Q. What place were you born and where do you live now?
A. I grew up just outside Boston, in Massachusetts — New England winters and Fenway Park baseball summers. These days home is Vancouver, a very different kind of beautiful: lots of mountains and much taller trees, Pacific Ocean instead of the Atlantic.
Q. What is your favourite era/genre of music to perform?
A. That’s a hard one — whatever I’m conducting next is always my favourite thing! But I keep coming home to the late Romantics: Strauss, Mahler, Tchaikovsky – what appeals to me is something about the emotional scale of that music, the way it holds nothing back and every phrase is so satisfying to shape in collaboration with the orchestra.
Q. Who are your musical influences and what do you love about their music?
A. Leonard Bernstein is my largest musical influence. He’s my conducting grandfather, my teacher’s teacher, but I first was mesmerized by him as a kid, watching his Young People’s Concerts on TV. Watching him conduct and then turn around and talk about music with that same brilliance and warmth, I’d never seen anyone move between those two worlds so fluently.
Q. Your favourite food (only one!)
A. Valencian paella. My friend, Spanish clarinetist Jose Franch-Ballester introduced me to the paella and we have spent many happy hours while he perfected his paella technique here in Canada. The magic is in the socarrat, the caramelized crust of rice that forms on the bottom if you have the patience to leave it alone. Like orchestra it’s a group activity and to be enjoyed directly from the pan!
Q. Favourite book recommendation
A. Berlioz’s Mémoires. It’s one of the great firsthand accounts of what it actually feels like to be consumed by music. Berlioz was eccentric, highly opinionated, and led a vivid life. Because these stories are about his musical encounters, you will find many similarities with the struggles that musicians encounter today.
Q. Your most memorable performance? Where were you and who were you performing with and why was it memorable?
A. The last time I conducted Beethoven’s 9th with the UBC Symphony and Choirs at the Chan Centre. There was something almost otherworldly about that performance. The entire symphony felt like it happened in a single breath. The orchestra played with such extraordinary beauty, and the singers sang with such power. Every person who was performing was completely unified.
Q. Something unique or unusual about you.
A. Off the podium, I’m a licensed pilot — multi-engine and instrument rated. There’s something about flying that rhymes with conducting: both demand total presence, a feel for timing, and trust in your training when things move unexpectedly.
Q. How long have you been a conductor
A. ? I’ve been a conductor since I was in 5th grade, when I got my first chance to lead the very band I played in.
Q. What are you most looking forward to about performing with VIS this year?
A. I am looking forward to coming back to working with the musicians of the VIS again. They are such fine players, among them are many friends, colleagues, and even some of my former students! I’m especially excited to hear them all play Scheherazade.