howard skinner was the executive director of the symphony at that time.nk howard skinner must have seen that phil was kind of an extraordinary man. >> he said if i thought there were youngsters on campus who wanted seats or boxes, he felt he could arrange it. well, i went back to berkeley. and by about 2 1/2 hours later, i had sold 11 boxes in that opera house. >> narrator: by the 1940 season, saturday night sold out. a separate midweek series of concerts was created to accommodate the overwhelming demand by what was now called the student forum. >> it absolutely exploded over a number of years, and we had students from colleges in the entire bay area. the enthusiasm was incredible, just incredible. >> narrator: once they moved on to careers, the former students would provide a valuable base of community support for future years. >> the forum did produce two presidents of the symphony -- philip boone and lawrence metcalf -- a number of people on the board. so it was a terrific, terrific program. [ classical music plays ] >> narrator: when war broke out in