Classical music and the journey to success
Having quests seems to motivate stars like Ma, Nagano and Nézet-Séguin
On Dec. 2, celebrated cellist YoYo Ma will perform during the 10th anniversary gala concert of the Montreal Bach Festival at the Maison Symphonique.
Ma might well be the best known classical musical performer alive, though given Lang Lang’s fame in his own homeland, the People’s Republic, who knows? Let’s agree on “outside of China.”
Born in Paris, the longtime Boston resident recently turned 61. A child prodigy, he began playing in public at age five.
Ma has won every prize there is to win, every award, from Grammys to the Presidential Medal of Freedom. What distinguishes him, apart from his obvious brilliance as a musician, is his search.
A documentary screened at Cinéma du Parc this year, The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, provides an absorbing look into the life of a man who, having reached every professional peak, still seeks renewal.
How many times can you play Bach’s Suites 4, 5 and 6 — alone?
Which is precisely what he will do at the festival. And no doubt he will do it with his usual brilliance and good humour.
Search of one sort or another seems a fundamental part of the fabric of classical musicians. Ma’s quest has taken him on a fascinating route across Europe to Asia in search of the music of strangers.
OSM conductor Kent Nagano’s search has taken him from San Francisco to Boston, then back west to Berkeley, to Paris, London, Lyon Manchester, Berlin, Los Angeles and Montreal while simultaneously serving as director of the Bavarian State Opera.
He recently re-signed to stay in Montreal for another four years and will share those duties with the Hamburg State Opera as of the 2019 -20 season.
He has more frequent-flyer points than a hockey team, and the voice on his GPS is so hoarse you can hardly hear “recalibrate.”
Like Nagano, Ma has a family. In the Silk Road documentary Ma’s charming adult son recounts that until he was about 13 years old, he believed his father worked for the airlines because all he and his mother ever did was take Dad to the airport and then pick him up.
Ma himself says in the film, “I’ve been married 30 years but I think I’ve been away for 20 of them.”
Our gaze now turns to the baby of the bunch, Montreal’s own much-beloved Yannick NézetSéguin and his search.
At the ripe old age of 41, he has served as the principal conductor of the Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal for the past 16 years.
In 2006, he was named principal conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and in 2010 he became the music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra, where he is scheduled to remain until the end of the 2025-26 season.
These symphony people do not fool around.
In June of this year it was announced that he was to succeed no less a musical figure than James Levine as the music director of the New York’s Metropolitan Opera.
Imagine what his Day-Timer must look like.
Nézet-Séguin doesn’t need more parents. He has his own and a partner. I am sure they worry about him enough. But his other family, we the audience, seems larger.
This summer when he conducted Rachmaninoff at the Festival de Lanaudière, hundreds of people gathered early for a picnic on the lawn. Some technical glitch affected the orchestra’s rehearsal time, things got backed up. A voice came through the sound system. “Bonjour, c’est Yannick.” Silence. “We haven’t had a chance to properly rehearse so we have to do it in front of you. But to do so we need silence. In return you get to hear the concert twice. It’s a good deal, I think.”
Just before the hush fell completely, we heard, “On t’aime, Yannick,” to which he replied, “Je vous aime aussi, madame.”
The hush remained, the rehearsal began.
Of course, he’d had us all at, “Bonjour, c’est Yannick.”
The rehearsal was brilliant, the concert, too.
Yannick — hey, we are all on a first-name basis now — travel safely. Make sure you get a good night’s sleep.
Like Ma and Nagano before you and along with you, continue your search.
Just remember to come home. We need you.