgin Symphony League, Hanson explained.

“They got things going and off the ground in those days. I worked closely with Ed on the early years of the board,” the director said. “He and Pearle were our ‘Elgin parents,’ and Ed and Pearle referred to me as their second son. We have lost one of the great supporters of the Elgin Symphony.”

More than just a supporter, Brody was a musician himself, Hanson said.

“Ed was a jazz musician of the first rank. He played piano in the big hotel ballrooms with all of the great bands of the area. He knew music and had perfect pitch,” Hanson added.

Brody came to Elgin to run the Brody Coat Factory on Shoe Factory Road. Once that business closed, he ran a wholesale clothing business. “The business made a lot of money in those days doing that, and a lot of that money went to the symphony,” Hanson said.

When it came time to recruit symphony board members “there was not one person who said no, so we had this unbelievable board of directors that was the envy of the country,” Hanson said.

Within four or five years after ESO was incorporated, “we became a totally professional orchestra — that is how it grew under Ed’s leadership,” Hanson said.

He will talk about Brody prior to this weekend’s performances — which Pearle is expected to attend on Sunday — and the orchestra will play an arrangement of Brody’s favorite song, “What a Wonderful World,” Hanson explained.

“That is how he looked at the world,” Hanson said, even though Brody suffered from polio as a child. “Even with being disabled from polio, he was one of the most positive people I have ever met.”