Nico Snel: violinist, longtime symphony conductor, dies at 69
Mr. Snel, who died Thursday, was 69.
Music was his lifelong love, he told the Peninsula Daily News in an interview conducted days before his death for a cover story in Friday editions of the newspaper's Peninsula Spotlight entertainment magazine.
"Years ago," he said, "someone asked me what I would want on my tombstone, and I said: 'I hope I made a difference' or 'He made a difference.' "
Mr. Snel was diagnosed with a carcinoid tumor in 1985.
"He was the most courageous man I have ever known," said Marc Wendeborn, the symphony's business manager. "Even when he became very ill, he scheduled the treatments he needed around the orchestra's schedule."
Port Angeles, with a population of about 19,000, is one of the smallest cities in the nation to support a full orchestra. A search committee will spend the next two seasons looking for a new permanent conductor to succeed Mr. Snel.
"We'll probably never be able to replace Nico, but we'll be able to get someone who will come along, I imagine, in the manner we'd like them to," said Bal Balducci, president of the symphony's board and a member of the orchestra's percussion section.
Born in Alkmaar, Holland, Mr. Snel began studying music with his father, an accomplished musician and conductor. He started with piano and then moved on to violin, and began performing when he was about 8.
The family immigrated to the United States after World War II, when Mr. Snel was 15. An accomplished violinist, he went to Germany as a young man and served with the Seventh Army Symphony, becoming the organization's conductor in 1958.
In the 1960s and early '70s, he worked as a conductor for the Oakland, Calif., Light Opera and the Diablo Light Opera and as director of the Oakland Temple Pageant chorus and orchestra.
He moved to the Northwest in the late 1970s and conducted the Everett Youth Symphony for three years. He was named conductor of the Seattle Philharmonic in 1980, a position he held until 1995.
He became conductor of the Port Angeles Symphony in 1985, for a time serving both orchestras.
"He had great joy and sometimes a lot of fun with the music," said Balducci's wife, Kathy, a past president of the symphony board.
Board member Paul Crawford said one of his favorite memories of Mr. Snel involved a performance of a Shostakovich piece about the end of the war.
Mr. Snel turned to the audience and recalled his experience as an 11-year-old boy in Holland, standing in the street as Allied tanks rolled toward him. The tank in front stopped and a soldier lifted the hatch. He looked out, smiled and said, "Hi, y'all!"
"And he turned and gave the downbeat as the audience sat in tears and laughter," Crawford said.
Mr. Snel is survived by his wife, Sharon Diana Snel; seven of their eight children; his mother, Cornelia Rietkerk; brother Alma Jacob Snel; sisters Helena Cornelia Snel-Walker and Celia Snel-Page; 28 grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.
Funeral services will be held Thursday at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Port Angeles.
The Nico Snel Memorial Fund has been established at First Federal Savings and Loan.