Switching hats
Some artists balance multiple roles in multiple cities or countries
Luis Biava has just begun what promises to be a busy December. As the principal cellist for the Columbus Symphony, he has taken part this weekend in four performances of Holiday Pops, with the finale set for 3 p.m. today.
Meanwhile, tonight at 7:30, he will put down his cello and pick up his baton for a concert with the Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra, which he has led since 2001.
And, starting Friday, he will conduct the Columbus Symphony during 17 performances of BalletMet’s “The Nutcracker” in the Ohio Theatre — one of the
most-recent additions to the multitasking musician’s plate.
“This is my third year,” Biava said of conducting the classic children’s ballet. “It’s a great, great honor because the dancers are great and the orchestra, of
course, is great. … Every performance that we do, as I always say, there’s always one kid that it’s his or her first time.”
But wait — there’s more.
On the weekend of Dec. 16-17, Biava will conduct four performances of “The Nutcracker,” plus two holiday programs with the New Albany Symphony Orchestra, which he has led for its entire 10-year existence. That Sunday, Biava will be occupied with “The Nutcracker” at noon and 5:30 p.m., with the New Albany “Holiday Spectacular” concert squeezed in at 3.
“He has a car waiting for him to get him to and from,” said Heather Garner, executive director of the New Albany Symphony Orchestra.
Biava is among a group of central Ohioans who have multiple jobs in the same, or related, arts fields.
“I think many artists just live and breathe being immersed in the arts,” said Garner, who also performs as a violist with the Columbus Symphony. “We never back away from an opportunity to be more involved.”
Biava, 59, joined the Columbus Symphony as a cellist in 1985, but he long saw himself adding conducting to his repertoire.
“It always was there,” he said. “But the important thing was always to know an instrument really well … to just make sure you know what the orchestra is about.”
Having won conducting positions with the Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra 16 years ago and the New Albany Symphony a decade ago, Biava describes his current schedule as “a big jigsaw puzzle.”
“You don’t want to run yourself ragged … because you still need energy and stamina and rest,” said Biava, a native of Bogota, Colombia, now living in Clintonville. “But you try to fit everything in within reason to get enough time to practice and work … and do it at the highest level you can.”
When putting together his calendar, Biava gives priority to concert dates with the Columbus Symphony.
“You try to get them early so we can fit everything around it,” said Biava, who then plans performances with the orchestras he leads. “The Columbus Symphony is a 26-week season at this point … so we find some weeks that are free there that can really fill up the schedule.”
“Any extra Saturday or Sunday,” he added, might be filled with a performance featuring his chamber-music ensemble, the Camarata Trio.
Biava’s musical commitments might be numerous, but BalletMet Executive Director Sue Porter praised his attention to detail in conducting — and preparing for — “The Nutcracker.”
“When he was just learning what our ‘Nutcracker’ was all about, he spent hours and hours in the studio,” Porter said. “Luis makes it a point of talking to all of the principal dancers — the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Cavalier; and Clara and the Prince — to really understand what they’re looking for in the tempo.”
Several other conductors pursue sidelines elsewhere.
David Danzmayr, for example, is employed by orchestras separated by an ocean: In addition to leading the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra, Danzmayr was hired last year as chief conductor of the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra in Croatia. Before that appointment, he split time between ProMusica and the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra (which he no longer leads).
Danzmayr was drawn to the position in Zagreb because of the opportunity to conduct a large group of musicians.
“Since ProMusica is a chamber orchestra, I somewhat have … the urge also to be music director of a symphony orchestra — just because of repertoire,” said Danzmayr, 37. “But the quality of ProMusica is so extremely high. … When I signed up at Zagreb, there was no doubt at all that I would keep ProMusica.”
His schedule also includes gigs as a guest conductor, which he accepts to develop as a conductor and to enhance his visibility.
“Apart from being in Zagreb and in ProMusica, I’m conducting for 15 weeks or so a year, at least, as a guest,” Danzmayr said. “When I go to a place like Detroit, San Diego and now Hamburg Symphony … it’s extremely, extremely important to keep the career going, to grow the career, to make it bigger.”
Although he acknowledged the challenge in balancing commitments to two orchestras — “You want to be for both of them really available and really planning and really thinking about the future” — Danzmayr said that, with time and experience, he has learned to manage them effectively.
I have never had a year where I was only music director of one orchestra,” he said.
Some leaders, however, have recently scaled back their commitments.
Peter Stafford Wilson recently announced that, next year, he will leave the Columbus Symphony, where he has worked as assistant or associate conductor since 1990. Wilson plans to concentrate on leading the Westerville Symphony and Springfield Symphony Orchestra and his work as principal conductor with the Tulsa Ballet in Oklahoma.
Wilson took on multiple conducting jobs, he said, as a form of insurance.
“We serve at the pleasure of boards of trustees that can wake up one morning and be tired of us, and then we’re out in the cold,” said Wilson, 63. “Insurance in this business is another podium.”
The Westerville and Springfield jobs, he said, present distinct challenges.
“Westerville is an exciting community of students and amateurs in the truest sense of the word; Springfield is a collection of … the younger freelancers,” Wilson said. “And now I’ve added ballet to the mix.”
Relationships formed at one organization can extend to another. For example, Wilson collaborated with acclaimed French pianist Pascal Roge during a Columbus Symphony concert in 2016.
“He and his wife and my wife and I went out and really enjoyed each other’s company and vowed that we would get together again,” Wilson said.
In February, Roge and his wife, pianist Ami Roge, will perform under Wilson’s baton in Springfield.
Similarly, since taking the reins of Opera Columbus in 2013, Artistic Director Peggy Kriha Dye — an accomplished soprano who recently was given the additional title of general director — has continued to appear in operas elsewhere while managing the city’s major opera company.
“I’m gone for six weeks at a time when I do an opera usually,” said Dye, 48, who frequently found herself running Opera Columbus from afar. “I would get up before rehearsal, have conference calls and meetings; on breaks, bring out my computer, work; at night, do any kind of administrative work I have to do.”
This year, she said, she has spent close to four months on the road, singing in operas in Toronto at Versailles in France.
To devote more time to Opera Columbus, however, the singer said she recently decided to retire from opera productions and limit her performing to easier-to-manage concerts (including a planned Thursday appearance with the Harmony Project).
‘I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t know if I can maintain this and do what I want to do at this company,’” Dye said. “It was starting to be imbalanced.”
Many leaders, however, see advantages to having several jobs in the arts.
In addition to running her own 10-member dance company, Hixon Dance, Sarah Hixon serves as the program director of Early Music in Columbus, which hosts early-music ensembles.
“In an ideal world, it would be great if I could just focus on one thing, but I do wonder if … you get a little burned out, you get a little tired of it — so I don’t mind mixing it up actually,” said Hixon, 37, who said that her two positions equate to a pair of parttime jobs.
“I put one hat on and focus on that for a while,” Hixon said, “and then I’ll take that one off and put the other one on and focus on that.”