Second full day in Charlotte and I wake up feeling like an old man. Between conducting, practicing, and the long bike ride yesterday this 43-year-old body is complaining. Nothing to do but do it all over again.
So, early morning practice at the hall. Once again my man, James, is working on the piano. A quick word about piano technicians – the music business is chock full of strange folks, whether they be musicians, administrative types, backstage crew, or whatever. But there’s no stranger passel of folk than piano technicians. These guys (and they’re all guys – I’ve never met a woman piano technician) spend hours a day tweaking, cajoling, and otherwise begging pianos to behave. It’s a lonely job and a hard one. Every pianist wants something different out of the piano, and every piano has it’s own distinct personality. It takes a different kind of person to do this job and they all could use some serious psychiatric help. It must come with the territory.
James has started to do that piano technician alchemy on the instrument. It sounds much better and is more consistent. I’m starting to get used to it and I have hopes that I’ll be able to make some good music on the instrument this weekend. Then it was on to the 2nd rehearsal.
2nd rehearsals are make/break time. This is really when you find out whether you’ve pissed off the orchestra or if they’re buying into your type of music making. First up was the Griffes White Peacock. This is a charming work, about 6 minutes long, of early American impressionism. One should approach this like the classic impressionism of the Debussy era. Dynamics are tremendously important, especially the soft ones. Getting a real transparent quality while making music took up much of the time we spent on this piece.
Back to Tchaik V, fourth and third movements. I am an advocate of the idea that there is a lot of beautiful melodic music in this symphony. I am trying to encourage the orchestra to think past the “every man for himself” tradition of playing this piece. Old habits are hard to break, especially with an orchestra, but I believe me are making progress. I realize in retrospect that I’m spending a lot of time trying to explain things orally rather than show them with my conducting. Sometimes in order to make that break from “the known” into the unknown you have to be more verbal than usual. I’m sure if the orchestra and I were more familiar with each other this wouldn’t be necessary. Or at least I hope so.
This afternoon I had an inteview on WDAV, the local classical station. The interviewer was a very nice lady named Jennifer Foster. We talked about many things, music and otherwise. It seems that my desire to actually lead a normal life and work towards an early retirement from conducting is something of an unusual stance in the music world. I’m shocked! Shocked!! But it’s true – I plan on playing the piano until the day they shoot my ashes into space, but the globe-trotting life of a conductor gets very old very quickly.
This afternoon was another beautiful 65 degree day so time to get on the bike and explore. I’ve discovered that Charlotte has some absolutely beautiful neighborhoods west and south of downtown. There are a few, a precious few, bike routes, and the one I found today wanders through this kind of neighborhood. At the end I ended up on the “Booty Loop” from yesterday. A very nice ride.
Tonight there was the dinner with the Search committee. It was held at the house of a Board member, very nice place slightly out of town. She and her husband are heavily into modern art, and they also have an interest in architecture. It was a good time. Much of hte discussion should stay under wraps, but there is one thing I needed to point out to folks. The CSO is currently looking for both an MD AND an Excutive Director. This is a curious situation, somewhat unique to the orchestra. There is a danger in that if they hire an ED said person might not get along with the future MD, and vice versa. I encouraged them to look for creative solutions to this situation. But God only knows how that is going to play out. Because of the nature of the business when you find a good ED or MD you should jump at him/her/it and just hope for the best.
Again, enough. I’m exhausted and I have to talk the CSO into playing chamber music tomorrow morning. Mozart 25. Frankly, when I do the play conduct thing with a new orchestra it’s a very interesting thing. I have to trust them and they have to trust me. This is hard to do without having a history with each other. We shall see what we shall see. Sorry if this post is less lucid than the others. I just need to go stare @ Law&Order.