I think we all came into Alice in Wonderland with that hyper sense of (in strained, halting voice) "must.... get.... this..... impossible rhythm....right."

I should have known better and slept better in the lead up because as soon as we got everyone together, the process lifted off the page and we resumed what this OTSL team does best: great theatre with a focused yet organic work ethic.

That isn't to say this music isn't keeping everyone on their toes. We are about two-fifths of the way through the initial staging and this piece has gone from stressful to buoyant and clever. No one is kicking back by any means, just able to take the process in stride.

I think stress will reenter the scene when I meet the St. Louis Symphony a week from today because we are doing tricky maneuvers the whole show as various cast members enter and exit the scene. The good thing is that Alice is in one act, so after two hours of patternless scurrying sixteenth notes and super exposed harmonics you'll know where to find all of us seriously kicking back and striving for serenity. I can't tell if there will be stunned silence or a release of concentrated energy among us. Whatever happens will be under the tent just outside the theatre.

Some of the best things that have happened in the past couple of days involve the creation of the animal characters. There was a particularly funny gathering around stage manager Kim Prescott's computer to view a YouTube video about a Honey Badger. 44 million people have viewed this madness.

Now, this isn't exactly authoritative research but a great moment for people to have a good laugh as they thought about how their characters' behave. Yes, there is a badger character along with a duck, crab, owl, frog, dodo, squirrel among many others. These folks won't be dressed like the animals per se but have accents within the costume that represent the animals. I like it this way. The performers have to get into the idiosyncrasies without hiding behind a mask. It's actually more surreal this way. Perfect for Alice!

Tomorrow we stage one of the opera's most musically complicated scenes. I may be referring back to the first sentence of this post by dinnertime.

After thanking Olga Kern for two amazing weeks performing the four Rachmaninov piano concerti and the Paganini Variations with me and the Phoenix Symphony, my daughter and wife took me up to the Phoenix Deer Valley Airport for my last general aviation departure as a resident of Arizona. The easy non-stop, five-hour night flight was a chance to decompress after an amazing spring.

My next project, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis' Alice in Wonderland, has been on my mind for the better part of a year and it may stay with me for years down the road! There will be some sleepless nights. I can tell already!

After spending several months getting into the score, I watched the dark and intense world premiere performance available on DVD. Sometimes I'll start the process in reverse with an opera so I can both see and hear what is going on, but seeing the opening pages of the score, I realized that this piece is best served by one's personal imagination and sound concept. Hearing Dame Gwyneth Jones navigate the role of the queen from Munich was particularly exciting and certainly very individual to her. She is a force of nature!

Today we had the first musical coaching sessions I could attend (thank you, Greg Ritchey, for doing it the past couple of days while I finished up in Phoenix). It's always so interesting to meet a new cast. We all have such personalities, and it's interesting to see how a singer has prepared to present their role.

The things I am always negotiating are faithfulness to the printed page and the endless interpretative decisions each singer and director bring to the piece. There are some easy cues that guide me. A singer may have particular personality traits that I want to bring into the character so I may adjust tempo or dynamic. A singer's voice tells even more of the story. Relative lightness or heaviness in their technique impacts tempo and balance decisions, for example.

The dynamic here at OTSL couldn't be a better place to experiment with those options. The resident artists are at various stages in their pre-professional development and the visiting artists come from an enormous range of experiences.

Apart from making sure the music is well in hand and everyone understands how we are going to negotiate some very tricky music, I'm also looking for how those roles are developing over the course of the opera and trying to be mindful of that evolution or encouraging more of it if there is uncertainty.

I have my marching orders for personal study after today. There are several passages that have Rite of Spring rhythmical difficulty that I know will need extra care. It's one thing to conduct an orchestra or a singer alone, but put those elements together with the thrill of live performance, memorization and "x factor" type things that just happen, and I know I have to be especially ready.

Unsuk Chin has given us a work that can go in any number of directions. With Jim Robinson in the director's chair, I know this production is in great dramatic hands.

On to the staging rehearsals. Likely with musical brush-ups as we go!

One of the projects I most look forward to every season is the Valley of the Sun road tour the Phoenix Symphony embarks upon, bringing the complete Messiah or Highlights to area churches and venues. This December we will perform 10 concerts in 12 days from Litchfield Park in the West to Pinnacle Peak in the Northeast of the valley and everywhere in between.

I wouldn’t consider myself a particularly religious person, but the choral masterworks of composers like Bach, Handel and Mozart, among others, bring something out of me that I always find surprising. 

That composers are able to infuse their music with a degree of religious symbolism and devotion is a breathtaking revelation I am confronted with every time one of these performances begins. I still struggle to put my finger on it, but somehow the music allows me to connect with the painful humanity of Jesus’ experience while finding congregational comfort in his sacrifice. That’s certainly what these geniuses were hoping to allow the listener to experience.

That’s more philosophical on that specific topic than I normally prefer to explore, but it is an interesting personal fuel that burns inside me for the coming couple of weeks.

The Phoenix Symphony’s Baroque Initiative continues to be one of my happiest undertakings here. It is a time in the season where likeminded colleagues have volunteered to participate, and we’ve created a sound and evolving concept that is our own. None of us are academic experts in historical performance per se, but I’ve found plenty of material to shine a light on the wide path one can take. 

More than anything, it expands the musical horizons of those of us that participate and fundamentally changes how any of us approach Baroque and Classical Music. 

As a Music Director, how could I do something that is more artistically significant than lay a foundation that will be serve this repertoire for years to come?

When I give the world premiere performances of Marcel Tyberg’s two movement completion to Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony with the Phoenix Symphony this week, I realize I am heading toward those inevitable questions that dog any effort to take a known gem and offer a fill for a curious crack.

Is the crack, or in this case, the lacking two movements of Schubert’s Symphony No. 8 worth worrying about? Perhaps the mystery of what those possible movements would have sounded like if he had continued work on the piece is sufficient?

Trust me, from the moment Tyberg’s music arrived I asked myself all of these questions and more. I even wondered whether I wanted to put myself out there as the proponent of such an effort. Of course I want to, and I am!

What listeners will hear is a sublime and remarkable composition that is modeled with utter perfection on Schubert’s symphonic style at the time. Getting the proportions right is incredibly important with Schubert. He has a very personal way of holding onto a phrase or thought and when it comes to harmonic motion and activity, there is a definite stamp that has to be handled right. And still, one has to attend so carefully to Schubert’s lyricism that we all hold so dear.

I think this is a keeper and my friends in Boulder will hear it this summer at the Colorado Music Festival and the Atlanta Symphony audiences will hear it in April 2012.

The picture below is the first page of Tyberg’s completion. His mother was his copyist.  Incredible care given to every note.

The rest of the program is fun, too. John Corigliano’s Salute was written as a “welcome to Brooklyn” fanfare for me in 2005. Get your kazoos warmed up!

I have a thing for Bruckner, I must admit. The repetition in the symphonies drives some people nuts but it can be handled in such a way to transcend that trait. The sacred choral music on the other hand takes performer and listener alike to a completely different place. I am over the moon to be working on this great e minor Mass.
 

Alice Herz Sommer, the oldest Holocaust survivor in the world, and her friends put so many things in life in perspective.

I was already so deeply moved to perform the music of composers who lived and experienced the Holocaust, but to know performers like Alice, Ella Weissberger and others continue to remind us of the importance of music in our world, is life-changing.

Thank you and Happy Birthday, Alice!

When I go home to Buffalo, NY, there are two members of my family who make exceptionally good fruit pies, apple to be specific.  It’s so good, the calories can’t overwhelm my interest in savoring their work. 

I’ve always looked at all of the music available in the world as a large pie with the orchestra tradition accounting for what can only be called a modest morsel. For those of us in the “industry,” making tiny adjustments to one side or the other of the spectrum feels like a seismic shift. But let’s have more courage than that and also a greater appreciation for the artistry and appeal of artists not wearing tails and white bow ties.

I’ve been told recently that “crossing over” with an orchestra into genres that challenge the myopic convention of what orchestras “should do” is a sign of…get ready for this…"working too hard to be cool."

When I was Chief Conductor (Music Director) of the Queensland Orchestra in Brisbane, Australia, one of the most thrilling evenings was an outdoor concert of a fully choreographed Carmina Burana (with a local dance company) and the superstars of Australian rock at the time, “George,” on the second half. They were Brisbane born and based, conservatory-trained musicians who had even used some of the QO members on their albums. It was clear that they had an orchestral palette in their ears and could write for it. Offer to expand that palette with a full-size orchestra and watch their eyes pop out of their heads! It was an easy marriage and everyone, audience AND orchestra alike, had a great time. Incidentally, that event led to engagements of George with every Australian orchestra.

With the Brooklyn Philharmonic, I took this concept a step further and found similarly trained musicians who have been inspired by the orchestral ethos in their indie-rock endeavors. “Shuffle Mode” was born and will be reborn soon.

Last weekend was more of the “backup band” variety concert with Donna Summer and the Phoenix Symphony (see photos below), but I can tell you that the only other times I’ve heard screaming at a concert with an orchestra on stage were these other “crossover” endeavors. 

I’m not trying to be cool and I’m not trying to save the orchestra business. I do recognize that orchestras are rich in talent that is completely untapped. The communities we live in do savor the blend of their orchestras and creative artists that are just as talented but choose not to be on our payrolls.

Somewhere down the road, one of the things I hope to be remembered for most at the ensembles I’ve lead is taking a bigger slice of the musical pie and calling it fertile ground for our musicians and audience. Whether it be putting baroque bows in the hands of modern violinists for Handel’s Messiah or playing the “classical” works that make the heart of Belle Orchestre beat moments before they play that inspired song, I am committed to eating more pie and giving my orchestras a chance at unleashing more of that untapped talent for the benefit of the people who love us and support us.

How much great pie are you ready to eat?

(click for larger images)

Donna Summer with me and the Phoenix Symphony. You go, girl. We all loved every song!	Concertmaster Steven Moeckel surprised the audience when he stood to play the last few minutes of the Carmen Fantasy!
Not your typical night at a Symphony Gala!	Bonsal Glascock, Alexis and me, Christine and David Gustafson

Dear Michael,
 
The students of Rosie’s House loved the family concert last week! Especially Peter & the Wolf! Mattie – the student in the center of the attached thank you picture – said her favorite part of the concert was the wolf man!!
 
I was really impressed by your narration and by your ability to juggle so many props and characters. You did a great job, and I am so happy my students had a chance to see the performance.
 
A big thank you to everyone at the Phoenix Symphony for being so supportive of our mission at Rosie’s House.
 
Best,
 
Becky Bell
Artistic & Executive Director
Rosie's House: A Music Academy for Children
Celebrating 15 Years of Changing Lives through Music ♫

As we closed our four semi-staged performances of Krasa’s Brundibar this past weekend (see photos below), someone asked how I recover from the high of performances.

Interesting question.

The way I look at it is that a Music Director’s brain seems to be constantly chewing on many things at the same time. The performance at hand, what is coming up, what is being planned for future seasons, administrative decisions, how the orchestra is holding up with the week after week progress of programs, etc.  I don’t know if I’m speaking for my fellow Music Directors? If they have as much going on as I do, I imagine it is so.

It has been an amazing opening five weeks of a season. The orchestra goes on its first vacation week next week, and I think they will need it after all the roads we’ve “traveled” in such a short time. They have proven to be an astonishingly resilient group, putting forward tremendous energy for a huge variety of music.

Before we take that first vacation week however, there is a charming and dramatic program yet to be played as well as our Annual Fundraising Gala with Donna Summer.

The Classics program is all about the drama that unfolds in music from the Classical period. Some of it is humorous but, most of all, I think it is remarkable in its honest portrayal of human emotion.

Last night, my Grandfather passed away after a brief illness, and I was reminded again how human beings continue to enjoy life, toil through it and experience the same needs, hopes and desires from generation to generation. So it is with the music we play this week and every week for that matter. Haydn and Mozart were geniuses, but they lived life as we do, playing, laughing, crying and dying. The basic elements of being a human being haven’t changed even though the environment in which we act out the part changes from day to day.

So why play their music as if it must be handled with white gloves and kept dust-free?!

Let’s celebrate the swings of emotion and the fact that they could harness some part of their soul and leave that record for us to perform and marvel at.

My motto as Music Director is “Variety is Key.” We’ve enjoyed costumed characters for The Music Man and Brundibar, visits by some of the most distinguished artists living today and works never heard on this side of the Atlantic. This week’s element of variety is that we return to the core experience of witnessing an orchestra lovingly render some of the most cherished music of all time. Just us onstage - performing for you.

Photo slideshow from Brundibar rehearsal (click images to enlarge):

Cast of Brundibar with Ella Weissberger before our Sunday matinee

A character compilation photo after I narrated Peter and the Wolf today! It wasn't exactly a duck, but the inflatable pool chick was the best I could find since all of the pool shops in town are not stocking such things during the off-season!

At a post-concert reception with Ella Weissberger, the original "Cat" in Hans Krasa's Brundibar. She was 12 years old when she sang the role 55 times in the Terezinstadt concentration camp. She is a new great friend with tremendous insight into survival, forgiveness and the role we must all play in making for a better future. Thank you, Ella, for joining us in Phoenix!!

This is what it’s all about! This week I will be conducting four performances of works that perfectly illustrate what it is that makes my musical heart tick.

The opening of the program is Hans Krasa’s Brunidbar, a 30-minute children’s opera originally written briefly before Krasa was taken by the Nazis to the transit “artist refuge” Terezin, and then later to Auschwitz, where he perished alongside some of the most notable musical talents of the 20th century.

I chose this as the opening work of our Rediscovered Masters series at the Phoenix Symphony because it is a simple but completely heartfelt expression of human survival and sense of humor. It makes me cry every time I think of the icing on this cake — we are joined by one of the only surviving original cast members from Terezin, Ella Weissberger, the original “Cat.”  She will join our cast on stage for the finale, singing in Czech, the language she sang in over 55 performances seven decades ago.

The premiere on the program is by Mieczysław Weinberg, his Rhapsody on Moldavian Themes. This will be the North American premiere. I’ve already scheduled it with another US orchestra to be announced shortly, and it is a brilliant barnburner. When I have violinists who play a million notes tell me they could play this piece all day, I’m a very happy Music Director!

Keep your eyes and ears open for Weinberg. His music will become standard repertory. A very exciting complete works series is in progress, recorded by the Gothenburg (Sweden) Symphony. (Damn, they got to it first!)

Finally, a return to the piece I’ve conducted more than any other in my life, Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet. After dozens of performances of the full ballet at the Zurich Opera in the late '90s, this is my first time with the official Suites. Ok, it’s the plum for the audience, but it’s also an acknowledgement of the profound relationship Weinberg had with Shostakovich and Prokofiev by extension. I also love that we bookend the concert with two story works.

New and old, a bit of thematic acknowledgement where appropriate, and extremely good music presented in an interesting way. That’s what makes my musical heart leap for joy!

World premiere rehearsal with Phoenix Symphony (l to r): Osvaldo Golijov (composer), Jamey Haddad (percussion),
Jeremy Flower (laptop/electronics), Michael Ward-Bergeman (accordion), Kayhan Kalhor (kamancheh)

Three years ago, an ebullient Robert Ulrich, CEO of the Target Corporation, convened a meeting of the Phoenix Symphony senior staff, his team and the symphony’s longtime and devoted patron, Jeanne Herberger. At that meeting we discussed the astounding plans for the Musical Instrument Museum.

Frankly, I marveled that it was going to be in Phoenix in the first place much less the remarkable scope of its holdings.

He wished to discuss a collaborative project with the Symphony that would celebrate MIM’s opening, a symphonic fanfare of sorts. Needless to say, my mind was instantly turning and my response was to use the Symphony as a performance vehicle to bring life to the displays that were envisioned.

From that point forward, Mr. Ulrich and the Target Corporation generously made possible two years of the Target World Music Festival. In so many ways, this was a dream come true for me. Collaborations with indigenous folk musicians allowed repertory that critics would dutifully remind listeners of their influence the chance to actually display what Bartók, Tan Dun, Piazzolla or Mozart, for that matter, were responding to with the orchestral palette. 

This type of illumination is essential for an orchestra to present. You don’t need it for Brahms' Violin Concerto, but for heaven’s sake, this world is now too small for us not to amplify the listeners’ dreams and sonic images evoked by some of the greatest music ever written. More in future posts on this subject.

In response to the idea of Ulrich’s fanfare, I immediately put forward the idea of commissioning the world’s most renowned and loved “artist of convergence and visceral reaction” (my quote), Osvaldo Golijov. 

As part of our Composer Spotlight series in Phoenix, Osvaldo’s music passionately communicated the intoxicating melding of Latin folk music with the symphony orchestra. Marian Buswell, Phoenix Symphony Principal Oboe, commented to me today that our performances of Golijov’s Ainadamar in May 2008 were the most memorable performances in her distinguished career with the PSO!

I called Osvaldo and I remember explaining the concept of MIM and the fact that anything with Robert Ulrich driving the ship was going to happen, period. He was on board and the date approached. It seemed so far away at the time, and yet here I write at 8:35 p.m., less than 48 hours before the audience will hear Osvaldo’s inspiration for the first time.

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