‘BETTER THAN THE DREAM’
New World Symphony artistic director reflects on debut season
Stéphane Denève is still living the dream.
He has an ideal job for a man truly in love with music. Not only is he a world renowned conductor and the music director of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, but since September, he is also the artistic director of Miami’s prestigious New World Symphony, the second in the orchestral academy’s history.
“My dream came true,” he said. “The reality is even better than the dream.”
He sat down for a recent video interview beaming with excitement for this weekend. He had just gotten back from rehearsing with the New World fellows, a cohort of music school graduates, mostly in their mid-20s, who come to the symphony to hone their skills in a three-year program before jetting off to orchestras and ensembles around the world.
They’re cooking up something big: a world premiere of a commissioned work by Guillaume Connesson, one of the most widely performed French composers.
Saturday and Sunday mark the last two concerts of Denève’s first season as artistic director after New World’s co-founder and first artistic director Michael Tilson Thomas announced he would step down from the role because of health concerns.
As Denève prepared for this weekend’s grand finale, he reflected on the work he and the fellows have done in the last year and his goals for the future.
“I’m now at the helm of this fabulous, musical cruise boat,” Denève said. “We can go very far, and we can visit many destinations. It’s a fabulous ship.”
SPRING AT THE SYMPHONY
Miami doesn’t typically experience all four seasons. It’s usually varying degrees of sort of hot, hot and very hot.
Denève plans to change that by taking audiences on a musical jour