Reported by Brad Penner, STATEWIDE Correspondent.

If you listen and you look, you might notice a connection between the symphony and the Sandhills. The music and the landscape are full of subtle shadings, beautiful details and broad, enormous power. It all came together on a blustery, gray December day in Hyannis.
"I noticed it wasn't in Bold print on the map and my grandparents who are from Nebraska -- they live in Omaha -- they laughed and they said well, you better bring a book."
The Omaha Symphony Chamber Orchestra came to Hyannis High as part of its annual tour around the state.
"This is our third stop. It's the fourth day. We had a pleasant Monday off in Scottsbluff. Yeah, that was nice. How big is Hyannis?"
[Ernest Richardson, Conductor] "You're in the bus, you're in the hotel and you're in the bus and then you get to the concert site and you have a chance to play and then you're on the bus. It's difficult but it's also fascinating to see them working under those circumstances."
[Steve Erickson, Trumpet] "It's hard to leave home. I have a 5-year-old and an 8-year-old. It's difficult to be away like anybody has to be away on their job, but there's a lot of enjoyment involved in bringing the music to people across the state."
Steve Erickson grew up in Holdrege. He knows an orchestra concert is a rare event in a small town. But he also knows there's an eager audience in rural Nebraska.
[Erickson] "It's a great feeling, you know, because we play for people who are in the same situation that I was in, people who have probably never heard an orchestra and it's their first experience with it."
In Hyannis the morning included two concerts for area students.
[Richardson] "Each instrument has its own particular color and each choir of instruments have their own particular colors as well. We're going to kind of experiment with that and show you different ways the composers can use the orchestra. The first piece we're going to play is by the composer Osini."

A performance of "Peter and the Wolf" drew the audience in.
"The meadow is very dangerous place and I don't want you going out there because there's big, hairy wolf with large teeth that live in forest. Okay?"
[Richardson] "What instruments represent the wolf?..." "Yes?" "The horns." "Very good." "We know that we're making at least an immediate impact. I trust the power of music to make that impact for us. If we set up the parameters well and give them an opportunity to hear music, then the power of music to speak to kids is really strong and so I know that that can make an impact."
[Paul Ledwon, Cellist] "n Germany, the kids grow up with that music and they don't need a special concert to go to. So here I think that's very important what we're doing, bringing the music to the kids who don't normally hear it, who don't grow up with it."
[Maria Harding, Flutist] "I think that's one of the nice things about being involved in a mid-sized orchestra is we are able to tour to some of these smaller places." "The major orchestras maybe tour but they tour to the major cities, and orchestras any smaller than this don't have the budget that enables them to tour."
[Sheryl Ferguson, Hyannis teacher] "One of the things I try to impress upon my students was just how unique this was of an opportunity."
"Thank you all very much."
"Good job."
[Faye Ann Blaylock, teacher] "It's just so wonderful to help them live other kinds of music. And you can listen to it on the computer, you can listen to it on a record or tape, but for them to see those instruments and to talk about the different instruments and teach them all the different sounds and how all of that can be expressed is really a wonderful opportunity for these kids that live a long ways from that sort of thing."
For the musicians every minute counts. A tight schedule cuts down practice time.
[Richardson] "Greg is the soloist for tonight's concert so he has to catch minutes off the bus with the cello to keep his hands in shape and to keep his memory sharp of what he is playing. And these two oboists are fabulous. As much as a quarter of the notes that they play tonight are totally invented by them which is what they're supposed to do and they change it every single day. They have new ornaments and new ideas. They were just putting together a couple more ornaments for tonight's performance."
[Richard Lohman, Concertmaster] "We want to play our best and sometimes that's difficult because you're out in a small town and you think oh, well, you can kind of slide by and these people won't know any better, but they do know better and they do know a good performance when they hear one. Our goal is to light a little fire under people, get them interested in music and get them perhaps to the point where they number one, where they want us back in town and number two, where maybe they'll come to Omaha or go to another town and get involved in music a little bit more."
[Al Davis, Hyannis pers Promoter]
"About 15 years ago the symphony was here and people have asked me ever since when are you going to have them back, when are you going to have them back. "And so I kind of thought well, we better do that."
Al Davis heads up a local pers group called Village Players Incorporated. He says they bring in a variety of pers performers every year. The Nebraska pers Council paid close to half of the $11,000 bill to bring the symphony to town. Local sponsors and the grant from the Omaha Symphony Guild also covered some of the costs.
[Davis] "For an artist if you came from New York City or Los Angeles and you came here, you would probably think Hyannis, Nebraska is such a small town, there can't be anything going on here. But when they get here, they realize that the people here really do have a life that they live, you know, and a busy one, too."
But there wasn't much time to take in the local sights. Members of the orchestra had just a couple of hours for recreation and rest at the Hyannis hotel.
"We're having a great time."
[Lohman] "Your home routine of warming up and working and practicing and routines you settle into at home, of course, is all broken so you got to be just prepared for that. Before you go on tour, you've got to be ready musically to come along so that you don't have to work on the music while you're on tour because you don't have time or the space to do that. I hate sitting on the bus for long hours. That's what is physically tired for me. We all try to make sure we get some exercise off the bus when we're in the towns because that helps."
[Mary Bircher, harpist] "Some days you really haven't had time to play your instrument at all that day and we're used to being able to warm up and spend time practicing and sometimes you can't do that. For me, I have to tune the harp. The harp is very temperamental and when it gets moved in and out, it goes out of tune and a lot of times there's really not a lot of time to tune so we get used to dealing with less than perfect situations. I think it's wonderful that we bring the orchestra out to any part of the state other than Omaha. It really is Nebraska's orchestra, and I think it's really important that we play out here as much as we can. In the city sometimes people can kind of take it for granted. They think it's always going to be there which really isn't true. I mean, you know, any of the pers we can't afford to take any of them for granted. But I think out here people really do appreciate it because they know that it's a real special thing and they don't have that choice of going to the symphony once a month or every other week or something."
[Davis] "I think in a small community you have people that feel they have to get out and support the events that go on there whether it be the football game or the basketball game or the pers council events or whatever. So there's a lot of community obligation I guess we'll say."
Al Davis' mother was among the first to take a seat for the concert. She was a little skeptical about her community's interest in the event.
[Jean Davis]
"It's great that they have them. I just wonder whether the people out hire appreciate that. They go more for rodeos than they do for music."
That may be true but her son, Al, says you might be surprised at how many radios in pick-up trucks are tuned to classical music on Nebraska Public Radio. A.B. Cox is one of the local classical music fans.
[A.B. Cox] "The pers Council makes the effort to bring them out here. We've really enjoyed them in the past. Scout's in band. She's interested in that sort of thing. We just like to support them. Plus they're awful good."
[Shirley Rothwell] "We like this kind of music. How often in this area do we get to listen to something like this. We came from Arthur 35 miles south of here."
[Brenna Rothwell] "I like it because it's loud and it's pretty and it's amusing. The violins can get so high. I play the flute so that's my favorite."
[Alex Ross, violinist] "People in the smaller towns really appreciate it. You always have a really receptive and really excited audience. Often in Italy -- I did a tour in Italy once where we didn't even know if the concert was going to occur or what kind of hall it was going to be in and we would show up and people would just somehow magically appear. It was always incredibly enthusiastic reception. We found that on this tour, too."
[Harding] "It makes all the riding on the bus, and digging in the bag for your toothbrush, all those painful things, it all makes it worth while when people are receptive and appreciative."
[Richardson]"If you decide to go into the pers and you're in the performing pers, the motivation to reach people, to give them something that they can't get in any other way has to be one of the great things that motivates you to do the work you do because it's a very difficult profession, very challenging, very competitive and so the notion that for an hour or 45 minutes or whatever the timeframe is that you have that you can bring something into another person's life, that's a really important thing. So whether they're in Hyannis or whether in Omaha, if that happens, then sort of your internal mission for doing all this work is met and that's very gratifying."
The mission was accomplished in Hyannis but there was little time to enjoy it. Another town was waiting at the end of a two-lane highway, waiting for its chance to hear the music.