WELCOME!

Welcome to Conducting Electricity. Since September 2014 I’ve been writing for the Florida Times-Union, keeping everyone up to date with what’s happening at the Jacksonville Symphony. These posts are reproduced with permission.

I also write about what’s going on in my life as a performing musician and the music I love, while trying to demystify my strange profession of conducting. I love to hear from you, so please leave comments. If there’s a question you’re dying to ask, or a topic you’d like to know more about, please send me a note and I’ll address it in a future post. Enjoy!

Latest Posts

Cat Links Conducting Electricty, Jacksonville Symphony

Classical music makes the Holidays

Posted on Courtney Lewis

The holiday season is almost upon us, a time when we can enjoy being together with family and friends, eat and drink too much and reflect on the year that has passed. I’m looking forward to travelling to London and Belfast to be Uncle Courtney for a few weeks. It’s a time with so many traditions, yet there is one element that binds it all together: classical music. Nothing says ‘Christmas is coming’ quite like hearing the Trepak from ‘The Nutcracker’ playing in the supermarket for the first time, or catching a fleeting strain of the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s ‘Messiah’. Of course, for musicians, it’s not only The Most Wonderful Time of the Year, but the busiest. We often joke that in December, Handel

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Cat Links Conducting Electricity, Jacksonville Symphony

Traveling to Bayreuth

Posted on Courtney Lewis

The Jacksonville Symphony may not have any performances until opening night on September 30th, but the summer months are usually a welter of activity for musicians. I especially enjoy attending music festivals to hear other orchestras, gaining inspiration from my colleagues. I have just returned from the Bravo! Vail music festival in Colorado, where I heard the Philadelphia Orchestra play three magnificent concerts (including a Tchaikovsky Pathétique accompanied by a thunderstorm) amid the Rockies.  Next week I travel to Bayreuth, Germany, to the music festival that Richard Wagner founded in 1876 solely for the performances of his own operas. In perhaps the most extraordinary example of egotism in musical history, Wagner chose the quiet town as the perfect environment in which to build an opera theatre to

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