Gearing up for a grand finale
After 14 years behind the wheel of the TSO, this month’s concerts will be conductor’s last until 2020
A great sports car and a symphony orchestra, it turns out, have a few things in common.
“The first thing you want to do is test the limits a little bit, so you know what it’s capable of,” says Peter Oundjian as he gets behind the wheel of a borrowed Porsche 718 Cayman GTS. The maestro loves fast cars, so I thought an extended test drive might be a fun way to see if he is as deft on the road as he is on the conductor’s podium.
The new car growls to life. Oundjian puts the Porsche in gear and launches down his quiet Annex street with gusto. “Ooh. That’s nice,” he grins. We spend the next hour driving around a congested city the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s artistic leader has called home for the last14 years. This is Oundjian’s final season as music director, and this month’s concerts will be his last here until he returns as a conductor emeritus in the spring of 2020.
It’s a title that could see him returning for a guest slot every year or so.
Oundjian will sell his townhouse and return to his old home base in Connecticut, not too far from New York City.
Let’s call this an exit interview for an individual who has done much to restore the Toronto Symphony’s reputation not just in its hometown but in other parts of the world. A literal exit interview, with Don Valley Parkway off-ramps.
Oundjian, now 62, has spent his life making music. Besides his tools, which include a baton and a violin (he spent14 years as the first violin for the now departed Tokyo String Quartet), the maestro owns several cars, including a pristine 1965 Jaguar Type II sedan and a late-model Aston Martin V8 Vantage.
“There are open roads near where I live (in Connecticut), so I can take advantage of the power,” he says. Unlike the new Porsche wrapped around Oundjian’s frame at the moment, the TSO was not the shiny, nimble machine it is today back in 2004. The orchestra had spent four years without a permanent music director, it had skirted bankruptcy and its home at Roy Thomson Hall had been closed for a year for a major acoustical upgrade.
Morale had flagged as a result. But Oundjian was not one to shirk a challenge.
The former violinist started up a Mozart festival every January, he consolidated a lot of the season’s new music into an annual New Creations Festival and, over the years, has replaced most of the principal players in each section with new musicians.
He also helped change a lot of people’s attitudes. “All of us, including such amazing players as (concertmaster) Jonathan Crow, know that it’s not just about making music and people coming to us for that,” says the conductor. “It’s about being out there in the community.”
The TSO began recording and touring again, raising the orchestra’s musical profile at home, in Europe, Israel and at fabled Carnegie Hall.
Oundjian smiles as he remembers particular accomplishments, including this spring’s performances of a reconstructed first draft of Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 8, a project with which the conductor had a personal connection. He consulted on the project and conducted the concert using the world’s only copy of the score.
Despite the 365 horsepower on tap under his right foot, Oundjian repeatedly looks carefully to make sure other cars are ready to yield. He’s that sort of guy: friendly, forthcoming, approachable.
He also peers at the world through a half-full glass. I ask about some of the problems the TSO encountered during his time, but Oundjian finds nice things to say about everyone. That includes former CEO Jeff Melanson, who left the organization amid a messy breakup drama two years ago.
“I do wish that I had been able to raise more money,” Oundjian admits. Our car rumbles past the gated mansions lining the Bridle Path. The maestro points to the home of one prominent couple and says, “We never did manage to get a significant donation from them.”
That’s the hidden reality of any artistic leader in North America: non-stop fundraising comes with the territory.
I ask the conductor what may have been his biggest lesson over the past 14 years. It only takes the time to downshift for Oundjian to reply. It was pacing, he says: of knowing how to handle pauses, “of relaxing into the music.”
As he eases off on exploring the Porsche’s limits, I ask if he feels he ever tested the orchestra’s limits.
“Yes, especially in the beginning,” he answers, “when we played my own arrangements of quartets for string orchestra. You can’t do stuff on the spur of the moment with an orchestra. It really is all about pacing.”
Speaking of pacing, it was Melanson who persuaded Oundjian to stay on one more year, to the end of this season. “He said, ‘I don’t think we’re ready yet’” to look for a new music director, Oundjian recalls. “He was right.” The TSO announced a new CEO, Matthew Loden, last month, and the search for a new conductor is well underway.
“Next season is a blank canvas so that the new person can do their thing,” he says of the broad programming that’s planned and the cancellation of Oundjian’s New Creations Festival.
“If we hadn’t cancelled it, the new music director would have to make the decision to start something new or to keep it on, and that wouldn’t have been fair, would it? This way, they can either resurrect it or try something new.”
The conductor isn’t interested in speculating about his successor. That’s not his worry, and it sounds like he isn’t interested in looking for a new permanent gig, either.
“I have invitations to guest conduct and I’m still teaching at Yale,” he says. “That’s enough for now.”
Expect him to also spend more time on the open road. Peter Oundjian’s swan song You can see Peter Oundjian in action at Roy Thomson Hall in several excellent concert programs in June, including a “Symphonic Shakespeare” program featuring actor Christopher Plummer on June 26.
The farewell culminates in concerts on June 28, 29 and 30 featuring Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. The orchestra has also programmed a free concert, titled “Thank you, Toronto,” on Friday, June 22 at 12:30 p.m.
For all the details, visit tso.ca
Classical music writer John Terauds is supported by the Rubin Institute for Music Criticism, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation.