Conducting Electricity

I’m often asked about the music I listen to outside work. When I was announced as music director of the Jacksonville Symphony five years ago, there were plenty of embarrassing headlines like “conductor likes Britney and Beethoven”. People tend to think that there is something amusing or even faintly scandalous about a classical musician enjoying other music. We musicians are also guilty; when we talk about dipping into a little jazz or pop now and again it’s often with the patronizing implication that these genres are less meaningful than classical music. Needless to say, this is nonsense, and a reflection of the dangerous fracture lines running through our society today. Over the next two weeks I’m going to write about the music that I love

Continue readingMusic from my father

Strangely enough for an orchestra, we’ve heard a lot of the human voice recently at the Jacksonville Symphony. The Christmas season began with Messiah, and in January we welcomed a cast from around the country for Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni. Last weekend we performed Maurice Ravel’s sensuous ballet, Daphnis et Chloé, complete with an enormous chorus who sing no words, only “ah”. Next week features Verdi’s magisterial Requiem Mass, which has been described as an opera in ecclesiastical robes. All music began with singing, and for many of us, singing was the way into music. There is something primal about listening to a great singer: something more personal, vulnerable and expressive than an instrumentalist. Indeed, the greatest compliment we often give to violinists and pianists

Continue readingVerdi’s “opera in ecclesiastical robes”