There is a famous sign as you approach the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont that could easily have been the subtitle for this concert. It says: ‘Caution, Musicians At Play.’ I cannot remember when I have been buttonholed by so many members of an orchestra, spontaneously declaring how happy they were this week, making music with the seventy-seven year old English maestro, this season celebrating his fiftieth year as a professional musician. The comments ranged from: “He simply breathes music” to: “why can’t all guest conductors have such a rich vein of fantasy to share with us” to: “can he come back every season, please?”

What’s the secret? I’ve known and admired Sir Roger’s work for twenty years, first during my time as Artistic Administrator of the Boston Symphony, where he was a frequent guest in the 1990s, then during my tenure as V.P. for Artists and Repertoire at Decca where he made memorable recordings of Vaughan Williams symphonies, Proms concert bon-bons and a sublime disc with counter tenor Andreas Scholl. We continue to work together as I coordinate his programming for concerts in North America. With each passing year, Sir Roger seems to become more a vessel for the music and less of an ‘interpreter.’

Just this morning, over a hot chocolate (a small vice of his on the road)
he quoted a memoir from about 1913 by Georg Henschel (friend of Brahms and the first conductor of The Boston Symphony). In it Henschel abjures the word ‘interpretation’ as a modern affliction of egocentric conductors and prefers to simply seek out what the music has to say. Sir Roger believes in this self-effacing attitude fervently. He was a pioneer in the historic performance movement in the 1970s, a member of that first generation of ‘vegetarian’ conductors (he hates it when I use that sobriquet) who founded their own orchestras, used modern re-creations of 18th and 19th century instruments and sought ways to re-imagine Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and more the way the composers themselves might have heard it.

Sir Roger has mostly moved on from gut stringed violins, fewer-keyed winds and wider bore brass to modern orchestras, where for the last ten years he has preached the gospel according to Norrington to today’s players with their up to date winds and brass and with violins and their brethren using metal core strings. He’s made scores of compact discs with the Stuttgart Radio Symphony (he was Chief Conductor for many years) all of which use, as he calls it “pure tone,” articulation, phrasing and color based on a life of research into what the composers wanted in the fist place.

It is sometimes viewed as an eccentric or even controversial approach (the local critic of the Montreal Gazette simply cannot abide Norrington). But those who ‘get it’ including the orchestras of Philadelphia, St. Luke’s in New York City, Cincinnati, Detroit in the USA and the Montréalers in Canada cherish his all too infrequent visits and play like a house on fire for him. In Europe and Japan he works with upwards of fifteen orchestras a season and every single one of them plays without vibrato, adopts the seating plans of earlier times and give Sir Roger their all.

Sorry for the long digression, because the matter at hand is why the concert Wednesday night was so special and why the Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 1 received an ovation normally reserved for fire-breathing performances of Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky warhorses. For starters, Sir Roger asked Mr. Andsnes if he’d entertain placing the piano lengthwise with his back to the audience in the middle of the stage, the spot where the conductor’s podium would normally be. Lid off, the piano and pianist are now in the middle of the strings, and able to look the winds in the eye and most important of all, hear every nuance of the orchestral score. In return, the orchestra players can also hear every nuance of the piano part! What results is chamber music on a grand scale. You can achieve an increased range of subtle dynamics, and the ability to trade off intricate subtleties of phrasing simply not possible in the traditional set up with the piano down in front of the conductor and orchestra with the enormous black lid of the piano acting like a closed door between the soloist and some of the most important players in any concerto.

In one sense, this is not news. Play/conduct concerts with pianists feature this set up all the time. It is a virtue born of the necessity of having the soloist also lead the performance. But, add Roger Norrington’s belief in pure tone, sharp articulation and the amazing ability of the new Montréal hall to project even the softest pianissimo to the back of the auditorium. Mix in Sir Roger’s presence as conductor for the tuttis (seated in the orchestra himself). And then, top it all off with the incredibly sensitive and nuanced playing of Leif Ove Andsnes. The result was thirty-five minutes of heaven on earth.

After intermission, another passion of Norrington’s was on offer with the moody and evocative Symphony No. 2 by Ralph Vaughan Williams. This Edwardian vision of London was written just before the cataclysm of World War I and it has a deeply personal meaning for Norrington. He cherishes letters from his father to his parents during that war, recounting on a weekly basis the sad roll call of older school chums lost in successive battles. Equally important Norrington recalls several encounters with the composer in the 1950s who recounted to him harrowing tales of The Great War wherein Vaughan Williams, even then too old to fight instead drove an ambulance throughout the conflict in the thick of the worst battles.

In other words, Sir Roger is distilling his life experience as an Englishman and a musician in his approach to this symphony. And while the London Symphony is full of what travel writers would call ‘local color’ it is also a symphony with a universal message of the fleeting nature of any particular time or place. For me, the most amazing thing of all is that this was the first-ever subscription performance by the OSM of this symphony and nearly every player who spoke to me said they had never played it anywhere. You’d never know it from the authoritative, subtle, grand and colorful performance Wednesday night. The playfulness, the grandeur and the deep sadness of this music went from heart to heart, earning the orchestra and Norrington a standing ovation.

This seems to be a season wherein I keep coming across senior conductors who are reminding me anew of how important it is to ‘get out of the way’ and let the music speak. Frühbeck de Burgos in September in Cincinnati with a naturally flowing Mahler Symphony No. 1, Michel Plasson in Montréal in October with a slight Gounod Symphony that seduced with utter charm and now Sir Roger with his own passion for heeding Georg Henschel’s dictum of rigorously seeking what the composer intended. I guess it’s actually been one early Christmas gift after another. Who needs Santa Claus when you’ve got mature maestros and great orchestras that respond to their magic!

We’ve just finished the first round of annual auditions for Cincinnati Opera Young Artists and choristers. I am certain much blogosphere ink has been spilled over the trials and tribulations of classical singing auditions. I don’t profess to offer any revelations, just my own observations after nearly twenty-five years of listening to aspiring singers.

I am often invited to sit on audition panels for Metropolitan Opera auditions, competitions and singing awards foundations. In general, these panels of judges are kind, supportive and aware of just how terrifying the audition atmosphere is. Many of my fellow judges are still active artists or teachers of singing. But from time to time I have encountered a kind of sadism that I find baffling. I’ve been behind that dreaded table at the opposite end of the room from the piano seated with a judge who never looks at the artist, cuts him or her off in mid-phrase barely into an aria or song, or delivers his or her “thank you” with a vocal sneer worthy of Mime at his most insincere.

Don’t they realize that these young men and women are laying themselves bare knowing that they have only two or three minutes to convince you that they have the potential to be the next Renée Fleming or Placido Domingo? Does that judge not appreciate the countless hours, dollars, sweat, tears and sheer grit it takes to try and become an opera singer? Have they forgotten how artificial the audition situation is-poorly lit rooms, dreadful acoustics, no time for rehearsal with the resident accompanist?

My own attitude may strike my colleagues as insincere as well, but I have a smile and a sympathetic gaze for every singer. I look them in the eye and oblige them to sing to me, not to some safely discovered focus point over my head. And when they are not good (which mercifully is rare) I perform for them, giving them an encouraging countenance to relate to as they are simply trying to do their best.

Time and again, I get feedback from artists themselves or managers that singing for Cincinnati Opera was the most pleasurable audition in memory. Nerves were calmed, announced colds or indispositions seemed to diminish and all it took was a smile and a sense conveyed to the singer that we were glad he or she came before us to sing. We’re called ‘judges’ or ‘jury’ in competitions so permit me to close with advice given to me by a real judge during my first stint of jury duty. He reminded the jurors to be: “fair, open-minded, attentive to the circumstances surrounding all aspects of testimony, and to park our prejudices at the door.” Much the same should be said to all of us who sit and judge as we enter this busy audition season. Yes, there will be the occasional ‘no hoper’ who will tax your patience or forbearance, but remember even they are there because singing is so important to them that they risk embarrassment and rejection in the hope that they can move you.

A casual count of major orchestras (meaning institutions that have high profile conductors and soloists, that tour and make recordings) gives you at least five-London Philharmonic, London Symphony, Philharmonia, BBC Symphony, Royal Philharmonic, not to mention the well-known smaller ones-Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, English Chamber Orchestra. Add to that the fact that this is still the center of early music with five more internationally lauded ‘bands’ and just to top it off, two major opera houses, both of which are thriving.

You get the picture and I haven’t scratched the surface of the vibrant recital life, contemporary music and the three major conservatories. But what impresses me most of all is the sheer numbers at concerts. Even though we are still in the throes of a stagnant economy Londoners turn out in droves for music. And I mean Londoners. This is not high tourist season and those numbers are down overall anyway. The Japanese musical tourists who used to flood the capitol are gone. They have not been replaced, according to my sources, by the newly enriched Chinese as visitors. It’s natives, in all their wonderful ethnic and cultural diversity who fill The Royal Festival Hall, the Barbican, The Cagodan Hall, The Wigmore Hall, the two opera houses, and so on.

For an impresario, it’s a little bit of heaven on earth. I auditioned superb young singers in the Jette Parker Young Artists Program at the Royal Opera. It was easy to catch the work of several major, established artists in one week and most of all at relatively reasonable prices. Yes, an opening night at The Royal Opera can still destroy your bank account, but a performance late in a run, yields a good ticket at a fair price.

But most of all, it’s those diverse audiences that impress me. Younger and older, a dizzying Babel of languages and cultures can be found at nearly every event. And, they are attentive. Coughers, actually wait until a movement has ended. Silence in general in a concert is a rule, not an exception. It’s a vibe that transmits itself to every corner of a hall that says: music matters, let it work its magic on you, especially in tough times. While a week in London always wrings me out because I book myself solid with meetings, auditions and performances, I fly home, as I am doing while writing this to you, renewed, refreshed and re-committed to my work.

Today, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra announced the appointment of Evans Mirageas as the Orchestra’s Vice President for Artistic Planning, effective January 1, 2012.

Mr. Mirageas joined the Atlanta Symphony in April 2006 as Artistic Advisor and has served as the Orchestra’s Director of Artistic Planning since January 2007. With this appointment, he will be based in Atlanta, but will also remain The Harry T. Wilks Artistic Director of Cincinnati Opera.

Mr. Mirageas’s varied career in classical music has embraced record retail, radio production with WFMT in Chicago, orchestra administration as Artistic Administrator to Seiji Ozawa at the Boston Symphony, and artistic leadership as Senior Vice President of the Decca Record Company. In 1999 Mr. Mirageas and his partner, Thomas Dreeze, launched a consulting business which provides strategic and artistic planning for arts organizations and individual artists. The services range from program planning, vocal casting, media strategy, conductor and executive searches, career counseling, and all other activities that affect the artistic profile of an organization or individual. Mr. Mirageas is also The Harry T. Wilks Artistic Director of Cincinnati Opera, a position he has held since 2005. His professional activities include regular engagements as a recording producer (Decca, Warner Classics, and AVIE), lecturer (Mostly Mozart Festival and the Brooklyn Academy of Music), adjudicator (Sullivan Foundation, Palm Beach Opera, League of American Orchestras, and Metropolitan Opera National Council Regional auditions), and search committee advisor for both executive and music director searches (the Brooklyn Philharmonic, Chicago Sinfonietta and the Cincinnati Symphony).

“I am honored to be entering a new phase of working with the Atlanta Symphony as Vice President of Artistic Planning,” said Mr. Mirageas. “Having known and worked with Robert Spano for over two decades, it is a joy to be able to now live in Atlanta and participate in the exciting future of this superb Orchestra that Robert has shepherded for 10 years already.”

“Since Evans joined the Atlanta Symphony in 2006, he has been a tremendous asset to this organization,” said Atlanta Symphony Orchestra President Stanley E. Romanstein, Ph. D. “I am confident he will continue to bring superior artistic leadership to our administration, and will be instrumental in continuing to advance the Orchestra’s artistry both within our community and around the world.”

Rightly so. In the long and distinguished tradition that includes Charles Munch, and Pierre Monteux, this conductor figured out long ago what it takes to unlock the essence of the best French music and to be an advocate for those lighter works or slighter works that are also part of France’s musical patrimony.

Both gifts were on display last night in the superb new concert hall of the OSM, La Maison Symphonique. Mr. Plasson’s program included Roussel’s 2^nd Suite from Bacchus et Ariane, The Saint-Saens Cello Concerto no. 1 with Gautier Capuçon, Valses nobles et sentimentales by Ravel and the Symphony No. 1 in D by Gounod. The OSM gave Plasson that ‘heritage French sound’ for which they have become famous –transparent, subtle, seductive-and an ability to play softly that used to be only apparent on their Decca recordings. Now, in this beautiful new hall, they can all speak in a unison whisper that will send chills up and down your spine it is so delicious to the ear.

The entire program was a delight, but I want to focus on the Gounod Symphony for a particular reason; charm and conviction. Let’s be honest from the start, the Symphony No. 1 by Charles Gounod is no masterpiece. It’s said that Georges Bizet, while a student of Gounod, studied this piece and wrote his own symphony in C, which (even though it was discovered only long after Bizet’s death) is a minor masterpiece. Gounod’s symphony has its intrinsic charms, particularly a finale which is something of an homage to a Haydn symphony first movement-a slow, somewhat mysterious introduction which segues into a jolly major key allegro, but on the whole its musical merits are slight.

However, Michel Plasson treated this music with loving care, exhorting the OSM to present the slender materials with charm and conviction.  The OSM’s Assistant Conductor Nathan Brock with whom I was sitting said afterward that following the first two movements he felt he wanted to conduct the piece himself he was so convinced by Plasson’s performance. What maestro Plasson did, to my eye and ear was make certain that the OSM played with considerable clarity.  Inner voices were balanced just so, the tempos were shrewdly judged, each one a bit on the faster side of normal and he asked for phrasing and overall color (especially some wonderful solo wind playing) that highlighted the merits of the symphony and disguised its structural weak points.

Most of all, he conducted with an élan that only comes with age. Mr. Plasson has absolutely nothing to prove as an artist these days. He can devote himself to simply and eloquently advocating for the music. He is not particularly showy on the podium, although when the music demands it, particularly in the near orgiastic final pages of the Roussel, he can still let loose with a leap or two that galvanizes his players. Most of all, he seemed to be enjoying himself immensely, reaping the musical rewards of a long career devoted primarily to the music of his countrymen, great and modest. It was an object lesson in the beauty of small things.

From my teenage record-buying days, I’ve admired Frühbeck de Burgos, but primarily as an interpreter of music from his native Spain. His 1960s recordings on EMI are still the gold standard for the works of de Falla, Albeniz, Granados and a host of other Spanish composers. I have only recently experienced his work live in concert, primarily in Boston (where he is a regular and welcome guest) and Philadelphia. While he still champions music from his native land, Frühbeck led one of the finest accounts I have heard of the Marriage of Figaro overture at a recent Philadelphia Orchestra gala. Clearly, I had been missing out on a substantial part of the repertoire for which he has a deep sympathy.

So, it was with more than mild curiosity that I accepted an invitation to hear the CSO and its guest conductor play The Mahler Symphony No. 1. Even though it is one of the shorter Mahler symphonies, No. 1 (nicknamed ‘The Titan’) it is still a sprawling canvas whose whipsaw emotions have invited all sorts of conductorial intervention in the past fifty years or so of the Mahler revival. I’ve heard Bernstein, Chailly, Solti, Ozawa and Tennstedt conduct it in concert and all of them gave supercharged high-wire performances.

Not so maestro Frühbeck and I count this among the most satisfying Mahler experiences of my concert going life. He let the symphony unfold in such a natural way, with tempos that seemed just right, dynamics judged to the finest degree and an overall sense of where this symphony needed to ‘go’ that the cumulative effect of this performance was a revelation. The Music Hall audience cheered him and the CSO to the rafters. Yes, the finale still goes on too long, but that’s Mahler’s youthful excess, no fault of the conductor-and Frühbeck even found a way to keep the momentum of the finale going at just the right speed so that the longed-for coda for once did not seem to be an afterthought.

What’s the secret? I’m lucky to have friends in the orchestra and I asked them. It’s quite simple. Early on in rehearsals the maestro said that Mahler is the supreme control freak of composers. His scores, even the early ones are so carefully annotated, sometimes bar by bar with minute tempo and expression directions that if you simply do what he asks, all will be well. That may sound simplistic and a bit disingenuous but it’s true.

The other secret in Saturday’s performance was the way in which the conductor reminded the players what the composer needed. Frühbeck’s style is made up of a series of gestures that seem to this observer inviting, coaxing, almost seductive. And yet, they are at the same time supremely confident and authoritative. It’s a potent and varied conducting vocabulary.

After the concert I realized there was something wonderfully familiar about this interpretation. The first recording of The Mahler 1 I owned was a 1961 Columbia disc conducted by the octogenarian Bruno Walter. The orchestra was a pickup ensemble in Los Angeles made up of members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and some of the finest film studio players. According to the producer of those sessions John McClure, the players adored Walter and gave him their all. Walter was also Mahler’s disciple and gave the posthumous world premieres of Mahler’s 9th Symphony and Das Lied von der Erde. I’ll not accuse Maestro Frühbeck of plagiarism, but Bruno Walter’s performance was so similar to what I heard on Saturday night as to be uncanny.

Or not. Yesterday I listened to a CD transfer of this classic recording. This man who was Gustav Mahler’s close friend, who championed his works long before it became fashionable again in the 1960s, took the same path in the symphony as maestro Frühbeck…leave well enough alone. Walter’s recording is an interpretation I will gladly accept as what the composer intended. It has a natural flow and pays careful attention to subtle gradations of tempo and dynamics. Bruno Walter set an example that I hope all conductors who attempt Mahler symphonies will follow; read the score, do what Mahler asks and all will be well.

For me, the greatest joy in this little journey of discovery and remembrance is having a work that is now at the center of the modern orchestra repertoire illuminated anew. Saturday night’s experience was the product of a joyful collaboration between a superb orchestra and a conductor whose maturity allows him to simply be a channel for the wishes of a great composer.

Tuesday, September 11, 2001 was to have been the first rehearsal for that week. Needless to say, the horrific events that morning in New York, at The Pentagon and in a field in Pennsylvania changed those plans immediately. Robert was already in Atlanta, but Donald Runnicles was in San Francisco and it was clear he would not be able to travel to Atlanta in time to rehearse and perform. The program was changed, and Robert selected the Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6 ‘Pathetique’ with its elegiac closing movement as the second part of the program.

Though I was not officially connected with the Atlanta Symphony at the time, I had planned to come and celebrate with my friend Robert Spano as he embarked on this important new appointment. By a stroke of good fortune, after being stranded in Chicago from Tuesday to Friday of that week, my plane to Atlanta was one of the first flights to leave O’Hare when the skies re-opened.

On the evening of the gala concert, Saturday, September 15, the mood in the Woodruff Arts Center was somber and intense. The hall was packed and pre-performance chatter in the lobby was all about the hope that music would provide some solace for what we all were feeling.

What happened at the beginning of that first concert will be vivid in my mind forever. Robert strode purposefully to the podium, turned to the audience and began the concert as one normally does at the beginning of a season – with our National Anthem. The glorious ‘roar’ of sound from that audience singing, so desperate to believe in something good and true that week made ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ the most joyful noise I will ever hear.

As the ASO celebrates the beginning of Robert’s second decade as Music Director and Donald Runnicles’ similar milestone as Principal Guest Conductor, l am reminded that one of the most powerful properties of music is its ability to make the personal vision of a composer into a commonly held emotional belief for the audience. Beethoven’s call for universal understanding and peace in his 9th Symphony provides an ideal pathway to remembering the events of September 11 and hoping for a brighter future.

Mahalia Jackson sang only music of the spirit. Her sole recording of a popular song in a recording career than spanned nearly forty years was a poignant medley of George Gershwin’s Summertime deftly combined with the spiritual Sometimes I feel Like a Motherless Child-recorded ‘live.’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mc2vVPV_ZTQ

Part of what draws me to the voice of Mahalia Jackson is the same quality that makes a truly great opera star instantly recognizable-it is a unique vocal ‘fingerprint’ that permits one to identify the singer in a few seconds of singing. Ms. Jackson’s voice was untrained in the conservatory sense. In opera singer parlance she used her chest voice to the very top of her range-something that would shorten the career of any opera singer to a mere decade. She had a flute-y, haunting head voice that she used either on purpose or simply when she was reaching for a note that would not work in chest. And covering around the ‘break’? -forget it!

Mahalia Jackson (to use a catch phrase made immortal by the African-American opera singer, Leontyne Price) never sang on the ‘interest’ in her voice, she spent the ‘capital’ of her God-given gift constantly. Her diction was unique, sometimes dropping consonants and making vowel modifications that would make most conservatory teachers swoon with pain. And I know of no other singer who was able to make a vowel sound out of the letter ‘n’!

But beyond the speculation of ‘what if’ Jackson had access to classical training and her unique timbre, the heart of my appreciation for one of the finest singers in any genre of the 20th century lies in her total commitment to what she is singing. She didn’t have an easy life. Failed marriages, no children, foolishness in business that often left her broke – all those stories simply fueled the power of her desire and ability to put across the words of a song or a hymn with either a sweetness that takes away all care or the power of a locomotive on a fast track to redemption-hers and ours.

Whenever I have the opportunity to have an evening with a tyro opera singer, sitting around with a glass of wine and iPod at the ready, sooner or later, after Bjoerling, Callas, Caruso, Bumbry, Price and Bartoli, I inevitably lecture them on what it means to truly connect with the meaning of what you’re singing. To prove my point I scroll down to Frank Sinatra’s Only The Lonely album and then a healthy dose of Mahalia. Once they get used to the searing intensity of her voice my young listeners invariably well up with tears of recognition that this is what it means to be a channel for creative genius.

Have a listen to the link here below (it’s one of my all-time favorite Mahalia Jackson exhortation songs) and then feel free to let You Tube take you on a journey thereafter. Whatever your individual musical taste I think you’ll find that Jackson is a great artist. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7o7GnV30kJA&feature=related

During all of August the three individual institutions that benefit directly from the fund gave concerts as did the May Festival Chorus. In turn, Cincinnati Opera, The Ballet and The Symphony gave concerts at either the Greenacres Arts Center or at Mrs. Nippert’s home. It was a joy to plan the opera concert which took place on August 8 and to provide the opera singers for the concert this past week that marked the conclusion of the centennial celebrations.

As with everything she has done in her century of living generosity, the concert was just right. Her administrator Carter Randolph said it perfectly when he ended the evening by repeating Mrs. Nippert’s mantra, that she has one criterion for everything she supports-quality. What impressed me most about the evening, led by John Morris Russell our new conductor of The Cincinnati Pops, was the near perfect marriage of program and space. Hearing the magnificent Cincinnati Symphony in a space designed for no more than 500 people created an intimate relationship between the music makers and the music lovers. The subtleties of quiet passages and the power of more dramatic moments were both exciting.

We have only one Louise Nippert and in these still challenging times for the arts in Cincinnati and elsewhere it was so enjoyable to take an evening to reflect on what lifelong philanthropy means and the rewards it creates for generations yet to come.

*the original guest editorial can be found on this link:

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20091212/EDIT02/912120380/Nippert-gift-transformational-Cincinnati

…From my days of working with The Decca Record company I have fond memories of visiting Montreal every autumn and spring for seven years to watch Charles Dutoit and his players work their magic on a wide variety of repertoire in the studio and to dispatch peerless performances within the very tight time constraints of commercial recording contracts.

It was with a sense of great joy that I accepted the invitation from Alexandre da Costa to actually produce a recording with this orchestra. Though I have produced scores of discs in my own thirty-plus years in the music profession I had made it a policy while I worked for Decca not to run recording sessions myself-feeling that I would be taking work away from my staff of gifted full-time producers. Under its present Music Director Kent Nagano, this great orchestra has maintained its ferocious ability to concentrate in the studio and has developed an even more catholic taste in modern repertoire, allowing it to honor the past and embrace the new. They were the ideal ‘band’ for this disc of the music of American composer Michael Daugherty.

We were fortunate to have the best of two worlds. It was decided to record the concerts on which two of the works were being performed and have a ‘patch’ session to repair any small mistakes that might have occurred. This is a luxury since one can have the visceral excitement of musicians interacting with the public and fix the inevitable small mistakes that occur in the heat of battle, small errors that would, on repeated hearing become annoying. And for the chamber concerto Ladder To The Moon, we had a single afternoon recording session with the principal players of the orchestra in the intimate acoustic of the Montréal Conservatory.

It only remains to add a personal note of appreciation to the artists. I have admired Michael Daugherty’s music from my days at Decca where on our Argo label we produced several recordings of Michael’s music. And now, Michael is a distinguished professor of composition for my alma mater The University of Michigan. Michael is a chameleon in that he can write lighthearted, tongue-in-cheek music like Flamingo, turn around to create a grand, romantic concerto like Fire and Blood and then create intimate, reflective and wistful pieces like Ladder To The Moon.

Pedro Halffter, being the son and grandson of composers was the ideal, sympathetic maestro to bring this new sound world to the Montréal Symphony. The players with their accustomed lightning-quick ability grasped this particular American idiom and played like a house on fire.

Our soloist Alexandre da Costa is simply one of the most genuine, committed musicians it has been my pleasure to work with in many years. Perfectionist, yes, but also a man who plays with heart and the deep desire to persuade all who hear him that music can profoundly affect you. His unique and plangent tone is ideal for Michael’s violin music. The experience was, in a word ‘superbe.’

You can hear the finale to this concerto on the Audio section of this website.