Hear something like music?

Well, it's final, a signed contract, she took the job - and that's music, for sure.

To the ears of Bismarck-Mandan Symphony Orchestra board members, musicians and Karen daSilva, operations manager.

"We are so thrilled and happy," daSilva said Wednesday.

Beverly Everett, 37, conductor of the Bemidji Symphony Orchestra in Minnesota, was officially introduced as the symphony's new conductor at a Wednesday press conference. It's the culmination of a 21/2-year search that started with the 2005 resignation of conductor Tom Wellin.

She was the unanimous choice for the eight-person search committee, said Rick Spratt, symphony board president.

Spratt said he thinks her personality is a perfect fit for the community.

"She's so natural,"he said. "She has the ability to disarm people with her personality."

And he said the orchestra loves her.

"She's very personal in the way she expresses the music through the musicians,"said Rhonda Gowen, a clarinet player, about being conducted by Everett in an October 2007 concert that was part of the interviewing process. "It seemed to come from her heart. She had sensitivity."

"There's a lot of positive energy (about her selection)," Gowen said.

Everett, one of three finalists out of pool of about 100, will be on contract starting in June, with an annual salary of $35,000. She's also Bemidji's conductor until summer of 2009, so she will split her time during the transition. She plans to get an apartment here, and her first concert will be the annual Fourth of July concert at the state Capitol.

"I was emotional about it,"Everett said about getting a call from Bismarck indicating she was being offered the job.

Everett said she had been in Bismarck in the past to judge a statewide string festival and fell in love with the city then, before she even knew there was a job available.

She said in a past interview she was "very, very impressed with the talent" and taken with the people here. "Bismarck is an attractive community for a musician."

She isn't officially working until June, but will spend the next three weeks trying to come up with programming for next fall's season so that brochures can be printed to be available to disperse at the April concert.

When asked what she wanted to conduct as her very first piece in Bismarck, she said she thinks more Beethoven needs to be played here, that she has noticed not much of his work has been done here in past concerts.

And she said a main goal for her in her first year is to help the orchestra develop a unique sound - whether it's a strong brass sound, lush strings or something else - so that when people hear the orchestra, they'll know immediately that that's the Bismarck-Mandan Symphony Orchestra.

The other two finalists, out of an initial pool of about 100 applicants, were Travis Hatton, music director of the Sunnyside Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in Portland, Ore; and Jason Love, music director of the Columbia Orchestra in Columbia, Md.

Everett said in a past interview that the Bemidji orchestra had had problems in the past with low attendance and quality of performance. But in the two years she has been there, "with the support of the Bemidji community musicians and board, we have increased ticket sales, attendance and budget by over 50 percent."

The selection committee members were daSilva; Spratt; Margaret Fiechtner, vice president; symphony musicians Signe Snortland and Tonya Mertz; music instructors John Darling of Bismarck State College and Michelle Kiec of the University of Mary; and Sally Dasinger, the symphony's personnel coordinator.

(Reach reporter Virginia Grantier at 250-8254 or at virginia.grantier@bismarcktribune.com.)