Ann Koonsman, longtime leader of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, has died
Ann Koonsman, longtime president and CEO of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, dirt bike rider and champion of international travel, died Monday after “significant health challenges,” the symphony announced Wednesday. She was 77.
Koonsman served as president and CEO from 2006 to 2011, following a brief retirement from her role as executive director, which she held from 1980 to 2004.
Koonsman grew up in Fort Worth and graduated from Paschal High School in 1961. She was a violinist at TCU, Texas Tech University and the Mannes College of Music in New York, and joined the symphony in 1976 as a violinist and assistant manager. She also served as vice president of development.
Koonsman told the Star-Telegram in 2011, after she announced her second and final retirement from the symphony, that it had been an incredible experience.
“I’d hope everyone can say that they have enjoyed their career as much as I have enjoyed mine,” she said.
Principal keyboardist Buddy Bray said he thinks other people enjoyed their careers at the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra as much as she did, in large part because of what she did for the organization.
Bray, who grew up in the South but was not a Texas native, said everything about Ann surprised him when he came to Fort Worth in 1986 to join the symphony.
At 22, Bray saw in her something he didn’t know could exist.
“I didn’t know you could be successful in the field of classical music if you sounded southern or you sounded Texan, but she proved you can,” Bray told the Star-Telegram.
Everything she did seemed to defy possibility, he said.
“I was just so impressed that there was someone who was able to build something so substantial out of thin air,” he said.
That something out of thin air under her leadership included selling out Carnegie Hall, playing in tours and international shows, including in China, and bringing Italian operatic tenor Luciano Pavarotti to perform in Fort Worth in 1992.
Bray said Koonsman had a knack for getting rid of some obstacles in what he called “a very Texan way” of doing things: she pretended the obstacles weren’t there and just kept pushing toward the symphony’s goals, never letting anything stop their progress.
Alann Sampson, an executive committee member with the symphony, said she never let frustrations at challenges she was facing show.
“Any time you lead an organization you do meet problems and then the challenge of working through those problems. She did it without a sweat,” Sampson said. “She met it head on, and never complained about it.”
Sampson said Koonsman was an inspiration to her.
“She really did put Fort Worth on the map as far as classical music capitals of the world,” Sampson said.
One of her proudest accomplishments, she said before her second retirement in 2011, was working as board president and creating the symphony’s Concerts in the Garden Summer Music Festival in 1990, a festival that, if it weren’t for the pandemic, would still be held this year. (Instead, the symphony will be hosting a July 4 concert at Dickies Arena.)
She said her inspiration to create the summer festival in Fort Worth came from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s outdoors performance at Ravinia Festival that year.
When Koonsman first took charge, the symphony’s annual budget was $1 million, according to a 2003 Star-Telegram profile. When she announced her first retirement in 2003, that budget had grown to $10 million. In 2011, when she retired as president and CEO, it had a $12 million budget, a 45-week concert season and an endowment valued at around $24 million.
That was in large part due to her ability to raise money.
“She loved to go out and get that financial support and she was so talented because she was so sincere about it,” Sampson said. “She did it, she knew it, she played it, she loved it. She was real.”
Her chance to lead as executive director was closely tied to her people skills, Leon Brachman, chairman of the board in 1980, told the Star-Telegram in 2003.
She didn’t disappoint. Brachman lamented in 2003 he wished Koonsman would stay as executive director for another 20 years.
Sampson said Koonsman’s passion for music was matched by her love for people.
“She was always so delighted to see you, to share the experience of the music with you,” Sampson said.
Koonsman made an impact on the institution that spurred its members and supporters to recognize her publicly.
At the symphony’s 2003 New Year’s Eve concert, Van Cliburn dedicated a performance of Tchaikovsky’s “Piano Concerto No. 1” to Koonsman, after she announced her first retirement, to thank her for service to the organization.
Bray said her absence from the symphony was definitely noticed, but the day she returned she got back to work as if she’d never left.
“You can’t narrow Ann down to anecdotes,” Bray said. “It was just a feeling that, as long as she was there, everything was fine.”
Her return to the symphony in 2006 wasn’t initially intended to last five years. Koonsman was asked to serve as interim president and executive chief after Katherine Akos announced a sudden resignation from the position, but in March that year the symphony announced she would be taking the job permanently.
Music Director Laureate Miguel Harth-Bedoya said her love for people first and music second defined her at work, but away from the symphony she was a down-to-earth person.
He recalled going to the Koonsmans’ country home in Parker County for a party and Ann Koonsman pulling out two four-wheelers. The woman with the big red hairdo, known to most as the person who made the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra a force to be reckoned with, told him not to worry about getting mud on his clothes and just to have fun.
“I had to try to catch up with her [on the four-wheelers],” Harth-Bedoya said. “I was having trouble keeping up with her dexterity.”
No matter the situation, he said Koonsman always treated him as an equal. She was around the age of his mother, he said, but she never seemed to acknowledge the gap in age or experience and always supported him.
“As soon as I arrived I told her we needed to play in Carnegie Hall. She said OK,” Harth-Bedoya said. “She said I would make it work musically, she would make it work logistically.”
And they did it.
Before joining the symphony, Koonsman toured the country with musician Ray Price and performed with names like Johnny Mathis and Glen Campbell. But her husband, Ron Koonsman, said one of her first starts in professional music was at Six Flags in Arlington.
Ron Koonsman said they met while she was performing with a summer concert series at Six Flags. He impressed her by showing up to a concert in a suit (he’d just come from a wedding) while others were wearing shorts, T-shirts and bathing suits.
He said some of his fondest memories are traveling with her, flying a prop plane while she rode with him, going to New Mexico to ride dirt bikes, and, most of all, spending time with their son Brandon and their grandchildren.
He said Ann Koonsman was a champion of the virtues of travel, going out of her way to take him, their son and, later, their grandchildren to Europe and Asia.
He said their first trip together was to Mexico, about a year after they were married. They took their car, at the time the cheapest they could find, and drove through the country for three weeks.
And while Ann Koonsman’s work was important to her, he said she always placed family above all else.
“She always made sure work was taken care of and she always did a good job in her career, but no matter what family came first, above all else,” Ron Koonsman said. “She loves family more than anything.”
Mercedes T. Bass, chairperson of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra board, said the orchestra is grateful for the work she did.
“We are heartbroken to hear of the passing of our beloved Ann Koonsman,” Bass said in the symphony’s release. “As everyone knows, she was the best president the FWSO had.”
Sampson said just by looking at a picture of Koonsman, anyone would have a sense of who she was just by her demeanor.
“Just looking at her kind of sums it up,” Samspon said. “Her sincerity. Her passion. You can just see it in her. ... There wasn’t anybody better.”
For Ron Koonsman, he said he will always remember the fun they had together, their love for each other and the partnership they built in every aspect of life from parenting to their respective careers.
A memorial service will be held Friday at 1 p.m. at Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth.
This story contains information from Star-Telegram archives.
This story was originally published June 23, 2021 at 1:59 PM.