Putting stock in where the wind blows
Hulkas endow Carolina Wind Quintet
What is it about music and medicine?
Carolina’s Department of Music seems to have a special exit door for undergraduates marked “this way to medical school.” The School of Medicine itself once had a group of players who met regularly to practice and perform for their colleagues. And Chapel Hill’s thriving community orchestra, the Philharmonia, has a healthy share of physician-players.
Jerry and Barbara Hulka at home in their music studio (Photo by Steve Exum)
Whatever the source of this mysterious affinity, Barbara
and Jaroslav Hulka certainly share it. The Hulkas, retired
UNC faculty members in public health and medicine, recently
gave a $200,000 endowment to support the Carolina Wind
Quintet, a professional chamber ensemble-in-residence at
the Department of Music in the University’s College
of Arts and Sciences.
“We wanted to express our genuine appreciation for
the music department and all it has done for
us—providing the hall, providing the conductor,
providing the [sheet] music,” said Jerry, who has
played for years in the Chapel Hill Philharmonia, a
community orchestra conducted by Professor Donald Oehler.
“These were things I used to take for granted,”
Jerry said. “Now I realize it was an act of
generosity on the part of the music department for a
community activity. I wanted to say, gee, thanks for all
the good evenings you allowed us to have at rehearsals and
concerts.”
“And for enriching our lives,” Barbara said.
Provost Bernadette Gray-Little, until recently dean of the
College of Arts and Sciences, said, “I am delighted
the Hulkas’ support of the Carolina Wind Quintet will
give more North Carolinians the chance to hear really
top-quality chamber music—and to enjoy the vitality
of the arts at Carolina.”
A wind quintet is a standard instrumental grouping in
chamber music: clarinet, flute, oboe, bassoon and French
horn. Two members of the Carolina quintet are UNC music
professors: Donald Oehler (clarinet) and Brooks deWetter
Smith (flute). Three are North Carolina Symphony players:
Michael Schultz (associate principal oboe and English
horn), John Pederson (principal bassoon) and Andrew McAfee
(principal French horn).
Oehler and Pederson are the quintet’s founding
members who got together in 1973 because, said Oehler,
“It’s just what wind players do. We find each
other and play wind quintets. We noticed over the years we
were getting better and more serious.” Very good and
very serious. Locally, only the Ciompi Quartet, a
professional string quartet based at Duke, has been in
existence longer. Still, the quintet’s members, with
their demanding jobs and other outside activities, could
perform only a few times a year.
The Hulkas’ gift will change that. Income from the
Jaroslav F. and Barbara S. Hulka Carolina Wind Quintet Fund
will free the three North Carolina Symphony members from
some of their other outside ventures so that they can
rehearse and perform more often with the group. The quintet
members expect to tour and record.
“All of us are excited by this reality,” Oehler
said. “The Hulkas have an understanding of what it
takes. I can’t think of two people more supportive of
the arts.”
Oehler also runs a week-long chamber music performance
workshop each June in Chapel Hill. The Hulkas always
attend—this year as the first week of four they spent
playing at workshops up and down the east coast (an
experience both “ecstatic” and
“exhausting” Barbara said).
The Hulkas became a duo in life through music. In the
1950s, Barbara Sorenson and Jerry Hulka were members of the
Harvard-Radcliffe orchestra. Barbara, a violinist, was
concertmaster; Jerry played French horn. The two were
selected to perform the Brahms horn trio (violin, French
horn and piano). “That trio was the basis of our
marriage,” Jerry said. “We’re still
playing it.”
After a master’s degree at Juilliard for Barbara and
medical school for both, they came to Chapel Hill in 1967.
Jerry, on the School of Medicine faculty, pioneered
laparoscopic surgery for gynecological disorders and
invented the Hulka clip, a sterilization procedure and
device. Barbara, in the School of Public Health, led the
development of molecular biology as a new tool in
epidemiology, chaired her department, was appointed a Kenan
professor, and led the national panel evaluating research
on a possible link between silicone breast implants and
auto-immune disorders.
Meanwhile, the Hulkas also reared three children and
managed to keep music in their lives. After both retired,
it was full speed ahead in music.
As listeners the Hulkas care deeply about excellence.
“We like to listen to top-quality performance,”
Jerry said. “That’s when blissful moments of
music occur.”
Both see the Carolina Wind Quintet, with proper support, as
a source of many blissful moments of music for a much wider
audience. The Hulkas also believe the professional ensemble
on campus can raise UNC’s profile in the arts.
Today at Carolina the arts are flourishing as never before,
with energetic collaborations among the Department of
Music, other College of Arts and Sciences departments, and
the new Carolina Performing Arts office. And Barbara and
Jerry Hulka, in giving as in playing, are right on the
beat.
Ginger Travis
The Carolina Wind Quintet performs next on Feb. 13 in
Memorial Hall. For more information on the Department of
Music’s concert schedule, visit music.unc.edu or call
919-962-1039. If you are interested in giving to the
Department of Music, contact Emily Stevens at 919-843-5285
or emily_stevens@unc.edu.