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Concert whiz calls it quits Drew Fleming photo Tom Olbrich, the man who brought the Rogue Valley a diversity of entertainment ranging from Emmylou Harris to throat singers from Tuva, is stepping down from his post as consulting producer of Southern Oregon University's Program Board. "It's time to move on," he says. Tom Olbrich brought much music to the Rogue Valley By BILL VARBLE Saying it's time to bring down the curtain, Tom Olbrich will quit presenting concerts in Southern Oregon. Olbrich, the consulting producer of Southern Oregon University's Program Board, has resigned as of Sept. 1. Olbrich brought some of the best-known acts in the music industry to Rogue Valley audiences in the 1990s. He says he's not sure what he'll do next. "It's time to move on," says Olbrich, 43, of Talent. Olbrich created the One World series, which exposed audiences to musicians from different cultures, and the Vox Pop series that brought popular acts with the help of Jefferson Public Radio. Before that, he worked for the public radio station for seven years. Working with the Program Board and/or JPR, Olbrich brought Emmylou Harris, Lyle Lovett, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, Bruce Hornsby, Sheryl Crow and Crash-Test Dummies. He brought monks from Tibet, throat singers from Tuva and drummers from Burundi. He brought the Master Musicians of Jujuka and Compay Segundo, the 90-year-old Cuban guitarist of Ry Cooder's Buena Vista Social Club. He brought Greg Brown, Patti Larkin, Dar Williams, David Wilcox, David Grissman, Bela Fleck. The One World series will continue. Olbrich is booking the 2001-2002 season now. Mary Bernarde, once Olbrich's boss at SOU and now director of student activities for Florida Tech, says Olbrich won't easily be replaced. "He absolutely invented that series," Bernarde says. "It was an expression of him and his knowledge of the community. He made a commitment to multi-culturalism, and he knew what would sell." Olbrich says he simply tuned into a changing world. "With media and travel, it's really becoming more one world," he says. Bernarde remembers Olbrich saying he wanted to bring the traditional Burundi drummers. "I thought, 'Ohmigod, who wants to see that?'" Bernarde says. "But he knew it would work." One World won a national award for multi-cultural programming in 1994. It continues with Philip Glass Sunday at SOU and Natalie MacMaster May 9 in Medford. Recent concerts bearing Olbrich's stamp have included pianist George Winston, guitarist Pat Metheny, singer-songwriter Randy Newman. Olbrich says the hardest part of putting on a show, if it's a big name, is the production itself: the sound, lights, catering, contracts that can run 50 pages. If it's not a big name, the hard part is selling tickets. In 1988, he worked all month to present Eric Tingstad and Nancy Rumble, a respected folk duo, at the Pink Church in Ashland. The show lost $60. "Ah," Olbrich thought. "For this I worked a month. There's something wrong here." In 1993, he volunteered to organize a benefit show to raise money for Headwaters, the Ashland environmental group. "It had to be big," he says. That was the summer Lyle Lovett and Julia Roberts had married and were on the tabloids in all the supermarkets. Lovett and His Large Band was the first really big show Olbrich ever produced. Doing it on the shore of Emigrant Lake sounded like a good idea. But things began to go terribly wrong. The skies opened in a rare August downpour. A semi full of Lovett's equipment got stuck next to the lake. The Texas singer's road manager turned out to be one of the toughest customers in a tough business. "It almost didn't come off," Olbrich remembers. "It was the hardest day of my life." That would be news to concert-goers who saw Roberts come on-stage to sing with her husband, or who the next day saw Emmylou Harris on the same stage. But it was harrowing, and an enervated Olbrich swore he'd never do it again. "I knew he was discouraged," Bernarde says. "I told him he had to get back on the horse." Things at SOU were inconsistent, to say the least. "He was watching us put on shows that 10 people came to," Bernarde says. One day Bernarde told him she thought Bruce Hornsby was a possible catch. Hornsby was then hot both as a pop singing star with his band and as the sit-in pianist with the nation's top touring band, the Grateful Dead. The Hornsby concert on the Britt Pavilion in Jacksonville, on Sept. 30 1993, is remembered as a landmark. Olbrich was the local consultant for Raitt and Browne's producer for a benefit in Jacksonville played to the accompaniment of chain saws wielded by wood products sympathizers opposed to the performers' views on the environment. Sources say it's almost impossible to consistently present big-time acts, especially outside a metropolitan area, unless you're a big producer with deep pockets. Olbrich beat that through a contract with the college that stipulated that if he didn't meet the budget, the first thing that went was his pay. Having the college behind him removed the both high-end and low-end potential, but it made it possible for him to work. "It was ballsy," Bernarde says. "It made it viable for the university. You can lose $30,000 in five minutes." Olbrich was paid based on a certain number of shows. During one three-year string, every show sold out. "He'd always budget them at 90 percent (of tickets sold), he wanted to do them so bad," Bernarde says. Olbrich says the reasons for his leaving are complex, but he's lived in the same town for 20 years. He's selling his house and expects to see a bit of the world. Perhaps most notably, in an industry known for an abundance of sleaze, Olbrich built a reputation for integrity. "Tom," Bernarde says, "is one in a million." Reach reporter Bill Varble at 776-4478 or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.