International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians (ICSOM) is with Paul Beck in Milwaukee, WI.

08/28/2026

This season we are pleased to feature the Music Librarians of your ICSOM orchestras! And here to kick off the series are Paul Beck and Matt Geise of the Milwaukee Symphony.

As a kid studying bassoon and growing up in Milwaukee, MSO Principal Librarian Paul Beck would attend Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra concerts and study the personnel roster in the program. One title caught his attention: Principal Librarian.

He wondered why a librarian was listed among the musicians?

Paul later went on to study bassoon performance at the Manhattan School of Music. A work-study position there introduced him to orchestral librarianship, and his career eventually took him to The Metropolitan Opera, The Juilliard School, and Mostly Mozart Festival before bringing him back to Milwaukee in 2016.

Today, Paul holds the same title he once noticed in those MSO programs: Principal Librarian.

Researching editions and comprehensively understanding orchestration, music history, music theory and copyright are essential skills for setting up the MSO for successful rehearsals and concerts long before the oboe sounds an A.

On a typical week working alongside Assistant Librarian Matt Geise, Paul may find a note in a players’ part that doesn't match the score. Matt may ask him to proofread an insert he created or a part he has transposed. A conductor may request a cut, or string principals may establish bowings that need coordination across the string body.

He absorbs the score while observing the period of music history and the composer's intentions. The orchestra librarian must be one of the best score readers in the whole organization, second only to the conductor.

It’s a career that began with bassoon, took him through Manhattan School of Music, Juilliard and The Met.

Eventually, it brought him back to the orchestra where he first wondered why the librarian was listed among the musicians.

: Courtesy of the Milwaukee Symphony Musicians

#musiclibrarians #mso #milwaukeesymphony #icsom

Matt Geise is the Assistant Librarian and Media Archivist at the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. You’ll often find in the library working on a number of tasks related to music preparation - fixing mistakes in parts, improving page turns, and otherwise striving to prevent problems in rehearsal. All of these are vital to ensure that even in programs that only rehearse once, no precious rehearsal time is wasted, and that the orchestra can produce the best possible artistic product.

Matt’s career in librarianship began at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he was introduced to the field as a work study assistant while pursuing a degree in viola performance. He found it was a way for him to synthesize his skills as a musician with his love for and knowledge of the classical repertoire, history, theory, and performance practice.

Since then, Matt has worked at the Santa Fe Opera, Music Academy of the West, and the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra. He joined the MSO in 2023 as the orchestra’s first full-time assistant librarian in over a decade, moving cross-country from New Orleans. To win his current position at the MSO, Matt competed against over 70 other applicants in a multi-round audition testing music preparation skills, repertoire knowledge, music theory, and performance practice.

Like many in the field, Matt believes a mastery of technology is critical for a successful librarian performance, often toggling between image editing software such as Adobe Photoshop and Acrobat, music engraving software like Finale and Dorico, and many others. However, his philosophy is that simple technical prowess isn’t enough; rather, it must be combined with a deep knowledge of and empathy for the circumstances that performing musicians must deal with onstage.