The Kansas City Symphony, under the direction of Michael Stern, is carving out a formidable presence in the city's arts scene. The son of violin virtuoso Isaac Stern, he checked in after the symphony’s opening weekend to discuss future performances, his relationship with Leonard Bernstein and anticipation for Kansas City’s new concert hall, the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts.
2009-10 Season Overview: Rachmaninoff and Barber
AH: One of the terrific things you've done in your tenure in Kansas City is breathe new life into the programming.
MS: From the beginning of my tenure with the Kansas City Symphony, new music, especially American music, has been an important priority, and American composers continue to be an important part of our programming in general. I think we have a special responsibility to nurture the music of our time and our country, while also being a great caretaker of the great masterpieces of the repertoire, and we work very hard towards that end.
AH: Including the Christopher Rouse piece for opening weekend is a case in point.
MS: It was not so much the idea of wanting to program a contemporary American composer, or even the musical language used by Chris Rouse in his piece Rapture that led me to choose it for this program. Rather, it was the emotional context of the piece and response I hoped it would evoke in our listeners, especially in the context of the storm and stress inherent in the Haydn symphony [No. 49] that opens the concert, subtitled La Passione. And I was gratified by the tremendous response from the audience when we played the piece to close the first half of the concert.
AH: Symphonic Dances (scheduled for Oct. 9-10) is a favorite Rachmaninoff piece next to his Second Symphony. How much do you wish he would have written more similar pure orchestral pieces such as this during his lifetime?
MS: Well, I am grateful for the orchestral works we do have of his. He was especially known for his piano virtuosity, and I have of course conducted all of his works for piano and orchestra, including the less often performed piano concerti. And in fact, I have conducted his lesser known Third Symphony more often than I have his most popular Second Symphony. But the Symphonic Dances is one of his tightest and best pieces, and I love performing it.
AH: Many orchestras are sprinkling in Barber works for his centennial. Any special reason for choosing the violin concerto (Jan. 22-24) and Knoxville, Summer of 1915 (April 9-11)?
MS: I think Barber was a great composer, and a most important figure in our musical history, so celebrating his centennial is very appropriate. He wrote a lot of beautifully crafted music for orchestra, but these two works are especially close to my heart. They are also great favorites of the two marvelous guest artists we invited to perform them: Gil Shaham and Heidi Grant Murphy. I think they will both render extraordinary performances.
Leonard Bernstein and American Music
AH: What personal recollections do you have of Bernstein?
MS: Leonard Bernstein was – and remains – a looming figure. A very old family friend and close colleague of my father’s, he was often around during my growing up and formative musical years. Of course, he was the hometown conductor in New York when I was young, and I heard him in concert countless times.
But I also had a lot of more personal contact with him, and when I was writing my senior thesis in college, I spent many hours talking to him. I was an American history major, and I wrote my thesis on the changing role of and attitude towards American music during the New Deal era of the 1930s and 40s. As a music student, especially being a young conductor, there was no escaping the overwhelming impact he had on me, and I think this is true for every young musician in America, then and probably still to this day.
And in 1986, I was fortunate to have him select me as one of three young conductors that he presented in concert with him and the New York Philharmonic. His conducting had genius, to be sure. But I also greatly admire him as a composer.
AH: What makes American music American to you?
MS: I suppose there are a few objective criteria that one could apply to determine how “American” a piece is, usually associated with a certain rhythmic – and usually jazzy or urban – propulsion, or very open sounding, consonant and sonorous, and broadly spaced music. We have only to think of our patriotic music, or the music of the heartland – which also inspired folk music – to go in that direction.
But while there is some validity in that, it would be too easy and facile to make that the only determinant factor. There is so much variety in American music, and so many fine composers writing in completely different styles. The connection to our contemporary experience is what makes Charles Ives and George Gershwin both quintessentially American. Their music sounds completely different, yet America defined itself through the work of both of them.
AH: What update can you give about the progress for the Kauffman Center? How much does a new facility excite you as a conductor?
MS: It is tremendously exciting. We are past the halfway mark, on schedule to open in September of 2011, and it is going to be a truly epochal event for the city. It will contribute another layer and the next chapter in the orchestra’s ongoing transformation. It will change everything about how we experience art and music in Kansas City, and it will forever change our urban landscape. It can't come soon enough!
More Music to Come: Prokofiev and Bach
Along with the aforementioned repertoire, the Kansas City Symphony will perform such varied music as Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony, one of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos and The Singing Rooms for chorus and orchestra by leading American composer Jennifer Higdon.
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