The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
What’s going on in a conductor’s head? Quite a bit.
It’s a strange thing to do for a living — to wave one’s arms about in front of a group of people dressed in black tie, instruments in hand. And it’s especially strange when you realize the people in front of you can play their instruments perfectly well without your help.
But the moment one asks what a conductor actually does, a long list of responsibilities — both to the orchestra members and to the audience — emerges.
My journey to conducting came through instrumental study, and especially through my love of playing chamber music. My approach to performance
has always been through an indepth study of a piece of music, a fascination with understanding its historical or political context, with exploring its structure, form, harmony and unique characteristics, and a continual exploration of its relevance to the “outside” world. I loved having all the parts in front of me, and for it to be my job to at once know every detail, but also to step back and form a broad view of the entire piece.
In my years as a conductor, it has become ever more apparent that conducting has relatively little to do with “waving my arms,” but is rather about leading, enabling, communicating, listening, motivating and inspiring. It’s about applying my
life experience, art experiences and human interactions into creating and conveying a vision of a piece to the orchestra and, through inspiring the orchestra to listen to, communicate with and lead each other, to convey that vision to the audience.
I have always been passionate about advocating for music’s benefit and relevance to the wider world. Sadly “classical music” (we definitely need to find a better word) is sometimes dismissed as irrelevant and elitist in today’s world, but I would argue that it is more relevant than ever, and needs to be increasingly more inclusive. As society insists on driving us all as individuals to turn further inward and rely more heavily on technology, orchestras remind us of our humanity — of human interaction, communication, and the power of peaceful collaboration. The collective
experience of attending a concert and witnessing the live creation of music is simply not replicable by an iPod.
My program with the New Haven Symphony is an unusual one for me. Lately I have found myself mostly immersed in programs featuring a Beethoven or Brahms symphony, or a piece of forgotten 19th-century orchestral music, plus a piece of funky American contemporary repertoire, or — in the recent movement toward gender equality in programming — one of my favorite female composers (such as the American romantic Amy Beach, 19th-century Louise Farrenc or Emilie Mayer, or even one of the very talented young contemporary Scandinavian women). This program is comprised of none of the above, but rather features all Russian romantic music.
Don’t get me wrong: I adore
Russian music, and the pieces on this program are some of the most powerful and heart-wrenching orchestral music in the repertoire. The relevance of this music today couldn’t be more poignant. Inextricably enshrined in Shostakovich’s music are his lifelong struggles against the political regime, a topic that certainly resonates today given the many cases of political oppression still present throughout the world.
Tchaikovsky’s grand “Fourth Symphony” is a struggle of a different kind — that of an artist against his fate — but on a deeper level it is perhaps the composer’s grappling with his true nature, which he could not reveal due to societal homophobic attitudes at the time. With these two powerhouses on the program, I thought the concert needed the counterbalance of a soft, slow and contemplative opening. The
beautiful “In the Steppes of Central Asia” by Borodin is a short glimpse of a long journey by the Russians on horse-drawn carriages through the Asian desert. I hope that the sounds of the plodding hoofs of horses and camels and the seductive Russian and Eastern melodies will transplant us all from the hustle and bustle of the outside world to a place where we, as a collective of individuals, can let the music wash over us and take us on our own journey — through turmoil to hope and to the eventual conquering of the very personal struggles of these composers.
I am very much looking forward to getting to know the New Haven Symphony and community. I would encourage you to get in touch (i.e. via social media or my website) — I’ll be looking forward to meeting as many of you as possible!