POPS LOVE, POPS LIFE: THE VERY TRUE AWESOME STORY OF ZACK & LIZ ROSENTHAL

ZACK ROSENTHAL

CURRENT POSITION: Customer Success Manager at Evergage

LOCATION: Arlington, Massachusetts

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN DEGREE: BA in Political Science and Music

GRADUATION YEAR: 2009

ACTIVITIES AT MICHIGAN: Michigan Pops Orchestra, Sweetland Writing Center peer tutor, College Democrats

MICHIGAN POPS ORCHESTRA INSTRUMENT: Viola

LIZ (STOVER) ROSENTHAL

CURRENT POSITION: Associate Director of Performance Operations at Celebrity Series of Boston

LOCATION: Arlington, Massachusetts

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN DEGREE: BA in English and Music

GRADUATION YEAR: 2008

ACTIVITIES AT MICHIGAN: Michigan Pops Orchestra, University Musical Society Intern, UROP in Residence

MICHIGAN POPS ORCHESTRA INSTRUMENT: Violin 

Listen to a Stoventhal Pops favorite while you read about their Pops Life!

A CONVERSATION WITH THE ROSENTHALS

KELLY COMPTON, our Pops Life Correspondent, chats with Zack and Liz as they reminisce on how they met and how they fell in love. Enjoy the wonderful story of this Pops power couple!

KC: Liz, I just moved to Seattle and understand that you grew up here! What brought your family to Ann Arbor?

Liz: My family moved to Ann Arbor in 2002 before my junior year of high school because of my dad’s job. I would have never thought I’d end up going to the University of Michigan had we not moved to the Midwest! At the time I was in denial that my family had uprooted us from Seattle, but it didn’t take me very long to fall in love with Michigan.

KC: Zack, where did you grow up?

Zack: I grew up in the Boston area! I’m from Lexington, MA, which as you’ve heard in the history books, was the site of the start of the Revolutionary War. We’re very proud of that. I was there basically my whole childhood. My mom went to Michigan, but that wasn’t necessarily the reason I went there; it was honestly the best school I got into. But I quickly fell in love with Michigan and Ann Arbor, like Liz.

KC: Were you two in the same year at Michigan?

Zack: No, I’m class of ‘09 and she was class of ‘08.

Liz: BUT, I’m only 12 days older than Zack!

KC: Did you both join Pops pretty soon after you each started at Michigan?

Liz: I started my second semester of my freshman year, because I didn’t get in my first semester! I auditioned right away because I’d actually gone to a couple of Pops concerts in high school; we got extra credit for going to shows in orchestra. I think I’d seen “Pops in Space” and “Fantasy Pops,” and I thought it sounded fun. So I did audition, but Chris Lees did not let me in the first time. I played in Campus Phil that semester, and then I auditioned again in the Winter, got in for my second semester, and stayed in the rest of the time.

Zack: I auditioned right away and got in. I used to get really bad audition anxiety, and I had auditioned for CSO and had a really sh*tty audition. I got the shakes pretty bad, which is not great for a string player. I got into CPO instead and was pretty disappointed by that (because I’m snooty). Then I auditioned for Pops! I distinctly remember the Pops audition - Chris Lees was there, and I think Tom McDonough, who is the older brother of the McDonough twins. They were messing around with some of the props in UAC and found a cowboy hat. I made a comment about the hat, and they said, “Why don’t you wear the hat while you audition?” I was like, “Okay, great!” So I was totally at ease. I did very well in the audition. Liz must have had a great audition that year too, because she was the second chair second violin!

Liz: Yeah, I was actually kind of disappointed about that because I had been enjoying playing in the back of the seconds! When I got seated up front, I was like, “Sh*t I actually have to play well and pay attention now.” I remember being very intimidated by Carolyn Nishon because she was super intense with her pencil, taking every little note and making so many marks in her part, so I thought, “Wow, this is going to be a very different year in Pops than I expected.”

Zack: She sat there, and I was the second chair viola that year. So we were in the “inner circle.” We sat next to each other but were playing on different instruments.

KC: Were either of you ever the section leader?

Zack: I think I was for three years; I took over after Kathy Blanchard left (she was a few years ahead of us and did a semester in Russia).

Liz: I was always second chair, in either the firsts or seconds. I don’t think I was section leader. I wouldn’t have really wanted to be. I wasn’t that good. There might have been a social aspect to where Chris put me because I was very surprised musically at where he placed me! But yeah, that determined a very large part of the rest of my life, so it worked out. And here we are!

KC: Were either of you ever on the E-Board?

Liz: Yeah!!! You’re talking to a Pops power couple here! After that year when we sat next to each other, we both interviewed to be on the Board for my Junior year/his Sophomore year. We were named co-Publicity Directors together; I was External Publicity and Zack was Internal, and then my senior year I was Executive Director and Zack followed me. We are a dynasty! (HAHA just kidding)

Zack: We still hold the record (as far as we know) for the most attendance at a concert as Publicity Directors –

Liz: YES, very important, Kelly!

Zack: I believe the number is 1215 people, not like we keep score or anything every year.

Liz: There’s a part of me that hopes someone beats our record, but REALLY, deep down…

KC: Now tell me the Pops love story! When did it all happen?

Liz: It depends on who you ask! Just kidding…

Zack: Liz was dating somebody during my first year in Pops. I hadn’t really been in a serious relationship before but was meeting lots of girls partying, etc. [Liz giggling in background] I was very interested in and attracted to Liz and wanted to be her friend, but I knew she was taken so I wasn’t really putting a lot of energy there beyond trying to be a good friend of hers. We joined a quintet together the second half of that year and played the Brahms Piano Quintet. We got to know each other pretty well then, plus with going to the Pops parties and such we became genuinely good friends. In the back of my head I was still interested in her, but it never seemed like it was going to happen because she was dating someone.

Liz: The summer between my sophomore and junior years, I went to Paris to study abroad, and then the relationship ended when I got back.

Zack: When she was in Paris, I’d be out partying with my friends from home and would go to bed at 3am, right when Liz would be waking up in Paris. We always chatted on AIM. It was just friendly chatting – we knew we were going to be working together as co-Publicity Directors the next year, so we were building the friendship. We spent a ton of time together the next year when we were co-Publicity Directors, doing hand-billing, setting up the mass meeting, postering, etc. Then, what happened next?

Liz: Well, that fall when we were back, you made your first move and asked me out. I declined…

Zack: You kept me going for two weeks, and THEN you declined!

Liz: I strung him along a little bit. I was very torn! I knew that we were good friends and that we had a lot of work together coming up with Pops, and so much of our social life was so intertwined in Pops that I was very hesitant to go there. I didn’t want that to be ruined. I said no - not because I wasn’t interested in Zack, but because it could have messed everything up.

Zack: A lot of tension noticed by our friends, though, I think…

Liz: Yeah, there was a little bit of chasing and a lot of our friends wondering if it was ever going to happen. Then came Valentine’s Day of 2007. Zack had given me a few months after I had declined him, and then in February we were on our way to octet rehearsal. After I went to rehearsal, Zack got my roommate to let him in to our apartment, and he left me flowers and chocolates and a really nice card. During rehearsal I was kind of a b**** to him [laughs], then I got home later and saw this lovely gesture from Zack, which I decided to take as a nice act of friendship. Another year went by with much friendship and good times and our friends wondering if this would ever happen. Then Valentine’s Day 2008 came along, me a couple of months from graduating and not really knowing what I would do next, and I decided to ask Zack if he would meet me at Charley’s.

Zack: We both had to work that night. I worked at the Sweetland Writing Center –

Liz: And I was interning at UMS. We met at Charley’s and after a few Purple Rain long islands and Dirty Girl Scout shots, plus much flirting and laying all of our feelings on the table, Liz and Zack became a thing.

Zack: ….And then they became not a thing three weeks later, because she broke up with me! Then we became another thing three weeks after that. There was some false start action going on.

Liz: Things were a little weird after that; it felt strange to be a thing after all that time, so I called it off, and Zack gave me the silent treatment. Then I decided if it was all or nothing, I would take all.

Zack: I’m not sure if silent treatment is the right description for that.

Liz: Well, yeah – you were rightfully unhappy.

Zack: March 28, 2008 was the last time that we had a break in our relationship!

KC: What was the reaction from all of your Pops friends when they found out?

Zack: Probably “FINALLY!” A lot them were likely sick of hearing about it from me.

KC: Liz – after you graduated, did you come back for all of Zack’s Pops concerts?

Liz: After I graduated, I hung around in Ann Arbor for that summer and didn’t really know what I was going to do. I ended up accepting a job in Baltimore with the symphony, but then a couple weeks before I left, UMS at Michigan offered me a job which I decided to take instead - it was hard to turn down after working there as an intern, and Zack was a factor, I guess! He was still a year out from graduating so he didn’t know where he was going to end up.

Zack: I had a plan to do Teach for America in Baltimore, but it was a loose plan and I didn’t get in.

Liz: I decided to stay and take that job, which was a really good decision! I went to a lot of the Pops concerts but it was surprisingly difficult for me to be there but not be part of the orchestra anymore. I knew that I had to step away and let everyone else have their orchestra. BUT Zack was certainly around a lot to tell me everything that was going on.

Zack: It was a weird year!

KC: What were some of your favorite moments from your time in Pops?

Zack: I really loved the “Victors and Villains” show, which was Liz’s show as Executive Director. We had the conductor, Alex Sutton, and the assistant conductor, Chris Roundtree do a light saber fight to “Duel of the Fates” from Star Wars. It was a really great sketch; Chris was dressed as a Jedi, and we played the whole thing without a conductor. They had a pretty epic choreographed fight in the audience.

Liz: My favorite was the “Best of Pops” concert, which was my sophomore year (10th anniversary concert!). It was Chris Lees’ last concert conducting us - it was a very emotional concert for that reason, and because a few beloved people were graduating. At that point, I realized that I had found my place and my people, so it was a wonderful moment. “Pops in Paris” was also really memorable because that was our “Dream Team” year, with Carolyn and me and Zack.

Zack: Another favorite memory of mine: when I was Publicity Director, we had Diag Day the Friday before the concert (now I think Pops does “Conduct Us” during these!). I took publicity to new and exciting heights in terms of costumes to wear on the Diag that year. For “Pops at Sea” we tracked down a crab suit, so I was dressed as Sebastian. That was the 1v2 year for Michigan and Ohio State, and the day we were out there was actually the day Bo died. I remember standing in the middle of the Diag yelling, “I MAY BE WEARING RED, BUT I BLEED MAIZE AND BLUE!! GO SEE POPS!!!”

KC: Do you have a favorite musical moment together?

Zack: Harry Potter has some really challenging parts for the violins, as you may know. It does not have as many challenging parts for the violas. Kathy Blanchard and I would always laugh at Liz and Carolyn who were CLEARLY failing to play their parts properly.

Liz: That was…. not that nice [laughs]. For me, I do think our chamber music group had a pretty big impact on our eventual relationship.

Zack: Our quintet was made up of me + four ladies, so we called ourselves “Four Thorns and a Rose” (because I’m Zack ROSEnthal). I wore red and they all wore black.

Liz: We opened for “The Breakfast Club” quintet, which had Carolyn and Kathy and Chris Lees and a few other people. They did a recital and we got to be the opening act.

KC: Where are you two living nowadays and what are you both doing?

Zack: We live in the Boston area; we moved here about 2 ½ years ago from Ann Arbor so I could be closer to my family. It was a pretty big decision for us and it was something I had wanted for a long time. We’re good here, but there’s a lot of nostalgia for Ann Arbor; it’s a wonderful place to live as a young adult (and significantly cheaper). I work in digital marketing, even though I didn’t get a degree in that, and I’ve been in this field for about 5 years.

Liz: I also live here [laughs]. I worked at UMS for about 8 years after graduating, and when we first moved here I worked at Harvard in their Office for the Arts. I like to joke that I was a colleague of the guy who conducted the “Harvard Pops.” I still have not gone to see them, actually – I’ve always wanted to go watch and be a spy for Michigan Pops. Over this past summer I started a new job with the Celebrity Series of Boston, which is a big performing arts presenter here in Boston of classical music, dance, jazz, world music – very similar to UMS.

Enjoy highlights from Liz’s UMS career!

Liz: Well the big missing piece of our story that we haven’t told yet is that when we got married 4 ½ years ago (in October 2014), we involved a lot of orchestra “stuff” into our wedding. Chris Lees, who was our conductor for some of our time in Pops and who was the one who sat us where we sat (next to each other), officiated our wedding. That was really special.

Zack: It was a perfect role for him because –

Liz: He is a conductor still.

Zack: I was going to say because he uses way too many adjectives whenever he talks and is a very descriptive person! He was spot-on.

Liz: He played a big part in our wedding! We even made sure to stand in our Pops positions; I had to stand on the side of the violins, and Zack stood on the side of the violas, even though I think usually it’s the opposite way for brides and grooms. We also had a quartet of current Pops students play at our wedding, so that was very special.

Zack: And we had 3 former Pops members in our wedding party; Carolyn and Kathy were bridesmaids, and Nate Friedman, who was on the Pops Board, played cello, and is one of my best friends, was my groomsman. It was cool because Nate had gotten married earlier that year, and I had introduced him to his wife. It was a neat time for both of us to be getting married the same year and be in each other’s weddings and such.

Liz: We’ve stayed in touch with Carolyn and Kathy a lot; the nice thing about being out here now is that Carolyn runs the Portland Symphony up in Maine, so we’re only about a two-hour drive, if that, from each other. We try to see each other occasionally or plan a weekend here and there to visit. We went up in November when Chris was conducting up there, and Kathy came out to visit. Another Executive Director, Steve Skripnik, lives there too so we see him every once in a while.

Zack: We also went to Tom McDonough’s wedding over the summer! That was a nice reunion for all of us, plus it was great to see his two younger brothers who were also in Pops. Whenever we see everyone it’s like we just pick up where we left off.

KC: Warren also told me that he credits you guys with indirectly starting MPA!

Liz: Well, Zack and I and a couple of our friends might have been responsible for Warren’s “rebirth” of Pops in the last couple of years; he came out to Ann Arbor for the 20th anniversary concert, and when we heard he was coming, we were like, “Hey, come hang out with us and our Pops alumni friends!” We weren’t sure if he would think that we were totally wacko or love us. Through that, I think he kind of re-fell in love with all of the stuff that he started.

KC: Someone should make a Pops documentary about you two!

Liz: Carolyn might have that in her back pocket somewhere… or maybe Warren can do that someday as a retirement project.

STOVENTHAL FAVORITES!

LIZ//ZACK

NETFLIX SHOW TO BINGE WATCH: Veep! // Game of Thrones

HARRY POTTER CHARACTER: Neville Longbottom is looking pretty good these days // As is Ginny Weasley, but I always enjoyed Fred and George’s humor

RESTAURANT MEAL TOGETHER: the wild boar bolognese and asparagus tempura at Logan in Ann Arbor // Samesies

DISNEY RIDE: Kilimanjaro Safaris in Animal Kingdom - love seeing all the animals! // Splash Mountain -- just a big kid at heart

ODD HABIT OF YOUR SWEETIE: Zack occasionally gets sneeze attacks which can go on for 20 sneezes or so! // Liz obsessively sets alarms 24 hours before Southwest flights so she can check in and get in the "A" group

HOLIDAY MEMORY: My first stint at chamber music was playing Christmas music together with my grandma, sister, and cousins on piano, cello, flute, voice, and violin…it was fun performing for our family! // Cooking latkes together with Liz has become an annual tradition for Chanukah, and we are really good at it!

2/1/19