By Michelle Kennedy
News-Chronicle
It's hard not to be overwhelmed by Don Poh's career when you walk into his store. His accomplishments, both large and small, are evident everywhere you turn.
From photographs of time spent with Leonard Bernstein to photos of his time as the Founding Conductor of the Youth Symphony, speaking with Poh, it is obvious that his pride and joy is the concert hall he designed and built as an addition to his store at 1674 E. Mason St.
"I never put myself up as a performer," he said as he sat down at the grand piano, that was built as the twin to the one Rachmaninoff played, in the center of his "mini-Carnegie Hall."
Playing excerpts from Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" with an adeptness that the students who play their recitals there can only dream about, Poh laughs, saying that at his "advanced age" it now takes him an hour and a half to limber up his joints.
Poh's musical joints have been limber for quite sometime. A lifelong resident of Green Bay, Poh began his musical education at Tank Elementary School in the third grade.
"I used to come home playing the harmonica," he said. "The teacher gave everyone in the class one. My father knew immediately that I was a musical genius and started me on piano lessons right away. Piano lessons were something like 13 and a half cents then, and they were taught during school time."
In high school, Poh played both piano and football.
"The outer muscles of my hands were and still are very strong, so you can imagine how good I was at tackling," he said.
He served in the Navy during World War II and put his musical skills to use as a sonar technician in submarines.
"We had to be able to tell the difference between flat tones and minor tones. They could be the difference between something foreign, a rock or a school of fish."
Taking advantage of the G.I. Bill, he attended college.
"I went off to a little school in Nebraska and studied music, because I knew I couldn't get through studying anything else," he laughed. While he honed his singing, directing and performing skills, he also came back to Green Bay during the summer and wrote for the Green Bay Press-Gazette. He eventually became a more permanent member of the staff.
"Finally, we put together a regular fine arts section, and I was able to write a column," he said. "Obviously, this made me aware of the different groups, and I wanted to become more involved."
In 1953, he opened his store at his first downtown Green Bay location. "I wanted to do something where no one could fire me, transfer me or retire me - except me," he said.
But he still wrote occasionally, and in 1953 he also wrote a column calling for a united arts association within Green Bay.
"It's one of the things I have still not been able to accomplish," he said. "I wanted there to be a league of all the local performing arts, where they would get together and schedule things and work out conflicts and still be separate organizations. But they could also move as a unified force."
Even if such a league is something Poh cannot count among his accomplishments, there are plenty of others.
The reorganization of the Green Bay Symphony Orchestra in 1966 would be first among them and included the hiring of its first professional conductor, Oleg Kovalenko.
As the Founding Conductor of the Youth Symphony, Poh said he found his niche in supporting the community's youth.
To show his commitment to such grassroots efforts, Poh built his concert hall to house student recitals and practices for the annual "Monster Concert" at the Weidner Center. And although many teachers use his studios and concert hall for recitals, Poh said he has not, himself, ever taught a student.
"I have tried to inspire them, sure," he said. "And I will do some coaching, but I haven't taught."
He must have done some kind of inspiring because over the years at least 10,000 students have passed through the doors to his store. And the concert hall, which has become a virtual Mecca for the performing arts, has seen over 700 recitals in the last 9 years since it was completed.
His commitment has also been evident in his roles in the Baylanders Chorus, Green Bay Youth Chorale and the original effort to refurbish the West High School auditorium.
"(West) is still one of the best venues," he said. "It has a sound of its own and its own natural reverberation, which is rare to find these days."
Poh said he was pleased to learn that the school was refurbishing it once again and hopes that the community will be able to hear concerts there, as it is a natural concert hall, not just a theatre.
Through all of his years, Poh has been on the outside, inside and right in the middle of all things musical in Green Bay. With retirement always looming ahead of him, he said, he would like to see the legacy of what he has tried to create continue on.
"The philosophy of this place has always been to give back," he said. "It has never been to take out of the musical community, but to add to it. The youth symphonies were born here, the civic symphony used to meet here. It's a business, but it has also been a part of the transformation of Green Bay's arts community for such a long time. A community that, I think, has gone from what some people used to call a cultural wasteland and has been transformed into a cultural oasis. I hope that stays. I hope that is not lost."
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