Q&A with Conductor Leonard Slatkin
Music Director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra
A happy 65th birthday to Leonard Slatkin, who previously led the Saint Louis Symphony to prominence (1979-96) as well as the National Symphony Orchestra (1996-2008).
AH: What are you most excited about with regard to your first full season in Detroit?
LS: I guess it would be exploring the wide variety of music that we’re playing over the years. A new orchestra, so we’re getting used to each other; now it’s a question of honing in on trying to establish playing styles within all the different repertoire. So that’s certainly a plus. Also, we’re going to be doing some recording, we’re going to be on tour, we’re doing a lot of work in the community in outreach and education. So all of these things are of, I’d have to say, equal excitement.
AH: What challenges does this new directorship present?
LS: Well, like every orchestra in the states now, the challenge is really more of an economic one than a musical one for the moment. We have to get through a very difficult time. Obviously Michigan is in perhaps the most dire straits of any state we can think of. So we have to tough it out for about a year, maybe 18 months, and then hope that all of our generous donors and contributors are able to pitch in again, perhaps in a way that they’ve never been able to before. Certainly they’re having trouble doing it now.
Two Concert Highlights for 2009-10: Hindemith and Barber
AH: Talking about some of the music you’ll be playing, it is fantastic that you’ll be presenting Paul Hindemith’s Concert Music for Strings and Brass on the program in November.
LS: Oh, one of my favorite pieces.
AH: It’s a real showcase for both sections, isn’t it?
LS: We have incredible strings and brass. We have incredible woodwinds too! I love this piece. Each year, I’ll try to represent Hindemith. He’s a very special composer.
AH: Such an acute understanding of writing for brass in particular. I love his brass parts.
LS: Strings, too. He was a violist first. He just knew what to do with the instruments, and there’s always that personality where nobody else could’ve written it in virtually every one of his pieces.
AH: You’re also observing Samuel Barber’s 100th birthday in a major way.
LS: And I guess we’re the only orchestra to do it over the course of a whole season. A lot of other orchestras are maybe doing a concert where they have a work or two. But we’re doing eight pieces, maybe nine. And the majority of the big works are represented, orchestrally anyway: the three concertos [piano, violin, cello], the Symphony [No. 1], the Essays, Medea.
He’s long been, as you know from the St. Louis days, a specialty of mine, but also was recorded a great deal by my predecessor in Detroit, Neeme Järvi. So the orchestra itself has a very strong tradition in Barber, and that made eminent sense for this particular year.
AH: What is it about his music that most captivates you?
LS: Well, I’ve never been without the music of Barber. But for a long time, he was frowned on as being so far out of the mainstream of musical thought in the 60s, 70s and maybe even into the 80s. Now that we’re past all that time, and there’s more acceptance of diverse musical styles, we find that not only his melodic gift but his invention of sounds and harmonies are really quite advanced, even though at the time when they were written, they seemed retro.
Thoughts on William Schuman
AH: Another important centennial coming up is William Schuman’s.
LS: Yes, that’s going to be coming up for me outside of Detroit. We’ll do Schuman in the 2010-11 season in Detroit, but I’m doing a Schuman tribute at Juilliard next year.
AH: Do you remember the first time you met Bill?
LS: Well, I met him socially first in New York when I was a student my first year at Juilliard in ’64. And then two years later, I became the assistant conductor of the Youth Orchestra of New York. Literally the first piece that I conducted in Carnegie Hall was his New England Triptych, and from that time on, we became very good friends.
Detroit Symphony Recordings: Bela Fleck, Sergei Rachmaninoff and John Williams
AH: Do you have any recording projects in the works right now?
LS: Yes, our first recording with Detroit comes out, which is a collaborative effort with Edgar Meyer, Bela Fleck and Zakir Hussain. It’s a concerto for those three instruments – bass, banjo and tabla. Very intriguing.
Then, we’ll embark on a re-look for me at the Rachmaninoff symphonies. Naxos wants me to redo them now. And we’ve already completed most of the disc of music of a Belarussian composer who’s lived in the states since 1994 named Alla Borzova. We’re also doing all of the concertos that John Williams has written, using members of our orchestra for the solo parts. The Horn Concerto, I think, is going to be available online in the next month.
Opening Night: Sibelius, Dvorák and Copland
To kick off the 2009-10 season, Slatkin and the Detroit Symphony will be joined by Midori for Jean Sibelius' Violin Concerto Sept. 11. The orchestra will also explore Dvorák's Carnival Overture, Rachmaninoff's Vocalise and Aaron Copland's epic Third Symphony, which Slatkin previously recorded for RCA.
The Symphony's first tribute to Samuel Barber begins Oct. 1, which includes his School for Scandal Overture, Piano Concerto and the famous Adagio for Strings. With an appealing array of repertoire, this season under Slatkin shows great promise creatively.
Leonard Slatkin of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra
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