This weekend I was featured in the ongoing Courier-Journal series on lessons learned through work. My interview with Matt Frassica touches on a variety of challenges in the classical music business that have helped form my outlook on conducting and orchestra leadership.
Regarding orchestras:
I think orchestras have sometimes walled themselves off a little bit by saying, “This is what we do, and we don’t do other things.” We don’t have to be quite so self-limiting.
On becoming a conductor and, more essentially, a leader:
When you go through school you learn the mechanics and, hopefully, you learn about the repertoire. But as a conductor you don’t really learn how to be a leader in a larger sense of the word, whether it’s leading a performance or leading an organization. I try to build consensus and to encourage everybody I work with to buy into what we’re doing.
Tumblr shout-out!:
I really admire some of the [tech] companies for the way they do business. I think we could learn a lot from them. I love Tumblr, and I love the way they seem to be very approachable and inclusive and open. They’re very responsive to their users. I feel that orchestras can learn a lot from that.
On symphonic programming:
We do curate a tradition, but have started to realize that even though that’s one important thing we do, we also have to help establish new traditions and open our canon to new voices.
Responding to a living sound:
As a conductor it’s the sound of the orchestra that provides the greatest feedback. I’m searching for the right language or the right gesture that encourages a particular sound from the orchestra, and when the orchestra achieves that sound I immediately run back through all the steps I took to get there and find out what was it I did that helped to facilitate that.
Tomorrow night I’ll lead the latest installment of the Louisville Orchestra’s most intriguing concert series, Strings Attached. Featured are two great bands, Calexico and The Airborne Toxic Event. Needless to say, I’m stoked to participate in yet another cross-genre concert and to collaborate with open-minded musicians from other quarters of the music business. [Poster by Madpixel]
If you are in the Louisville area this weekend come hear the opening concert of the LO’s new Summer Classics series, an Independence Day celebration at RiverStage on Saturday evening. The orchestra will be giving three subsequent concerts on the RiverStage barge across from downtown in Jeffersonville, with repeat performances at Ballard High School. [RiverStage concerts are free with a suggested donation of $10; Ballard performances are $10, payable at the venue.]
Earlier in the week I spoke with Daniel Gilliam at WOUL about my current activities in Louisville and Iowa, and offered a brief preview of tomorrow’s concert.
Interview with Daniel Gilliam
WUOL Classical 90.5 – July 2009
A final piece of news from Louisville: I am one of three recipients nationally of the Bruno Walter Career Grant. The grant will support my work with the LO in 2009/10. Andrew Adler has the details for the Courier-Journal.
The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony and the Louisville Orchestra [along with more than 200 other ensembles] are participating in Orchestras Feeding America, a food drive initiated by the League of American Orchestras and Feeding America. CBS News’ Early Show will run a national piece on the program tomorrow, March 25.
![GPOYW In rehearsal with the Louisville Orchestra edition.
[Photo by O’Neil Arnold]](http://blog.jasonweinberger.com/photo/1280/905975382/1/tumblr_l6nueb6bIw1qaocac)
