Sticks and Drones: Conductor Blog

As I’ve done additional research about conductors and their lives, I’d hoped that I’d find more of them on the internet, i.e. with their own websites and/or blogs.  What was I thinking?  When would a conductor have the time to launch a website and update it on a regular basis?  When would a conductor have time to blog?  Conductors are incredibly busy people, and some are more tech-literate than others.   

There are websites of individual conductors.  Most are simply static statements of the conductor’s bio, conducting schedule, PR photos, contact information, repertoire, professional affiliations, etc.  I know of only one that has had a blog — Giancarlo Guerrero’s.  I haven’t visited his site recently — he’s now the music director designate for the Nashville Symphony Orchestra and I’d be surprised if he continued his blog, although he wrote posts only about once a month.

To my surprise, I recently stumbled onto Adaptistration.com which has an interesting blog written by two conductors, Bill Eddins and Ron Spigelman.  I’ve added it to my blogroll: “Conductors blog.”  Their posts range over music, politics, teaching, audiences, among other subjects.  And by having two conductors writing, it lightens the load for each of them to post often.  I plan to visit this blog regularly. 

Sarah Hatsuko Hicks, Assistant Conductor with the Minnesota Orchestra, posts at “Inside the Classics” on a wide range of topics related to conducting and classical music, audiences and the life of a conductor.  I’ve found her posts to be interesting and informative, and several have helped me in my research. 

When I first began this blog, I was thinking of giving Evan Quinn his own blog, too.  It forced me to think about his attitude toward technology 40 years in the future, and about what his life is like, how he’d choose to spend his free time.  Evan is a low tech kind of guy.  He spends little time on the internet and his e-mailbox is chronically full.  He’s also not in to gadgets.  So, I realized that writing a blog would be grossly out of character for him.  I was relieved, too, because I would have had to write it for him…. 

As much as I still wish I had a “conductor buddy” in my life with whom I could brainstorm ideas or ask questions, I’m finding these conductor blogs an interesting and helpful substitute.  For anyone curious about conductors and what’s on their minds, these blogs are must-reads.

Tricky Rhythms

Sarah Hatsuko Hicks, over at the Inside the Classics blog, has written again (“Preparation Throes” Tuesday, April 22, 2008) about preparing a music score for conducting in a performance, this time breaking out the tricky rhythms and the big mixed-meter section in the middle of Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring.  I love reading her posts on this subject because she is so clear and descriptive.  I always have Evan in mind so I love learning from a conductor about how conductors work.  Thanks, Sarah.

In Perceval, Evan travels to Amsterdam to conduct the Concertgebouw Orchestra during their American Music Festival.  On his all-American program, he’s included Copland’s Appalachian Spring.  While writing the initial drafts, I listened to this music over and over, even though I already knew it quite well.  But I didn’t search out a score to use as reference.  I wasn’t interested in focusing on the technical aspects of conducting.  First I wrote Evan conducting this piece in concert and suffering a memory lapse in the middle of it — right where the meters get all mixed.  That version remained through several more drafts until I realized that for narrative purposes it wouldn’t work that way.  Then I decided that he’d have the psychological fugue moment at the end of the previous piece on the program, Barber’s Adagio for Strings.  And that clicked for the narrative.  So, I ended up showing/writing Evan conducting the Barber instead of the Copland.  

When I write/show Evan working on the podium, I am mindful of narrative purpose: how does this scene move the story forward or reveal character?  So, it is less about the conducting than about Evan.  I spend a lot of time listening to the music he’ll conduct, but much less time reading the score.  It is my challenge to describe in general Evan’s conducting but create the illusion that it is specific regarding his gestures, thoughts, etc.  The purpose for Evan on the podium is always: how does this reveal Evan as a person?  Not necessarily his stick technique or if he missed that cue for the flute.

Score study and preparation consumes hours of Evan’s time.  Again, writing about it needs to serve narrative purpose, so I approach these scenes much as I have the concert or rehearsal scenes.  The difference is that I do use scores as references so that I can write Evan thinking about the challenges of specific sections of music, making notes on the score, etc.  In Perceval, the score that he’s working on through most of the story is Mahler’s Fifth Symphony.  Since I am not a conductor, I sought out a conductor to help me identify passages in the score that might concern Evan.  Then I used the Mahler to also reflect back through music what Evan was experiencing in his life through Evan’s reading and understanding of the score.  Hard work for him.  Hard work for me, too.

Why spend so much time and space on Evan’s conducting?  Early in the novel, he thinks about the podium as his home and music as his heart, his motivation for living.  It is all he has in the world.  Showing that is important to his character and its development, and how he behaves in other situations in the story.     

Conductors and Score Study

Conductor Sarah Hatsuko Hicks at the Inside the Classics blog at http://www.minnesotaorchestra.org/insidetheclassics/blog/2008/02/dog-day-afternoon.html, has once again written about score study in her February 24 post, “Dog Day Afternoon.”   This blog makes my research a bit easier and I’m very appreciative. 

 I had imagined Evan working on score study nearly all the time, especially because he has repertoire holes he needs to fill, and Sarah has confirmed that this is the case for conductors.  She also writes about when it gets crazy or nearly impossible to do any study, something I had not thought much about.  Evan guest conducts, and carries scores with him to work on, but I have found myself sending him on media interviews, meeting with his manager and getting caught up in some social activities that prevent him from score study.  From what Sarah writes, this sounds about right.

At the moment, the section of novel 3 I’m working on has Evan at home in Vienna.  In two weeks, he’ll be in St. Petersburg, Russia, to conduct a rather important concert.  He wants to concentrate on preparing for that concert, especially because he’ll also play one of the violin solos in the Bach Concerto for Two Violins.  I had seen this concert preparation as an obstacle to his accomplishing something else, but now I see that the preparation is actually his first priority and everything else that comes at him will be the obstacles and conflicts.  With one exception….. 

Conductors and Orchestras — Research

I’m always looking for interesting and helpful articles, books, blogs about conductors and how orchestras function.  Yesterday, following another question about Russian phrases, I found research notes on rehearsals that I’d written several years ago while observing rehearsals at the Minnesota Orchestra.  Hidden treasures.  Can’t predict when I’ll stumble onto them….

 For example, at the Inside the Classics blog (link on my blogroll) which I’ve been reading fairly regularly, I discovered two “Ask the Expert” posts that are helpful also to my research for conductors and orchestras.  The first is entitled “Ask the Expert: Talent Scouting” and deals with how the Minnesota Orchestra’s season is put together.  A glimpse into the gigantic job of planning a season, programs, and booking artists.  The second is entitled “Ask an Expert: Conductor Skill Sets.”  Sarah Hatsuko Hicks, Assistant Conductor at the Minnesota Orchestra, writes about what makes an average conductor, a good conductor and a truly great conductor.  I would put Evan Quinn in the good conductor group with the potential to be truly great, but who knows if he’ll make it?  That’s the deal — experience also has a tremendous influence on the development of a conductor.  Ms. Hicks talks a little about charisma, which can hurt as much as help.  But I do think that a conductor’s personality can figure in his success, too, just as in any human endeavor.  I’ve tried to make Evan curious about the world and people with a desire to share his knowledge and love for music.  No artist works in a vacuum.

I’ve found the Inside the Classics blog to be interesting, fun, and quite helpful to me and I’m grateful to Sam Bergman and Sarah Hatsuko Hicks for their hard work on it.  I recommend it.