Frances Darger, one of the longest employed musicians to ever play for the Utah Symphony, has died.
Darger, who in 1942, at age 17, joined what was to become the Utah Symphony and played there for 69 years, died July 30 of natural causes, her family said. She was 99.
When Darger retired in 2012, at age 87, she held the unofficial world record for the longest tenure any musician had performed with an orchestra. (A bassist with the Atlanta Symphony broke that record in 2016.)
“One thing about playing in the symphony orchestra [that] is so interesting is that you just have multiple generations in the workforce,” said Tad Calcara, principal clarinetist for the Utah Symphony since 1999. “A lot of the more senior members of the orchestra are people that were here [or] were hired by Maurice Abravanel, or prior to Abravanel, being part of the orchestra. Frances was one of them.”
Darger joined the orchestra when the symphony — then called the Utah State Symphony Orchestra — was just two years old.
Calcara said Darger “just had a fantastic memory, to recall so many of the details historically about the organization.”
Calcara said he and Darger really hit it off. His wife, Lynn Rosen, who is a violinist for the symphony and also plays the viola, ended up purchasing a house just up the road from Darger. Over the years, they carpooled to work together many times.
After Darger retired, she would check in on whatever repertoire the symphony was playing that week.
When Darger joined the symphony, Calcara said, the roster of musicians “was very much tilted to the male side of things. She was a real pioneer, a groundbreaker in changing that situation. … Frances deserves some credit for that, being one of the first back in the day when this was an exception, not the rule.”
Rosen, who joined the Utah Symphony in 1982, said she knew Darger had a “wonderful personality.”
“We got to be close friends … and later [on, she] became like a second mother to me,” Rosen said. “She was always bright-eyed, positive and cheerful.”
Rosen said she recalls every conversation with Darger to be engaging, that she was a “terrific listener.” As a musician, Rosen said you could “see [Darger’s] dedication.”
“She loved the music and the [guest] conductors,” Rosen said. “She was never afraid to play out.”
Barbara Scowcroft, a Utah Symphony violinist and the music director/conductor of its youth orchestras, said Darger always had an angle on how to solve issues that came up in the orchestra.
“She was on the picket line, when there was a couple of strikes, she was right there with everyone,” Scowcroft said. “She was such a solid colleague, and devoted to classical music.”
(Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune) Frances Darger holds her violin in 2005.
Hollywood, newspapers and family life
Darger was born Frances Edna Johnson in Salt Lake City on Nov. 30, 1924 — the third of five sisters.
Darger’s daughter, Peggy Sacher, said her grandmother “was a musician, and made sure [her daughters] all played instruments and sang.”
Calcara and Rosen recalled how Darger told them about how, as a high school student, she saw the vibraphonist Lionel Hampton before he became a soloist with the Utah Symphony. Decades later, Calcara said, she would get to work with Hampton, someone she looked up to.
Darger and her sisters, Sacher said, sang together, and “formed a swing quintet called the Johnson Sisters.”
In 1945, near the end of World War II, the sisters went to Los Angeles to catch their big break, Calcara said.
They sang on the radio and at the Hollywood Canteen, a club for military members that was co-founded by the movie stars Bette Davis and John Garfield. There, Sacher said, Darger met such celebrities as the ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his tuxedo-wearing dummy, Charlie McCarthy.
Calcara recalled Darger’s stories about the Johnson Sisters performing at the Hollywood Canteen. “She was very proud to show me the actual letter of gratitude from Bette Davis,” Calcara said. “[It said,] ‘Thanks for sharing your artistry and your musical abilities with the military personnel at the Hollywood Canteen during World War II.’”
After college, Sacher said, her mother worked as the society editor of The Salt Lake Telegram, then the afternoon edition of The Salt Lake Tribune. On May 28, 1948, Frances Johnson married Robert W. Darger, and the couple had three children together: Peggy, Amy and Bill. According to Peggy Sacher, their father supported “[Frances’] career with season tickets to the concerts and by always carrying her violin.” They were married for 50 years; Bob Darger died in 2008, at age 83.
According to a 1949 item in The Telegram, Frances Darger left the job of society editor before Sacher was born. But she didn’t stay away from newspapers.
“In the ‘50s, she wrote newspaper articles about beautiful houses in Salt Lake City, one house per article,” Sacher wrote. “It ran on Sundays. Her pen name was Georgia Holmes.” The tagline for the columns was “Georgia Holmes for Gorgeous Homes.”
On the road with Utah Symphony
Over her decades with the Utah Symphony, Darger’s favorite performance, Sacher said, was in 1966, at the base of the Acropolis in Athens.
In an interview with The Salt Lake Tribune in 2012, when she retired, Darger said, “it was so unbelievable for our orchestra to do that — to sit at the base of the Acropolis and play all that wonderful music.”
Calcara said one of his favorite memories of Darger was performing together in the freezing cold of Rice-Eccles Stadium, at the opening ceremony of the 2002 Winter Olympics.
Darger, Calcara said, was always curious. He recalled encountering her on the street in Vienna, on the way to see a place where Mozart composed a piece, or running into her in Berlin, where she said she was just exploring.
Sacher said her mother loved socializing. She kept up with friends from all over the world for more than 70 years, was involved in groups like Squeak and Squawk (a group of musicians that performed for one another on a monthly basis) and had many hobbies — from puppeteering to oil painting. She loved to travel, visiting all seven continents, and had “inexhaustible energy and enthusiasm.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Sacher said her mother watched the Metropolitan Opera broadcast daily, logging some 400 opera performances in total.
In Darger’s last months, Calcara said, she had been thinking about the uncertain fate of Abravanel Hall, Utah Symphony’s home since 1979 — and — whether it will be renovated or bulldozed in the new downtown revitalization plan proposed by the Smith Entertainment Group.
“She took great pride in being part of this organization, no matter what was happening,” Calcara said. “[Her] basic reaction was just absolutely appalled by this even being considered. [The hall] really is like a gift from her generation to future generations.”
Calcara said Darger talked to him about the hall’s future in late May. “She was just quite upset and we spoke about that quite a bit,” Calcara said. “Basically, she said, ‘Well, keep fighting, We’ve got to keep this place.’”
Darger is survived by her three children, Peggy Sacher (and her spouse, Richard), Amy Darger-Stewart (and her spouse, George) and Bill Darger; 12 grandchildren and 15 great grandchildren. Her husband and sisters died previously.
Funeral services are scheduled for Saturday, Aug. 31, at 10 a.m. at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Hilltop Ward, 589 E. 18th Avenue, Salt Lake City. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to the Utah Symphony.
