It’s Sunday in the park with the maestro, as members of the Golden Gate Park Band, in crimson jackets and caps, file onto the stage at the music concourse. During a brief rehearsal before the show, Maestro German Gonzalez moves gracefully between the podium and the microphone, his expressions changing fleetingly with the music, a radiant smile occasionally flashing across his face.
“I get pretty excited when the band plays something really well. I go, ‘’YEAH!!’”
He conducts with no wasted gestures, joyfully raising his baton as his impressive, Beethoven-esque head of hair gleams in the sunshine.
Dr. Gonzalez’s career had an improbable start: In sixth grade, he desperately wanted to be in the school band, but his parents said there was no money for an instrument. As luck would have it, however, his older sister was dating a guy whose brother had a trumpet in his closet.
And so, a career was launched.
Born in South San Francisco and raised in Pacifica, the fourth of six siblings, Dr. Gonzalez is a trumpet player, music educator, conductor and musical director who realized a dream in April when he was appointed music director and principal conductor of the Golden Gate Park Band.
This wind band, the oldest musical organization in San Francisco, (established 1882), is made up of 30 unionized, professional musicians who perform more than 25 concerts a year. For free.
As they do every Sunday, from April through Oct. 6, Dr. Gonzalez and his band will perform today at 1 p.m. at the Spreckels Temple of Music in the park.
As a kid, he attended their concerts with his family.
His parents, born in the United States but raised in Camargo, Chihuahua, Mexico, listened to Mexican love songs and rancheros on the radio, and kept Louis Armstrong, Herb Alpert, and swing bands stacked up on the turntable. His dad played the bugle, but there were few signposts guiding him toward a musical career.
Talent, grit, beloved mentors, a willingness to take jobs from Minnesota to Oregon, but mostly a passion for a life in music — all were factors in his 50-year career.
Now 71, though retired from teaching music, he works multiple gigs. For his Sunday concert, he begins preparing on Fridays and Saturdays. “I do final score study, and then I write the script to introduce each piece we will perform. I also prepare, note by note for the band’s run-through before the concert. It’s only an hour rehearsal, and I plan it minute by minute.”
He and the band’s librarian choose the program for each concert, based on various themes: Baseball, spooky October, Vviva Mexico, Scottish folk with dancers, Ukrainian.
Oh yes, one other criterion: “I can only pick three difficult pieces.” Otherwise, he says, the musicians “get pretty pissed off.”
This means they don’t play Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, but they play the Holst Suites beautifully.
“The better I know the piece, the better they play it!” he says.
Additionally, he is the music director and conductor of the Swingmasters Big Band on Wednesdays in Sacramento, and the fill-in conductor for the Peninsula Symphonic Band during the summer in Palo Alto.
Plus, he plays in a brass quintet he founded.
“When I graduated, I thought I was gonna be the brass guru.”
His expressive face creases into a deep smile. “That’s what all musicians do: the better you are, the more gigs you have. Everyone does the best they can to fill their time with as much music-making as they can. “
The truth is, it’s the rare musician or conductor who has one steady gig.
It’s a life very different from his father’s, who had two jobs: As a sausage maker at the Swift sausage factory, and in maintenance at the Olympic Club. Mom was a homemaker. They worked hard raising six kids, but there was no money for music lessons.
So he never had private lessons until his senior year of high school, when he also became the drum major in the Oceana (Pacifica) High School Marching Band. And, as a tribute to dad, he became the brass instructor of a drum and bugle corps, which he kept up through college.
He attended San Jose State as a music major, sweating out the first two years on probation.
“My grades were fine, but they said my playing was not up to par. I used to lurk outside the practice rooms and listen to how other trumpet players rehearsed and practiced.”
Living cheaply with five guys off-campus, he played in multiple ensembles: Trumpet with the San Jose State Marching Band and Concert band, brass quintet, the pit orchestra for musicals like West Side Story and the concert band.
It set the pattern for his life. So many bands, so little time!
He graduated in 1976 with a bachelor’s degree in music and a K-12 teaching credential. For the next 20 years, he taught music and was director of bands at Sacramento schools. And he fell in love with conducting. “When I was leading the bands, I noticed the kids played a lot better, the better I conducted. So I started to focus more on my conducting. And the kids paid much better attention, especially when I didn’t say anything, when I conducted in total silence, using facial expressions, body movement and postures.”
In 1995, he earned a master’s degree in conducting at Sacramento State, but found he couldn’t get a college job without a doctorate. So in 1999, in his mid-forties, he moved to Tempe, Arizona, to get his D.M.A. (doctorate of musical arts) at Arizona State University, where he was associate conductor of the bands. But it wasn’t easy being the oldest student,
“Twenty-year-olds don’t want to hang with 40-year-olds.”
He landed a one-year position as interim director of bands at St. Cloud State University, in St. Cloud, Minnesota, where “there were no tacos, and not very many brown people.”
He still had a thesis to write and, by his own admission, he is not a words guy.
Luckily, he fell in love with a writer and editor in St. Cloud, “so I moved in with her, quit my job, and wrote and wrote and read and read and read. I’d thought it was impossible for me to write a thesis, but she helped me soooo much: ‘Just write what you think, and I will edit it for you.'”
In 2003, he moved to Oregon with his girlfriend to be near his two young nephews after their father’s death. That’s where he was working as a conductor when his parents came up from Pacifica to see him perform,
“At an outdoor concert in Eugene, Mom was in line for the bathroom when she turned to the lady behind her (who happened to be the wife of my best friend in the band) and declared loudly,
“‘My son is the conductor!’”
Though he hadn’t followed his siblings into traditional lives: 9-to-5 jobs, marriage and kids, his parents GOT him.
So, in 2008, when his relationship ended and his parents’ health began to fail, he came home to the Bay Area to care for them. He cobbled together a few jobs in music, then found conducting work with the SF Civic Symphony, a community-based band,and led it for five years.
After his parents died, he saw the job opening with the Golden Gate Park Band in 2017.
He didn’t get it that time.
But in 2022, when the conductor quit, Gonzalez was invited to audition again as part of a nationwide search. He nailed it, first as associate music director and conductor and, this April, as music director and head conductor.
On the past July 4, a special holiday concert for the Golden Gate Park Band, the atmosphere was festive when the band took the stage. San Franciscans of all glorious stripes settled in. Children spun and danced in anticipation, picnickers spread blankets, lovers embraced, elderly listeners tapped their walkers and canes. Dr. Gonzalez turned to welcome the crowd with his trademark warmth and brief witty introductions to the music.
“Twenty-five concerts is a lot of work,” he said later. “but I am having a great time!”
What a Gem!
What a gem and so San Francisco. Loved the biopic of G. Gonzalez’s Bay Area roots as a lover of music and now a conductor. Sounds like a twinkling personality as well as musical gift to local orchestras.
An inspiring and fascinating life! Naomi is a wonderful writer and storyteller. I can’t wait to see German in person!
I did.. He is even more charming than you can ever imagine
An inspiring story of how one can achieve one’s dream through perseverance even against the odds. Naomi always finds the most fascinating people and really distills the best of their stories. Colin always finds a way to nail their essence with his insightful pictures. More!!!
Great artical! Bravo
I never knew about the free concerts, with professional musicians, no less! I’m so happy Dr. Gonzalez got the gig after a lifetime of following his passion. And what a fabulous head of hair he’s got, just like Beethoven, as the author pointed out. I loved the warmth of the profile and how each part of the story portrayed Dr. Gonzalez’s dedication and love for music.
Love this very human and inspiring story! Please profile more artists, especially those who have persevered and grown in mid and later life.
yes david… those who have persevered and frown in mid and later life
I’ve loved learning about all the different people in the Mission and Naomi’s perspective on their lives and what they bring to the community! Thank you Mission Local and thank you Naomi!
What a lovely article! I’d love to see the repertory for one of their concerts.
Loved this article so much by Naomi Marcus about Maestro Gonzalez that I went to the free concert at The Golden Gate Oark Bandshell this past Sunday!
It was totally delightful, well attended & so appreciated by the enthusiastic audience.
Ms Narcus should be commended for introducing us all to the marvelous deserving ndividuals she exposes & delights us all to get to know in our community!
Thank you,
Lizbeth Fuentes Risner
It is so cool to hear how he made, and makes, music his career! And gets to be part of giving music to the public for free. I love all these personal profiles of people in Mission Local, I think it helps us all imagine the depth of the stories of the people around us in the city.