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leonard slatkin
JULY 2009
Read moreOne can feel it in the air. The end of the concert season is close and various forms of time off are near. There is a physical letdown and the best you can do, after the ardors of a tough season, is to take little vacations along the way.
Such was the case at the beginning of the month of June.
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leonard slatkin
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leonard slatkin
MAY 2009
Read moreMany people tell me that I work too hard. There are probably some who don’t think I work hard enough. All I know is that I have just spent one year during this past April. So hang in with me. This is not going to be short.
It started with a return to Detroit, doing about eight things at once. There were subscription concerts, with what might be characterized as the first substantive programs I conducted as Music Director. Of course that would be unfair to the three programs I had done earlier, but in fact, we had not played a work labeled “Symphony” on any of those concerts. This program was the only one where there was not a living composer represented, nor an American.
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leonard slatkin
APRIL 2009
Read moreFor all the weather ills that befall us at this time of year, March is in many ways my favorite month. Baseball is back. Four and a half months of withdrawal are at an end. All is right with the world. More on this later.
I was very fortunate that the first two weeks of this period had me on vacation in two favorable climates, Los Angeles and Florida. The first was not planned in my original thoughts. But I found myself intrigued with various aspects of the motion picture industry, based on the week when I conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic earlier in the year. A few days out in La-La land would give me the chance to connect with several people who are involved in the music scoring aspect of the movie industry.
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leonard slatkin
MARCH 2009
Read moreA great deal of February was spent in teaching mode. First up was a trip to Interlochen, which was not my idea at this time of year. Checking the weather became a fixation as the day of arrival neared. It is at least 10 degrees colder in that part of the world than in Detroit. None the less I arrived to chilly but not unbearable temperatures.
The Interlochen Arts Academy is one of the only schools devoted to the arts that has a national, and indeed, an international presence. I suppose most people know it from the summer program, but they go pretty much all year round. There were several reasons that compelled me to do this at this time.
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leonard slatkin
FEBRUARY 2009
Read moreAfter two very intense weeks in Detroit, I thought it would be a simple matter just to go back on the guest circuit. After all, no administrative responsibilities and all I had to do was just conduct.
Naturally, it did not work out quite that easily.
First stop was Dallas, where I had not conducted in almost 20 years. I arrived on Monday, January 19th. When I got to my hotel room and switched on the television, I realized that we had a problem. Inauguration day was less than 24 hours away, and with the one-hour time difference between Texas and the East, the orchestra would miss the ceremony.
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leonard slatkin
MID-JANUARY 2009
Read moreIt is only halfway through January of the new year but there is so much to write about that I thought it best to get a head start.
A quick wrap-up to the Taipei visit gets us going. I spent an hour in the hospital. Nothing serious. As it turned out, some good friends of violinist Cho-Liang Lin invited me for dinner. Regular readers of this column know about my recent fixation with Reflexology, so I was extolling its virtues to my hosts. On the way to the restaurant, I learned that one of them is the leading plastic surgeon in town and when she heard about my plantar fasciitis troubles, she suggested a trip to her hospital. I protested, saying it really was not that bad, but she said that they had a whole section devoted to orthotics.
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leonard slatkin
JANUARY 2009
Read moreGreetings from Taipei.
The final two weeks of 2008 have been spent in Asia: the first in Tokyo, and the current one in Taiwan. It has been eight years since I last conducted any resident orchestras here in the Far East. Most everything has been on tour with American and English ensembles.
The NHK Symphony is the oldest in Japan and has always had a fine reputation. Many of the countries that were being exposed to Western symphonic music had imported primarily German-based conductors in the early years. The idea was to keep repeating the same repertoire over and over again, until the orchestras became totally familiar with the music. The same principle applied to the public as well.
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leonard slatkin
MID-DECEMBER 2008
Read moreUsually these columns are devoted to what has occurred over the course of one month, occasionally veering off into something unusual. However, events of this past week almost certainly demand a special edition of their own, so here it is.
It is difficult to know what has been more important, moving or even fun. After a long, long wait, I finally stepped on the podium at Orchestra Hall in Detroit and gave what will be the first of many downbeats as the orchestra’s music director.
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leonard slatkin
DECEMBER 2008
Read moreAnother month filled with travel and good music making. When I think about my original plan, no permanent orchestra and just guest conducting, I now realize that this kind of schedule would have been too grueling. But it is still nice to see both familiar and new faces once in a while.
The month started off in Baltimore. Contractual restrictions had prevented me from conducting Marin Alsop’s orchestra, as D.C. was too close. Now that I no longer have that clause to deal with, it seemed appropriate to work with the BSO. I knew several of the musicians from other dates I had done over the past 12 years with various pick-up bands. But working with the whole orchestra was quite different.