Gessl's well-traveled, he's one heck of a good businessman, and to help make this whole symphony in a salt mine idea even more interesting, he was born near one.
ade missions for up to 40 Austrian companies looking to do business here. He promises each of them they’ll make at least 25 contacts with potential Ukrainian business partners during their visits – but some, he points out, make as many as 100.
Gessl, 43, is good at making connections. His latest mission involves bringing Austrians and Ukrainians together to make beautiful music – in a salt mine, of all places.
Interestingly enough, Gessl himself was born near a salt mine (now abandoned), in Solbad Hall (or Hall in Tirol, as it is now called), Austria. Combine that with his patrimony in a nation that’s one of the most musical on earth, and you start to see why he would want to promote the Oct. 2 Symphony in Salt concert, which will involve the Donbass Symphony Orchestra (DSO) performing in Donetsk oblast’s Artemivsk salt mine.
“It makes sense, really,” Gessl begins, speaking of the concert’s eccentric venue. “It’s close to Luhansk, and the governor of the oblast actually recommended it as a location.”
Digging Deep
Before he gets into the underground concert in more detail, Gessl discusses his past: his travels to Burkina Faso as a child; his years working for the ACC in South Korea (where he developed a love of spicy Korean food), Brussels and Moscow; and how he met his wife, Sylvie, just before moving to South Korea 14 years ago.
Then, digging into the first of many courses in the colorful and fragrant pulgogi lunch combo (Hr 110) at the recently opened Korean restaurant Hankook Wan, Gessl puts some kimchee on a slice of lettuce – along with barbecued pork, chili sauce and green onions – and describes how the Symphony in Salt got its start.
Gessl and the DSO’s conductor, Vienna native Kurt Schmid, met five years ago, when Gessl worked in the Austrian capital. He was then a trade counselor at ACC’s Romania desk; Schmid was an enterprising but little-known composer who wanted to conduct his own orchestra, but lacked the backing to do so in Austria. Schmid turned to the ACC for help in organizing Vienna concerts for Romanian orchestras with whom he had worked as a guest conductor. At first Gessl didn’t quite know how to deal with this unconventional request, but his boss told him to help Schmid put something together, and several successful performances resulted.
From Vienna, the ACC moved Gessl to Kyiv, and in September 2001 he organized a trade mission for Austrian businesses in Lviv. The idea dawned on him then to invite Schmid to conduct Ukrainian orchestras in about a dozen cities across Ukraine: in Lviv, Odessa, Simferopol, Kyiv, Luhansk, and elsewhere. Gessl, never shy when promoting Austrian businesses or entrepreneurs, liked the idea.
“[Schmid] wanted to bring Ukrainian orchestras closer to Austrian music,” Gessl explains. But as the concert series unfolded, it became apparent that working with so many orchestras was unfeasible. It was better to narrow the focus. As it turned out, the musicians of the Luhansk State Symphony Orchestra (renamed the DSO just this year as a public relations move) proved themselves exceptionally dedicated and willing to work at becoming a viable commercial venture, which is exactly what both Gessl and Schmid wanted.
Gessl enjoys the music the orchestra plays, but likes promoting them just as much.
“I’m purely commercial,” Gessl says of his contribution to the project. “I like doing the consulting, the financing, the press work and all the rest.” Few outside eastern Ukraine are familiar with the Donbass Symphony Orchestra, but that’s what Gessl, his six-person team managing the project, and Schmid want to change.
The DSO is currently a state-run orchestra whose musicians earn salaries of between $40 and $50 per month. Since working with the DSO fulltime beginning in October 2002, Schmid has brought them a taste of international visibility, which came when he and Gessl organized several DSO concerts in Austria, including in Vienna, in February of 2003. The occasion was the ACC’s 10th year of activity in Ukraine. It was a successful tour, Gessl states in his matter-of-fact way.
“Austrians love classical music. These new types of [electronic] or trendy music aren’t so popular in Austria, but classical music is always popular,” he says, taking a sip from his glass of Obolon Premium (Hr 3.60 for 300 ml).
Beneath the Surface
Over kimchee and tofu soup, Gessl dives into more specifics.
His team at the ACC is looking after all of the fine points of the salt-mine concert, including recording the whole affair. Compact disc sales will hopefully popularize the orchestra within Ukraine and without.
“[The orchestra] is a quality product and we believe people should be willing to pay for the quality,” he says. Previous CDs by the orchestra, of which there are five, have been used almost solely for promotional purposes, rather than as an income-generator. One of those CDs was recorded during the ACC’s 10th anniversary concert in Vienna.
The composers listed on the various CDs testify to the range of composers the DSO has tackled: They’ve played music by Ukrainian composers Semen Gulak-Artemovskiy and Myroslav Skoryk as well as canonical material by the likes of Johann Strauss and Mozart. These composers, in fact, will all be part on the program Oct. 2 in Artemivsk; Ukrainian opera star Viktoria Lukyanets will sing.
Nascent Fears
Promotion of the concert has only just begun, and Gessl knows that some people will be hesitant to enter an underground mine. To assuage fears, Gessl shows me photos taken inside the mine and tells me some interesting facts about it. The interior, for one thing, is huge: It measures 120m by 30m by 25m – big enough that earlier this year a team of Ukrainians used it to attempt to set a world record for the lowest continuous hot air balloon flight, staying in the air underground for more than 24 hours (the record has yet to be authenticated by the Guinness Book of World Records).
He also says it’s completely safe inside a salt mine, whose structure and chemical composition are such that there are no poisonous or explosive gases inside (the balloon flight would not have been possible otherwise); and to make the event more attractive yet, a four-course gourmet meal will be served to attendees as part of the whole package.
Gessl’s confident the event will be a success, but his goals are modest.
“Our minimum goal is to break even,” he says, “but to make money would be even better. We want to move beyond CD sales and see if the DSO can get a recording contract.”
Hankook Wan
24/104 Tolstoho/Zhylyanska, 244-3809.
Open daily from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.
English menu: No.
English-speaking staff: No.
The Symphony in Salt
by the Donbass Symphony Orchestra
and conductor Kurt Schmid, featuring Viktoria Lukyanets.
Saturday, Oct. 2, Artemivsk, Donetsk oblast.
For more information, please contact
Ms. Johanna Wohlmeyer by email at
or call (044) 496-0232.
