(upbeat music) - Hi, I'm Eric Olson, KSMQ Public Television.

Coming up on "Q", always a favorite topic, the Austin Symphony Orchestra.

We're going to talk to one of the management members and find out what's on tap this season.

Then we'll meet Mrs. Universe 2021 with ties to Albert Lea, to see what it takes to compete and win the coveted crown.

She's also author of a book.

Stay tuned, "On Q" is next.

♪ Local ideas that matter to you ♪ ♪ Sharing our region's unique point of view ♪ ♪ Telling the stories that you never knew ♪ ♪ On Q, On Q, On Q ♪ Welcome to "On Q."

I'm Eric Olson, KSMQ Public Television.

We always like to talk about music and art on this show, so it's time for the Austin Symphony Orchestra to come on and talk to us about their musical season this year.

Our guest, Phil Burkhart from the orchestra, welcome, sir.

- Good to be here.

- And I know you're in a management role and also a long time well-known musician, music teacher in Austin.

I saw you at ArtWorks Festival.

The symphony was playing there outdoors.

It was a beautiful day and a wonderful performance.

- Thank you, it was a lot of fun.

A lot of details to take care of, but it all worked out well.

- Do you musicians all come from Austin or how do you find them?

- Well, the majority of our musicians are from Austin, but we also bring in musicians from Albert Lea, Rochester, Owatonna and even down in Iowa.

We are one of the few community orchestras in the area and we invite anyone who wants to come and play to come and audition and they can play with us.

- And longest continuous operating, isn't that?

- That's right, in 66 years now, as far as we can tell, we're the longest operating community orchestra.

- Wow, what a tip of the cap and that means you're putting on great product if you'll call music product, all of these years, because, you know, there's competition.

- Yes, there is, the old classical music and we play a lot of different kinds of music, but basically classical is our core.

It's so well loved, especially in this community.

We have a tremendous support system here.

The schools have wonderful music programs so the adults, they come out of school, they look to play somewhere and we have a symphony for them to play and people still love that kind of music.

It just means so much to them.

- Now let me ask you, you were a longtime educator in Austin.

About how many of the orchestra members did you first meet when they were young people in school?

- Quite a few actually, quite a few.

And it's really neat to see them come back as adults and keep playing.

I don't have a number for you, but there are quite a few of them.

- Oh, that has to be wonderful, gratifying for you.

- It really is, it really is.

- So walk me through the season, if you will, for the symphony this year.

You always have a few surprises up your sleeve.

What's happening this coming year?

- Well, our first concert's going to be a family concert on Sunday, October 30th at 2 o'clock and that is going to be, we call it Puppets and Princesses, so we're gonna be playing music from a puppet show, a ballet actually, that was written by a Russian composer about a puppet named Petrushka and that's a very famous puppet show and the music from that is very, very exciting and the princesses part of it is Morgan Dickman, who's a local teacher and singer, going to come in and sing Walt Disney tunes for the audience.

- [Eric] Oh, she's wonderful.

- And the kids will be coming the next day on Monday to hear a free concert, the same concert for all of the elementary students in the area.

And then we have Sunday, December 11th, this is really exciting for us, Michael Veldman and his friends are coming back.

So, we got them with the symphony this year and we're absolutely thrilled that he and his friends agreed to come and sing.

So it's gonna be a holiday concert.

- Now this has to be, I mean, it's been several years.

I can't remember how many since, that their group was back and the Paramount, but it was a staple of the Austin holiday tradition that you didn't really celebrate the holidays unless you went to the Veldman & Friends show at the Paramount.

- And this year we've got him.

So it's really, it's really a thrill for us and we're looking, it's gonna be all different music arranged, Christmas music arranged with orchestra.

So that's gonna be great and then on the 26th of February, Sunday, we're having several soloists back that we've had before.

Richard Roberts is a violinist who came through our district and he's the longest, one of the longest serving concert masters in the whole, in all of North America, up in Canada he plays and he's coming back.

We're gonna celebrate his retirement along with Roberto Plano, Plano, sorry.

Roberto is going, of course, played many times with us on the piano.

- But, of course, I'm going to bust in there because he came to town because you all helped purchase that wonderful piano, the instrument that two years or so and he flew in to give it its mate and play on the Fazioli.

- There you go, the Fazioli, yes, and he'll be playing that on this concert.

And then we're also bringing in Tony Ross, who's a cellist for the Minnesota Orchestra, one of the great cellists in the world.

He's coming in, the three of them are going to play a piece, the Beethoven "Triple Concerto," which is a beautiful piece and it's gonna be a very wonderful concert.

And then our final concert is going to actually be on Sunday, April 30th, and we're bringing in a dramatic soprano soloist.

Her name is Alexandra Loutsion and she is very, doing a lot of singing in Chicago and out on the East Coast, Philadelphia and she's an up and coming star of the opera world and Austin Symphony Chorus will also be there, directed by Sonja Larson and they're going to sing a piece along at the same concert and then an additional thing for our season ticket holders will be a recital by Alexandra on the Friday before that, which is April 28th.

She is going to do a concert, just a recital with a pianist at Our Savior's Lutheran Church and that will be at 7 o'clock on Friday, April 28th.

So if our friends buy a season ticket, they actually get five concerts this year for the price of four.

And these tickets are available online at our site, www.austinmnsymphony.org, it has to have the MN in there, M-N, otherwise it goes to Texas.

And tickets are, single season tickets are available there.

We're working on getting our season tickets on that site and they're not quite there yet, but people can call me, any of the orchestra members and they are, and the season tickets are available at Coffee House on Main.

And the individual tickets will also be there and Hy-Vee will be selling those, too.

- You mentioned that last, the soloist, the opera singer from Russia, you called her dramatic, is that a kind of singing or is that just, she's like the star of operas?

- I think it's a little bit of both.

It's not my expertise to know, but usually I think it refers to grand opera.

So she'll be singing, at the concert, she'll be singing several selections from Wagner's Opera, the German composer, the great grandiose, beautiful, romantic things.

And that's, grand opera requires a grand soprano to sing it.

But she also will be singing at the recital.

It's a more intimate setting and will be closer to her, will be able to meet her and talk with her afterwards and she'll be singing a lot of different vocal music at the recital.

- Which is only for season ticket holders, right?

- We are gonna sell individual tickets for that.

- Oh, okay.

- [Phil] But season ticket holders get it free.

- Okay.

And I just have to say that's it so wonderful that the symphony survived the COVID.

We've done so many stories about, you know, theater companies that haven't made it through or this business or that business.

It must have been quite a challenge.

- It was and we did stop our season, one season, as most orchestras did.

And many orchestras did not come back from that.

It's been very difficult, but we were able to come back.

In fact, we have our string players, we have more now than we did before COVID.

We do need wind players if anybody out there wants to play woodwind or brass, we're always in the market for that and strings, too, but we're doing okay.

We're pretty encouraged by what we have right now.

- How often and when do you rehearse?

- We rehearse on Monday evenings and it's usually five Mondays before the concert, so it the concert's at the end of October, we start at the end of September and it goes that way through the year.

- Everything?

- And if I mention something else?

- [Eric] Oh, go ahead.

- I don't know if you've heard, but the Minnesota Orchestra's coming to town.

So we're going to have in April, our last concert will actually start the orchestra week, in which the Minnesota Orchestra's coming with ensembles to play in different places in the city.

- Now come on now, you're cutting in on Bonnie Rietz's airtime there.

- No, actually Bonnie asked me to mention it.

Because we're- - Okay.

- Our concert starts the week and then at the end of the week, the Minnesota Orchestra will play a concert on Saturday.

- Okay, that's called "Common Chords" and it's gonna be a wonderful program and KSMQ is working with that group and so we look forward very much to that, you're absolutely correct.

What an experience for the musicians in Austin and the students to sit side by side with Minnesota, with professional musicians.

- It's a wonderful opportunity.

We're very, very lucky.

Only a few communities in the state have had this opportunity and they chose Austin.

- That's terrific.

Well, thanks for the update and best of luck to you this season, Phil Burkhart.

- Thank you, thank you very much.

- All right, and we will be back right after this.

(upbeat music) Welcome back to "On Q."

I'm your host, Eric Olson.

We're going to join now Tori Hope Peterson.

Tori lived in Albert Lea for a short while, was a resident in Southeastern Minnesota, then went on to great fame, becoming Mrs. Universe in the year 2021.

She now has a book out.

We're gonna talk to her about that book.

Hey, Tori.

- Hey, thanks for having me on here.

- You bet.

We're gonna get to the pageant business first, but you have a book that you have out called "Fostered."

Tell us a little bit about it.

- I wrote a book.

It's been about three years ago, four years ago that I started writing it and I wanted to write a book for kids who, teenagers, who grew up in situations like me.

I wanted them to be encouraged, I wanted them to know that there was a plan and a purpose for their life, that there was a hope for their future, but then as I started to share more about my experience of growing up in foster care more publicly on social media, I realized that there were people who wanted to get involved in foster care, but didn't know how and there were people who had questions and they wanted to help kids who came from hard places, but didn't know how.

Foster parents and caseworkers who were involved in the foster care system wanted the perspective of a former foster youth, but didn't have it and so, you know, the reason I wrote the book was just so that it could get in the hands of some teenagers and young adults that were like me, but I guess the vision for the book expanded and I'm very grateful that it did, greater than I could have even imagined.

- Talk a little bit about your background that got you to write this book.

- So I first went into the foster care system when I was three years old and then I re-entered the foster care system again as my mom's mental illness got worse when I was an adolescent, this time with my sister, who's 10 years younger than me and I thought okay, this is our opportunity to escape the abuse that we were experiencing and the neglect, but within one month of being in that foster home together, my sister and I were separated and I moved through many more homes until I emancipated the day I turned 18 and the foster care system, I just felt so displaced like no one wanted me and I wanted kids to know that, that wasn't true, that they were wanted and that they were loved.

- And this, your experience was not in Southeastern Minnesota as I understand it.

- No, so I grew up predominantly in the Midwest in Michigan and Ohio and I spent most of my time in the foster care system in Ohio.

- And it's difficult, it's an interesting concept for a book, really, to help.

It almost sounds like, I mean, for young people to navigate or understand the system, they can take advantage of, is that the primary message?

- I think the primary message would be telling people that they can overcome like really hard things, that they can do hard things and that their identity, it isn't really here on earth.

You know, you can kicked out of home after home after home, but there's a God that says I've built a room for you in the kingdom.

- All right.

So there's a little spiritual component there also.

- Yes, definitely.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, my faith is very, very important to me.

It's been a central part of, I think, you know all that I've done.

- And some of what you've done includes Mrs. Universe.

Do you mind talking about that for a little bit?

Talk about that journey.

- Yeah, you know, sometimes I can just dip my toes into things out of curiosity (laughs) and the pageant world was something that I had never experienced before, but it sounded really fun.

My husband and I were fostering a sibling group of three at the time.

We have two biological children and an adopted adult son and so life was just full and I wanted to do something a little bit lighter, a little bit more fun.

The opportunity of pageantry came up and I thought pageantry is silly, that's kind of what I thought and then I thought, you know what?

Let's give it a try and it was really fun to dress up and to do all the things that are in pageantry and what I would say it was a great opportunity.

The title makes people take me way more seriously than they did before.

I was doing all the same advocacy, I was speaking before Mrs. Universe, but as soon as I got that title, people started taking me way more seriously, but it's silly because I'm the same person that I was before and I'm the same person that I was after and I think that, honestly, what the pageant showed me is that our culture is very interested in glitz and glam and not who people truly are.

And so, I guess it was a lesson to caution against those things.

- So do you advocate that people should not be in pageants?

- No, I think that, I think that the pageant world is a really neat thing.

There are different pageant systems.

I would encourage people to know what system they're entering.

I didn't know anything about pageantry, so I honestly entered a pretty bad system, but people don't say that the system is bad because they're scared that their title's gonna get stripped of them because that's what the directors and the people in leadership threaten.

I don't mind if my title's stripped from me, as crazy as that is, because I have a platform and I think that's the sad thing about pageantry is that there's young women who go into pageantry and they want to advocate for something good.

There's so many women that go into pageantry and they are cancer survivors or abuse survivors and they want to speak about their story or advocate for those who are coming after them and the pageant world can kind of exploit the good heart that these women have and say I'm gonna strip that from you if you don't do what I say.

So I think that, and that can be the bad systems, but if you get in a good system, then it can be really good.

- So you were treated appropriately.

- What they're doing.

Not like me when they go into it.

- So you were treated appropriately in your judgment in your pageant experience?

- I would say during the pageant itself, like everything's happening so fast you don't even know.

Like you're just trying to compete, but afterwards.

I would say that I was not treated fairly afterwards.

But I also would say that I haven't really started speaking up about the corruption of the pageant until recently, like speaking about the truth of it because that's something that people are so interested in, like oh, you're Mrs. Universe and it's like yeah, I am, but it's really, I don't want it to be a large part of who I am because I don't think that the pageant, it's not righteous.

It wasn't good in the way that I want to reflect righteousness and goodness.

- Give me a couple of examples.

- Yeah, well, I would say that the director of the pageant was...

He would want to communicate often inappropriately and, you know, you just, I'd just be like, "No," like, you know, "We're not doing this, we shouldn't talk this much."

And he's be like, "Well, I'm gonna strip your title away from you."

And it just came to a point where I was like, "Okay, like you can go ahead and do that."

And that was done to many, many women who had even just state titles or country titles.

- So that happened to you?

Your title was stripped because you wouldn't talk to him?

- My title was not stripped.

It was shortened.

So my title was handed off to another woman and he said that I could keep my title if I didn't talk about anything, which I still talk about everything.

I just don't think he sees it.

But he, yeah, he gave my title to another young woman and he said if I ever talked about it, he would take my title away.

- If you're just joining us, we're talking with Tori Hope Peterson, former Albert Lea resident and former Mrs. Universe of 2021.

Were there any other examples, Tori, of what you say it just wasn't good during your service as Mrs. Universe?

You mentioned the phone interaction.

- Yeah, the other thing that kind of started during the pageant was the interactions with the photographers.

So we all had individual and group photo shoots and there was just a lot of inappropriate things that were happening within those photo shoots and a lot of girls, you know, they would walk out.

A lot of the women in pageantry are very strong women and they stand for things that really matter and they will walk away when things are not good.

And that was a really cool thing to see is that there are a lot of women of integrity in the pageant world and so there was a lot of women that would walk away or that would just not engage with the photographer and then like the directors and the owner of the pageant, they would yell at us and they'd be like, "No, you're not doing what we're telling you, you're not gonna win a title if you don't do what we tell you," and the really difficult thing with that is that women spend thousands of dollars to get to pageants.

They have to buy their dresses.

They have to get tickets to fly there.

They have to pay an entry fee to compete in the pageant.

There's so much that women have to pour into this and so, you know, they're there and they're like okay, am I just gonna risk everything that I've put into this for the sake of not feeling good or not being treated fairly and so there's just such a tension in it all.

- And correct me, I always was under the assumption that people like yourself who get at these large titles, they've been doing this since they were like five years old or something.

That's the impression you get.

Is that the case with a lot of folks?

Yeah, with some women, they've been doing it since they were young or since they were teenagers.

I had never done a pageant before.

I just kind of thought it would be like a fun experiment, which it was.

But I would say it just differs from woman to woman.

- So you're one and done as they say.

It doesn't sound like you're gonna be doing any- - I am one and done.

I am not like completely against pageants.

I think that I would love for my daughter, I have a daughter who's, she's two right now, so we have a long way to go, but I think when she's a teenager, I do think it would be something that I would love to put her in.

I think it can be a confidence booster.

You can learn interview skills and it's a way to make young women to feel so beautiful in their skin, so I'm not against them.

Again, I just think that you have to be sure that you're finding the right system within the pageant world.

- And with regard to your book, can you talk a little bit more about it and how folks can get a copy?

- Of course, yeah.

You can order my book, "Fostered, One Woman's Powerful Story, Finding Faith and Family Through Foster Care," on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Target, Walmart, really anywhere that you would purchase a book, it's available.

- But "Fostered," that ought to get you far enough if you're on Amazon, 'cause that was a long title you gave.

- Yes, yes, "Fostered" will get people there.

- Okay, very good.

Well, thank you Tori, it's been a pleasure and a learning experience.

Thanks for joining us.

- Yeah, I'm so thankful that you were interested and that you asked the hard questions because I think that there are a lot of people who just kind of want to, you know, just mull over the real things.

So that was fun, thank you for having me.

- You bet.

Tori Hope Peterson, 2021 Mrs. Universe and author of the book, "Fostered."

Thank you for joining us.

For now, I'm Eric Olson, "On Q."

See you next time.