Jul 28, 2025
New Blog
Bill Moyers – A Debt of Gratitude
In light of Bill Moyers’ recent passing, I want to share about the important role he played in helping us to further The Discovery Orchestra’s mission.
When Marcia and I moved from Manhattan to Bedminster, New Jersey in 1989, we found there were distinct advantages to having relocated to this small town in Somerset County. For example, one no longer had to brave the one-hour+ commute—if there was no traffic, which was almost never the case—from the city to our office and concert venues! These destinations were now just minutes away from home on two-lane country roads. There were some other nice aspects—not least of which was living just down the road from our friends Michael and Mary Johnston.
The Johnstons had played a vital role in helping to found the New Jersey Youth Symphony (NJYS) in 1979 in partnership with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, which I then served as Assistant Conductor. Mary later became the Youth Symphony’s Board President, and Michael was a member of the Board Finance Committee. The NJYS had an auspicious inception in no small part due to the Johnston’s help, as they enlisted their friends in Summit and Westfield to join them in the mission. During my eighteen seasons as Music Director of NJYS, Mike and Mary remained involved and supportive, even lending one of their children to the effort. Their teenage daughter Virginia was Principal Clarinetist of the NJYS during its early seasons. Later, after completing her graduate studies in music, Ginny became Executive Director of The Discovery Orchestra, and now serves as our Finance Director.
Of the many enjoyable occasions in Bedminster—just a 10-minute drive from the Johnston’s new home in Pottersville—none was more fun than attending their annual Sing for Your Supper Christmas Party! There were more delicious things to eat than one could imagine, plus the sheer joy of singing favorite carols and popular holiday songs, and choruses from the Christmas portion of Handel’s Messiah. Early on, Mary asked me if I would play the role of Santa Claus at their party, to which I gladly agreed—and did for many years! The party was also an opportunity to see both old friends and to make new ones.
I met Bill and Judith Moyers for the first time at one of the annual Sing for Your Supper gatherings. I no longer recall the year. The Johnstons and the Moyers had been close friends for decades. By then, Bill was famous—a household name from his time in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations in Washington, and his life in public television. I was gobsmacked to be introduced to the Moyers! But Bill and Judith were very personable and easy to talk to. And so, in the spring of 1996, I asked Bill if he would narrate Aaron Copland’s Lincoln Portrait with the Philharmonic Orchestra of New Jersey (PONJ)—The Discovery Orchestra’s predecessor entity—at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium as part of the Philharmonic’s 1996-97 10th Anniversary Season. He very graciously agreed.
In 1998 PONJ’s Board, staff and major donors discussed the possibility of videotaping a Discovery Concert™ for public television, and by 2000 had begun to seriously explore this idea. At Mary and Mike’s Sing for Your Supper party in December 2000, I asked Bill Moyers what he thought of this project. His response caught me off guard. At this moment, the Moyers were spending time in New Jersey house-hunting in Bernardsville. “How about on an evening when Judith and I are out here looking at houses, we meet you and Marcia for dinner and we can talk about it.” Wow—dinner with the Moyers! Judith served as Bill’s producer for his many PBS television specials. I would be receiving advice on public television production from two of the most highly-regarded experts in the field!
In the spring of 2001 we met at Pierre’s (now Café Sapori) on Mt. Kemble Avenue in Morristown. Marcia and I had to pinch ourselves as we sat down with Bill and Judith. They were so gracious about listening to my plan to record the very first Discovery Concert™ we’d ever performed. Bach to the Future was originally presented during that same 1996-97 10th Anniversary Season in which Bill had narrated Lincoln Portrait. Much information was transmitted to us over dinner, and just before we parted company that evening, Bill looked me straight in the eye and said, “George, I think you should do this.”
With the advice and encouragement received from the Moyers, the diligent work of our Board, the generosity of our donors, and the expert help given us by Elise van Stolk—one of our Trustees who produced the program—Bach to the Future was recorded on March 24, 2002 before a live audience at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. It was first broadcast on WHYY, Philadelphia’s PBS station on January 1, 2003—sandwiched between the re-broadcast of The Philadelphia Orchestra’s 100th Anniversary Special and the Vienna Philharmonic’s 2003 New Year’s Day Concert … not too shabby company! Itlater received a 2004 Mid-Atlantic Emmy Nomination for Outstanding Performing Arts Program, and was subsequently picked up by American Public Television for a 3-year distribution. Bill continued to be encouraging over the seasons that followed.
Two televised Discovery Concerts™ and two New York Emmy Nominations later, it was especially gratifying to receive this email from Bill in 2016 following the New York/New Jersey release of our fourth production for American Public Television—our 8-part series Fall in Love with Music:
“Last night Judith found your latest episode with George, the members of the Amphion String Quartet, and the music of Beethoven. It was wonderful—fun, instructive, charming and important. George has become a fluent host and star, but keeps the music at the center!”
As we commence planning our seventh televised Discovery Concert™ for American Public Television, The Discovery Orchestra and I are deeply indebted to the Johnstons and Moyers for their generous encouragement and support over the decades. Mary, Mike, and Bill … we miss you.
