A whole new world

So, you'll have to forgive me, as I'm totally new to the blogosphere and don't yet have the years of experience and accumulated wisdom that Sam brings, but life is all about trying something new, right?

As Sam has eloquently introduced us and what we are doing here, I thought I'd dispense with the niceties and dive right in...

I’m experiencing an unusual abundance of new scores – and when I say new, I mean really new, fresh off the presses (or, in one case, in PDF format on my laptop). It’s a confluence of a couple of things: the premier of Stan Skrowaczewski’s Flute Fantasy; the Orchestra’s Composer Institute; a world premiere by a former Composer Institute participant on the Young People’s Concerts next week; a world premiere on the Orchestra’s Pops series featuring Tiempo Libre; and a world premiere of a 60-minute War Requiem in Seoul, South Korea in November. It’s a ton of music to learn, and just looking at it listed like that is enough to send me into a mild panic. Fortunately for me, Osmo is conducting the Composer Institute concert, but as I’m his cover conductor for the week, I at least need to have a basic grasp on all of the pieces – but the rest of those concerts are ones I’m conducting.

People often ask me what conductors do when they learn a piece of music – do I listen to a recording, do I hear it all in my head, do I practice waving my arms in front of a mirror? (I tried the arm-waving thing once, but I couldn’t keep a straight face at the absurdity of it all.) My standard answer is, if I want to learn, say, a 30-minute symphony, the bare minimum probably involves 8-10 hours or study. And at that point I have hardly delved into the piece, but I’m probably prepared to at least have a basic understanding of structure and harmony and phrasing, enough to get me through a rehearsal (and it’s unbelievably uncomfortable to rehearse a piece you don’t know too well). If it’s a totally new piece, as all those world premieres are, I’ll probably spend a big chunk of time at a piano plunking out the score – score reading is one of those really important conductor skills, although you occasionally hear about people who can (or just do) get by without it. It would be amazing to be able to hear everything on the page without a keyboard – generally I can hear a melody and some harmonic progressions – but new music tends to be complicated, and score reading becomes an absolutely necessary step. Unless, of course, the composer provides you with a MIDI file of the score, which tend to sound weird and artificial and nothing like what a live orchestra will do with the piece!

New pieces are stressful – particularly if composers are still tinkering with them (or, in the case of the Requiem, if they are still not finished) – but there is an undeniable attraction in bringing a new score to life. Part of my non-Minnesota activities involves the Penn Composers program at the Curtis Institute of Music (my alma mater) – graduate composers at the University of Pennsylvania are given several opportunities every season to have their works read and recorded by the Curtis Symphony Orchestra, and I’m the coordinator and conductor for the program. I like the collaborative aspect of working on a new piece; I like being a part of the “birthing” process; I like the thrill of something new. And, let’s face it, new music is what helps keep symphonic music vital and current and relevant, and that’s perhaps the most important part of all.