Backstage at the CSO: Tyler Holstrom, manager of the Symphony Store

For Symphony Store Manager Tyler Holstrom, a typical week on the job may include discussing the merits of individual CSO recordings with customers, packaging online orders for shipment or developing the next piece of custom CSO merchandise, such as the annual commemorative holiday ornament. “As cliché as it may sound, the most rewarding part of my job is interacting with store customers,” he says. In the interview below, Holstrom looks back on his past decade at Symphony Center, where he began working during his undergraduate studies.

How long have you been working for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association?

I have been with the CSOA for 10 years!

Could you describe your job duties as manager of the Symphony Store?

My primary responsibility is to oversee the day-to-day operations of the Symphony Store and ensure that our store associates are well-trained and prepared to assist each customer that comes through our door. I am also our principal buyer and work closely with our assistant buyer, Kathleen Vogt, to make sure the store is well-stocked and identify new and compelling products to add to our collection. During the pandemic, our online store, symphonystore.com, became my sole focus and continues to be a tremendous part of my job today — we typically receive between 600-800 orders during the holiday season, all of which are hand-picked and packed by me!

Aside from managing the daily operations of the store, I am responsible for all merchandise produced with the CSO logo on it, which includes designing and producing merchandise for tour gifts, donor incentives, trade shows and other special events. I also assist with the distribution of our in-house record label, CSO Resound, to warehouses around the world and tour venues when the Orchestra is on the road.

What was your career path before your current position, and what led you to the CSOA?

I joined the CSOA when I was completing my bachelor’s degree in music education at the Chicago College of Performing Arts. I had every intention of pursuing a career as a band director upon graduation and maintained my part-time role at the Symphony Store while I was searching for a teaching job. After a quick stint as a middle school band director, I realized classroom teaching wasn’t my calling. Shortly after, my longtime boss at the store left the CSOA and I was in the right place at the right time (and thankful for it!).

What’s one of the most rewarding parts of your job?

As cliché as it may sound, the most rewarding part of my job is interacting with customers. At the Symphony Store, we are many people’s first stop at Symphony Center. We get plenty of donors and subscribers on concert nights, including some who stop by for the sole purpose of catching up with the store staff. We also get a lot of school and tour groups, many who have never been to Symphony Center before. My favorites, though, are customers who come to Symphony Center for a very specific piece on the program.

We get our fair share of Beethoven lovers, Bruckner fanatics and Mahlerites, but the best are those who have strong opinions about very specific works. A few weeks ago, a customer was distressed when I told her the Prelude to Act 3 of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg was on [that week’s] program. “That is the most boring opera I have ever heard!” she said with a shout. “But at least we only have to listen to a few minutes of it.” What other gift shop can you walk into and have a conversation about your favorite Wagner opera, which CSO recording of Mussorgsky’s Pictures from an Exhibition is the best (it’s the Giulini) or what you thought about last week’s concerts? The Symphony Store is a great sounding board for all these topics and more, and it makes my job that much more special.

The second-most rewarding part of my job is when my monthly financial reconciliation balances to the penny on the first try.

Is there a particularly memorable item(s) that the Symphony Store has offered during your tenure? 

A few things come to mind! I am a bit of a gift-shop junkie — if I am at a museum that has a gift shop, you can count on me stopping in there and walking out with something in hand. That said, I am always checking out what “everyone else” is doing to see what we’re missing in the Symphony Store, which has inspired some of our more recent additions to the collection.

In 2018, we partnered with Beacon Design to produce our first annual commemorative holiday ornament. Beacon Design produces the annual White House ornaments, which are known for their intricate designs and inventive construction (the 2022 White House ornament comes in a gingerbread-scented box). The first ornament we created with them celebrated the 60th season of the Chicago Symphony Chorus and depicts the Orchestra and Chorus in full force on stage at Orchestra Hall. Since then, this has become one of my favorite annual projects. Our 2022 ornament is an elegant replica of Orchestra Hall’s rosette light fixtures — check it out!

Another memorable product is a newer addition to the collection: a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle of Orchestra Hall. In 1994, local artist Jack Simmerling was commissioned by Lexus to produce a watercolor painting of Orchestra Hall. Simmerling set up shop in the Art Institute of Chicago’s south garden and painted our façade as he could see it through the foliage in gorgeous colors. This painting has caught my eye since I started working at Symphony Center — there is a framed print on the eighth floor of the Richard & Helen Thomas Club and another in our Finance department — and I was thrilled to be able to bring it back into the spotlight for this project.

Do you have a favorite concert or memory from your time at the CSOA?

Two concerts stand out:

The first was a little bit before my time at the CSO in October 2011. It was Susanna Mälkki’s debut with the CSO, and she led the Orchestra in Charles Ives’ The Unanswered Question and Three Places in New England, Richard Strauss’ tone poem Also sprach Zarathustra and the U.S. premiere of Thea Musgrave’s Autumn Sonata — a bass clarinet concerto featuring J. Lawrie Bloom. I had sweet-talked the box office into getting me a seat in the Terrace on a student ticket because I wanted to feel the rumble of the organ in the opening fanfare of the Strauss. What I didn’t expect was the hypnotizing experience of The Unanswered Question, with the offstage trumpet soloist and flute ensemble positioned in the lower balcony playing directly toward the stage (and by extension, directly to me). And that’s not to mention the Musgrave — I couldn’t believe the kinds of techniques that were possible on a bass clarinet, and I’d played bass clarinet for years!

The second concert was in February 2015: the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra on our Symphony Center Presents Orchestra series, with Yannick Nézet-Séguin on the podium and Hélène Grimaud as soloist for Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G. Once again, I was seated in the Terrace. I had followed Nézet-Séguin on Instagram for a few years and was always struck by the action shots of him on the podium — he conducts with his whole body, exudes unrelenting passion for the music and looks like he’s having the time of his life! The musicians and fellow Terrace-goers responded accordingly. We were all entranced with Yannick, and the orchestra responded with impeccable musicianship. Their performance of Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony is a highlight of my musical life so far, and their encore from Shostakovich’s The Gadfly is as fresh in my memory today as it was on my train ride back home that night. I was so inspired that I went out the next day and bought a woven ligature for my clarinet — if the Rotterdam clarinets sounded that good on the woven ligatures, certainly I could sound just as good if I had one myself! (There’s a reason why I am in the gift shop, not on stage.)

What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?

Outside of Symphony Center, I play clarinet with the Northshore Concert Band and sit on their board of directors. I also teach high school marching band and serve as the Woodwind Caption Head for the Victor J. Andrew High School Marching Thunderbolts. When I can get away from the office, I love visiting U.S. National Parks — I will be heading to Rocky Mountain National Park for Thanksgiving, and I hope to get back to Zion National Park sometime in 2023!