Rose Fay Thomas, My Great-Great-Great-Grandaunt

Ben Poirot moved to Chicago in the fall of 2021 to begin graduate studies in tuba performance at Northwestern University. The following spring, he won a position in the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, and in the fall of 2022, he began his first season on the ensemble’s roster.

A few months later, Ben received a message from one of his mother’s cousins, who had been working on a family genealogical project. “She knew I was in Chicago doing something relating to music,” he said, "and she forwarded some information about my maternal great-great-great-grandmother Katherine Maria Fay (1846–1928). She was the sister of Rose Fay (1852–1929), the wife of Theodore Thomas (1835–1905), who was ’instrumental’ (her exact words) in the creation of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra." That makes Ben the great-great-great-grandnephew of Theodore and Rose Fay Thomas! 

Rose was the eighth of nine children of Reverend Charles A. Hopkins Fay and Charlotte Emily Hopkins. Born in Saint Albans, Vermont, she moved to Chicago as a young woman and lived with her brother Charles Norman Fay (1848–1944) until she married Thomas in 1890, following the death of his first wife Minna in 1889. Rose later founded the National Federation of Music Clubs and the Anti-Cruelty Society, also serving as the first president of both. After Thomas died in 1905, she edited his Memoirs and facilitated the donation of his extensive music collection to the Orchestral Association (formally establishing the Orchestra’s music library) and the Newberry Library. After retiring to Cambridge, Massachusetts, she became active in the Army and Navy Club of Boston, later renamed the Soldiers and Sailors Club. Because of her dedication to this organization during and after the First World War, when she died in 1928, she was honored with a full military funeral.

Rose’s sister Melusina Fay Peirce (1836–1923) was a gender equality activist who advocated for women’s economic independence and organized the “cooperative housekeeping” movement. Sister Amelia “Amy” Muller Fay (1844–1928) was a concert pianist who studied with John Knowles Paine and Franz Liszt and managed the New York Women’s Philharmonic Society. And Rose’s brother Charles — who directed several Chicago utilities and the Remington-Sholes typewriter company — is credited with inviting Thomas to Chicago to start an orchestra here.

A native of Simsbury, Connecticut, Ben Poirot began his musical studies on the trumpet, switching to the tuba at age 15. After high school, he began a degree in audio/music production at Western Connecticut State University, but at the end of his first year, he realized how much he enjoyed performing and switched his concentration to performance. During his undergraduate years, he performed and toured with the New York Youth Symphony for three seasons. Following a lengthy application process in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ben decided on Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music for graduate studies, despite not having visited the school or the city of Chicago. “I felt confident about the decision to move there and begin the next stage of my life.”

Six months after moving to Chicago and starting his master’s degree, he won a chair in the Civic Orchestra. "The legacy of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra runs deep, especially regarding the history of the low brass section. I had heard recordings before and was well aware of the caliber of musicians that made up the Orchestra, and I wanted to learn from the best. This was easily the biggest achievement of my life up to that point, and I was absolutely ecstatic to be joining the Civic, an organization that has its own legacy, as well as being so closely tied to one of the world’s great orchestras. For my first concert in Orchestra Hall — the Alpine Symphony of Richard Strauss — I will never forget the feeling of sitting down on that stage for the first time and having the opportunity to perform in the same space as my greatest idols."

Discovering this deep personal connection only intensified Ben’s experience. “Playing on the Orchestra Hall stage always feels surreal, and I am incredibly lucky to have this opportunity. But now knowing the connection to Theodore and Rose Fay Thomas, it makes me feel even more a part of the stage and the music we make there.”

Ben has plenty to do during this, his third and final season as a member of the Civic. He is next on the roster for Mahler’s Fifth Symphony in December, the brass and percussion concert in March, and the season finale featuring Respighi’s Fountains of Rome and Sibelius’ Second Symphony. After that, what’s next? “I plan to stay in Chicago and take as many auditions as I can, in hopes of achieving my dream of playing great music at the highest level with great colleagues. I basically want to achieve my fullest potential and make it into a Big Five orchestra, and, of course, the CSO would be the all-time dream job!”

This article also appears here.