Batons atwirl:
Schenectady Symphony leader bows out; music school gets new dean; awards and jobs
Recent weeks have brought many changes for local conductors.
Charles Schneider has retired as music director of the Schenectady Symphony Orchestra, a position he has held since 1983. Effective July 1, Schneider will hold the title of music director emeritus. In April, Schneider also stepped down from the podium of the Catskill Symphony, where he was music director since 1973.
Schneider missed the last two concerts of the SSO’S winter-spring season due to illness. But he’ll be back to kick off the orchestra’s 85th season.
On Sunday Oct. 21 at Proctors, Schneider will lead a celebration of the Leonard Bernstein centennial and the event will also serve as a celebration of Schneider’s tenure. The program includes the Symphonic Dances from “West Side Story,” a work that he conducted with the SSO more than any other.
The orchestra has already begun its hunt for a new music director. According to board president Robert Bouer, a search committee has been formed and some candidates have already been identified. After a review of applications during the fall, promising conductors will be invited to lead the concerts in January, March and May of next year. Ideally the position will be filled in time for the fall 2019 season launch.
Wery named dean at SCCC
There’s lots more news about conductors.
Brett Wery, music director of the Capital Region Wind Ensemble since 2003, has been named dean of the School of Music at Schenectady County Community College where he has been a faculty member for 25 years. Wery will take the reins from outgoing dean William Meckley, who is retiring after 34 years.
Wery is conducting the Schenectady Symphony at two upcoming free concerts. At 7 p.m. on Tuesday, July 3, the orchestra will present a patriotic program at Mabee Farms in Rotterdam Junction. After that, there’s a pops program scheduled for 7 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 11, as part of the Music Haven series in Schenectady’s Central Park.
Solti Awards for Young Conductors
The Solti Foundation U.S. was founded 14 years ago to carry on the legacy of the late Hungarian maestro Georg Solti, who led the Chicago Symphony. The foundation gives a variety of awards to conductors at all stages of their careers. It recently announced career assistance awards for eight young conductors, two of whom have ties to the Capital Region.
The only woman among the eight winners is Lidiya Yankovskaya, a native of Russia who immigrated with her family to Albany when she was 9 years old. Yankovskaya studied piano with Vladimir Pleshakov and Elena Winther and is a graduate of Guilderland High School. She earned degrees from Vassar College and Boston University. Today she is music director of the Chicago Opera Theater and has upcoming appearances at Spoleto Festival and with the Washington National Opera. Last summer she conducted Gretry’s “Zemire et Azor” for Opera Saratoga.
The other winner with local ties is Roger Kalia, co-founder and music director of the Lake George Music Festival, a lively mix of chamber, orchestral and contemporary music that was launched in 2011 and takes place this year Aug. 12-24. Kalia, who lives in Southern California, is also assistant conductor of the Pacific Symphony and music director of the Pacific Symphony Youth Orchestra. This is the third time that he’s received support from the Solti Foundation. Grants for young conductors vary in size and can be applied toward travel, language studies and special projects.
Lohraseb at Glimmerglass
Louis Lohraseb, who grew up in Rotterdam, is spending the summer at the Glimmerglass Festival in Cooperstown. As a member of the Young American Artists Program, he’ll serve as assistant conductor for “West Side Story” and “The Barber of Seville.”
After completing his master’s at Yale in 2015, Lohraseb enrolled in the doctoral program at Indiana University. He’s become a protege of James Conlon, shadowing and assisting him at the Ravinia Festival, for the Los Angeles Opera’s 2017 production of Verdi’s “Nabucco” and for a production of Britten’s “Billy Budd” at the Teatro dell’opera in Rome in May of this year.
Pierson at Skidmore
I made it to the final concert of the Mostly Modern Festival at Skidmore on June 17 specifically to see conductor Alan Pierson in action. As founder of the new music group Alarm Will Sound, Pierson is known as an innovator. The performances by the festival orchestra – together for only two weeks – were solid and secure. But there was one work that stood out because of how Pierson presented it.
“Mirror II” is a rather gnarly half hour-long piece from 1973 by the late Danish composer Pelle Gudmundsenholmgreen. Pierson gave the musicians a bit of choreography that added a new level of visual interest. The music starts with a slow ping-pong effect between two flutes and a clarinet. Pierson placed those players on either side of the front of the stage. Later the trombones play over and over a fierce lick from Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring.” Pierson had them reposition themselves at different spots in the rear of the orchestra for each reiteration. Still later, a quartet of percussionists with handheld instruments also moved about.
On top of this, the stage was bathed in subtle colored lighting that changed hues for each of the three movements. During Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements, which ended the program, the normal stage lighting got a bit brighter for each movement. To my taste this was all fresh and engaging. And it makes you appreciate just what a conductor can do.