# If you were a conductor/musical director of an orchestra or ensemble.....



## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Okay here's something that might be fun....

Let's assume that everyone on TC is a conductor (be it for an orchestra, a choral conductor and/or an opera conductor etc.) or an instrumentalist who leads an ensemble in a similar way (such as in a string quartet, piano trio, HIP orchestra or chamber ensemble etc.) and _I_ am interviewing you for some sort of TC conductors and musicians hall of fame that doesn't really exist. 

All you have to do is use your imagination and answer the following questions (copy the template in bold):

*Are you a conductor or an instrumentalist or someone who does early music etc? What type of conductor or other musical director are you?*

*What sort of music or composers do you specialise in?* (eg 19th century orchestral, baroque operas, modern chamber music etc. Or if you want you can be a lot broader and say "mainly symphonic music and concertante from the 18th to early 20th centiries with a dabbling of standard operatic repertoire here and there, especially Wagner)

*What ensembles do you direct/orchestras you conduct/opera companies are you associated with?* (eg "I am a principal conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, but I have also been a principal conductor for LSO, and a guest conductor for the Berlin Philharmonic and New York Philharmonic" or you can list a few opera companies that you have conducted with, or talk about the chamber ensemble you have etc.)

*Have you made any recordings? Which labels do you record for? What are some standout recordings you have made? What do you plan to record?* (eg "I have made over a dozen recordings, mainly for Archiv (DG) Some things I have recorded are the orchestral symphonies and the cello concertts of CPE Bach on period instruments. I plan to start a project to record all the symphonies of Kraus within the next two years" or you could write about what string quartets you have recorded if you lead a string quartet or maybe you (like the great Sergiu Celibidache) avoid recording recording anything because you believe only in live performance)

*What would be in a typical performance or concert/opera season?* (you can give an example of an opera season, or some main concerts in an orchetsral concert season, or if you want you can write some examples of a typical concert program you would do)

*Who inspired you to take up this career?* (write what conductors or chamber ensembles or musicians etc. etc. etc. depending on what career you have chosen)

And that's it. 

Because I've basically just cluttered up the "template" with examples, here is the template again to copy into your posts......

*Are you a conductor or an instrumentalist or someone who does early music etc? What type of conductor or other musical director are you?*

*What sort of music or composers do you specialise in?*

*What ensembles do you direct/orchestras you conduct/opera companies are you associated with?*

*Have you made any recordings? Which labels do you record for? What are some standout recordings you have made? What do you plan to record?*

*What would be in a typical performance or concert/opera season?*

*Who inspired you to take up this career?*

And there you go. Have fun with it!


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

That's a lot of questions, requiring a lot of work to answer and long posts. So I picked one for now (and return for the others later).

*Are you a conductor or an instrumentalist who does early music etc? What type of conductor or other musical director are you?*

I am an early music specialist directing a period instrument band usually from an early keyboard instrument such as the harpsichord or fortepiano. I prefer to use the correct term "band", rather than orchestra per se, as the ensemble is made up of no more than a few instrumentalists playing each part. But often we take turns in directing the band, so that the first violinist or the lead oboist could direct the ensemble. While we are aware of historical practice, our intention is to use them as a guide to interpret these very old music today that modern ears find enjoying, and we are primarily concerned with making listeners connect with these very old pieces of music. We are never interested in alienating listeners per se. That would be contrary to the spirit of the vast majority of these Baroque and Classical pieces.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

ArtMusic said:


> That's a lot of questions, requiring a lot of work to answer and long posts. So I picked one for now (and return for the others later).


Good idea actually (and great post btw I loved your answer). I was wondering after I had finished if I had given people too much to write about! :lol:


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## Garlic (May 3, 2013)

I'm a multi-billionaire who founded his own orchestra specialising in contemporary music. Every season has a certain amount of premieres commissioned by me especially for the orchestra. I mix in a few older works too, but focus on neglected composers and lesser-known works from well-known composers. I become the first person to conduct a full cycle of Stockhausen's Licht. Occasionally I'm a guest conductor at some of the major European orchestras (I boycott Vienna for political reasons), where I mix contemporary works with more standard repertoire. I'm hailed by critics as a musical genius and I and my orchestra attract a cult following.


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

*What ensembles do you direct/orchestras you conduct/opera companies are you associated with?*

I am the founder of the Beatbox Salzburg Orchestra (BSO). The project was born out of my and a few friends' love for Mozart and the human voice. I believe opera is all about the voice and should be performed as such.

*What sort of music or composers do you specialise in?*

I specialise in Mozart. However we have recently been contacted by the Pesaro Festival and we are negotiating a similar take on Rossini.

*Have you made any recordings? Which labels do you record for? What are some standout recordings you have made? What do you plan to record?*

After a few very successful years of performing at the Salzburg Festival, we are in the process of recording Mozart's entire operatic catalogue, under the title of Beatbox22 on our own label, MozBox, to be release on January 27, 2016. We are happy to disclose that we have received a very generous grant to this very end from The Mozart to the Masses Foundation (MMF). In the meanwhile, we are about to release a disc of Rossini overtures in collaboration with the Pesaro Festival, in order to test the waters regarding this new possible undertaking. We have also recorded Messiah and St. Matthew's Passion live at the Salzburg Festival which I believe will be released in the new year.

*What would be in a typical performance or concert/opera season?*

The Beatbox Salzburg Orchestra organises its own annual season of Mozart operas at Salzburg's new state of the art venue, Kleinstes Festspielhaus, which is situated just under the roof of the Schloss and seats only 200. Mozart is widely performed and loved so we never advertise in advance what will be performed on any given night but we do make an announcement at the beginning of the season as to which 3 operas are prepared every quarter. Usually we have two warhorses and an early work but the opposite has happened, like last year, when we did a two-for with L'Oca del Cairo/Lo sposo deluso, Der Schauspieldirektor/Il sogno di Scipione and Cosi fan tutte.

*Who inspired you to take up this career?*

As a child I kept pestering my father to buy me a musical instrument. I'm not sure where the interest came from, as I wasn't born in a musical family. Anyway, my father was tired of me constantly asking for an instrument. One day he came home from work and called me into the kitchen. I remember my mother was making biscuits. My father sat me down and told me he had something for me. Naturally, I asked if it was a musical instrument. He said yes. Excited, I asked which instrument it was. He said, I quote "It's the make your own damn music instrument" and shooed me out of the kitchen, shouting at me not to bother him with stupid stuff again. I took the hint and here we are today. It was different in those days, you understand.


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## Guest (Oct 30, 2013)

*Are you a conductor or an instrumentalist or someone who does early music etc? What type of conductor or other musical director are you?*Yes. Early 21st century music. We do late twentieth century as well.

I hope I'm a good type of conductor. You know, one who conducts well.

*What sort of music or composers do you specialise in?*Composers who are alive.

We play a lot of music by people who are dead (though not long dead) but mostly music by composers who are alive. There's more to it than that, of course, as there are lots of living composers who write music that sounds old. We don't have any use for that. Plenty of other people do. We don't need to.

*What ensembles do you direct/orchestras you conduct/opera companies are you associated with?*I direct the Ijustmadeitupthissecondensemble, which is destined either to become famous or not to become famous. Either way. We're not interested in fame, just to be widely recognized.

*Have you made any recordings? Which labels do you record for? What are some standout recordings you have made? What do you plan to record?*We have an exclusive contract with sub rosa. All our recordings so far have been standouts, of course. The Mark Andre boxed set, the Karkowski orchestral music (which I did not conduct as it's not that kind of music--it's not orchestral, either, but who's counting?), some previously unreleased ensemble pieces by Simon Steen-Andersen and by Carola Bauckholt, for instance.

We're the only ensemble aside from the Hyperion Ensemble to have performed pieces by Dumitrescu and Avram multiple times and to have recorded them as well. Buy the Ensemble Modern recordings, too. We're not selfish.

*What would be in a typical performance or concert/opera season?*We try not to do anything that's typical. We're trying to explore. Some evenings are entirely electroacoustic, so there's no instruments at all. Some evenings we have eai people like Sachiko M and Ignaz Schick, and Martin Tetreault and Otomo Yoshihide, though if those evenings are recorded, the results will show up on Erstwhile. We're not greedy.

*Who inspired you to take up this career?*Love of music, what else? And observing that certain things weren't getting as much playing time as I thought they should.

Any more questions?


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> If you were a conductor/musical director of an orchestra


...i wouldn't observe 'piano' and 'pianissimo' modes and would make the orchestra play 'fortissimo' only as 'forte' but with more precision and vigour


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

and i wouldn't play with tempos that much either.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

I would want to be a conductor of orchestral music and opera with a wide repertoire ranging from the time of Haydn,Mozart
and Beethoven to contemporary music . I'm not sure I would feel confident handling music of the Baroque period , though .
I would want to be music director of a world-class orchestra or opera company .
I would consider it my sacred duty to give new works a chance to be heard , and would be willing to give any living composer of
any nationality, male or female a chance to be heard if I felt he or she had written a work of merit .
In addition to conducting the beloved warhorses of the repertoire , I would want to program many of the lesser known works 
on the fringes of the repertoire a chance ot be heard , both lesser known works by the most famous composers and works
by lesser known but high quality ones . 
So , instead of only doing the last three Dvorak symphonies, I would want to conduct the first six also ,
the first three of Tchaikovsky instead of limiting myself to the overexposed last three , champion the Nielsen symphonies ,
plus ones by Dukas, Berwald , Fibich , Bruch , Myaskovsky, Taneyev, Roussel, Bax, Brian , Enescu , Glazunov, Gliere ,
Stenhammar , Piston, William Schuman , etc. 
In opera , I would feel most at home in Wagner, Richard Strauss ,Berg, Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky , Rimsky-Korsakov,
Prokofiev, Shostakovich , Dvorak, Smetana , Janacek etc though would be willing to do many other operas .
I would want to model myself most on Neeme Jarvi in his tireless efforts to go beyond the same old warhorses .


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