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 Electricity, Jacksonville Symphony

What does a conductor actually do?

Posted on Courtney Lewis

What does a conductor actually do? Alongside the inquiry about whether I work on a bus or a train, this is a question I dread. Yet it’s completely reasonable, since conducting remains an art that is at best mysterious – and at worst, suspicious – to everyone, including musicians. One of my favourite answers is a little glib, but contains a grain of truth: we do everything except play the notes. Our job is to help the musicians play together as well as they can, and to interpret the music in a way that makes it come alive. Before conductors begin working with an orchestra, we develop a mental picture of how we want the piece to sound. In rehearsal, we work towards realizing that.

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Cat Links Conducting Electricty, Jacksonville Symphony

Opening week has arrived

Posted on Courtney Lewis

Autumn is here and it’s with great excitement that we are beginning a new era at the Jacksonville Symphony. Last week I was in New York for the opening of the Philharmonic’s season. In a fortuitous coincidence, I assisted Alan Gilbert as he conducted Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, the same inexorable masterpiece with which we will showcase the Jacksonville Symphony this weekend in a series of free community concerts. We start at the St Augustine Amphitheatre on Thursday night, move to the sleek new Unity Plaza at 220 Riverside Avenue on Friday, and open the doors of Jacoby Hall on Saturday. As part of the Year of the River celebration we’re beginning these concerts with Smetana’s impassioned hymn to one of Bohemia’s great rivers, the

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