It was a great honor to speak with musician Emily Merrell for her Artifice podcast. Give it a listen here or on your favorite podcast platform.
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Tag Archives: Salt Lake Symphony
Sibelius, Marcello, and Shostakovich open a great SLS Season!
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The Salt Lake Symphony Returns!
We are back!
Now that the pandemic adjustments are no longer necessary, we are looking forward to a full orchestra for the 2021-2022 Season. This year’s Salt Lake Symphony season will feature several fantastic guest artists, including Utah Symphony Associate Concertmaster, Kathryn Eberle, performing Ottorino Respighi’s rarely heard Concerto Gregoriano; soprano Michelle Pederson singing the world premiere of Andrew Maxfield’s Snowdrifts for Soprano and Orchestra, and our own principal oboist Hilary Coon performing Marcello’s Oboe Concerto in C minor; plus the talents of dancers from the U School of Dance, singers from the UofU Opera, Winners for the Summer Arts Piano competition, high school drama students, and more! As usual, the talents of the SLS orchestra players themselves will be front-and-center throughout the season as we present monumental works including Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphosis, Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 12, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4, and two “Symphonies No. 1,” one by Beethoven and the other by Prokofiev.
The events of the previous year’s pandemic and social protests have allowed for an expansion of the way we think of presenting concerts and how we might choose music to perform. I am particularly looking forward to our April concert that celebrates diversity within the dream of America with music by Florence Price and Peter Boyer. The style of programming required during the pandemic also opened up several new ways of thinking about orchestral features. Interesting departures from the “expected repertoire” will see us playing works by Adolphus Hailstork, Charles Ives, Robert Wendel, Kile Smith, and Giovanni Gabrielli – all interspersed throughout the season’s concerts.
It’s a new dawn for orchestral music, a rebirth of sorts. We look forward to your return as well! A memorable season awaits. Don’t miss a note of your Salt Lake Symphony!
Salt Lake Symphony 2021-2022 Season: A Season of Return
Robert Baldwin, Music Director; Matthew Makeever, Assistant Conductor
September 25. The SLS Returns! @Libby Gardner Concert Hall
Giuseppe Verdi: Overture to La Forza del Destino
Charles Ives: The Unanswered Question
Peter Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4 in F Minor, op. 36
November 13 Journeys of the Spirit @Mid-Valley Performing Arts Center; Kathryn Eberle, violin soloist
Giovanni Gabrieli (arr. Crees): Two Canzoni for Brass (Makeever, cond.)
Ottorino Respighi: Concerto Gregoriano (Kathryn Eberle, violin)
Adolphus Hailstork: Sonata da Chiesa for String Orchestra
Paul Hindemith: Symphonic Metamorphoses on Themes by Weber
December 2, 3, 4 Amahl and Christmas Carol (4 performances @The Grand Theatre. Collaboration with the Grand Theatre and the University of Utah Lyric Opera Ensemble
Giancarlo Menotti: Amahl and the Night Visitors (Matthew Makeever, conductor)
Leavitt and Buck: A Christmas Carol (Michael Leavitt, conductor)
December 18 Happy Holidays! @Libby Gardner Concert Hall
Holiday favorites TBA
January 8. The Story of Music. Family Concert Matinee Performance 2:00 p.m. @Libby Gardner Concert Hall.. Collaboration with University of Utah School of Dance
Kile Smith: The Bremen Town Musicians
Other repertoire TBD (Makeever, cond.)
January 22 Summer Arts Concerto Winners Concert, Collaboration with the UofU School of Music @Libby Gardner Concert Hall
February 12 Annual Vienna Ball @UofU Olpin Union Ballroom
March 19: Eye on Utah Talent! Michelle Pederson, soprano; Andrew Maxfield, composer @Libby Gardner Concert Hall. Barlow Endowment for Music Composition Commission Premiere
Franz Schubert: Overture to Die Zauberharfe (possible side-by-side)
Andrew Maxfield: Snowdrifts for Soprano and Orchestra (World premiere)
Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 12 in D Minor, op. 112 (The Year 1917)
April 9: The Dream of America@Libby Gardner Concert Hall. Collaboration with H.S. Theater Students
Robert Wendel: Fanfare for the Frontline Workers
Florence Price: Ethiopia’s Shadow in America (Makeever, cond.)
Peter Boyer: Ellis Island: The Dream of America (for actors and orchestra)
May 21 @Libby and/or 1-2 Outdoor Park Concerts
Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 1 in C major, op. 21
Alessandro Marcello: Oboe Concerto in D minor, Hilary Coon, oboe
Sergei Prokofiev: Symphony No. 1 in D Major, op. 25 (Classical Symphony)
Post-Mahlerian Cutoff Blues
What follows is my post-season letter to the Salt Lake Symphony as well as a poem inspired by a recent performance. I’ve no idea why in one stanza the format is off, and since I cannot seem to correct it, let’s just call it poetic license!
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Dear SLS Colleagues;
It’s been a week since our epic concert featuring Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony. It’s taken me at least this long to come down off that cloud we built together by performing this epic work. I thank you not only for that concert, but for a most satisfying 43rd season of the Salt Lake Symphony, my 14th year as your music director and conductor.
I never get the chance to thank each of you personally, but please allow this letter to serve as a substitute for doing so. Our performance last week was likely one of the best this orchestra has ever played. Of course, Mahler’s music helped to elevate the performance (pun intended). But your hard work on the concert, this season, and throughout your lives has paid great dividends, both for us and our audience. I have rarely been involved in a concert where patrons and musicians have been abuzz a week after the performance. Modern life rarely affords us that opportunity. The fact that it is still so present in our minds is a testament to our dedication and perseverance, and the art we created last Thursday.
Communities NEED ensembles like the Salt Lake Symphony. Together we make a difference in the cultural life of Salt Lake City. We sometimes forget this, being legitimately overshadowed by an outstanding orchestra that gets more publicity and public attention (you know, that big downtown orchestra, across the street from that big downtown choir and orchestra). But what we provide is equally vital to the community. In you, the community sees the intrinsic value of music, the love one puts into it, and the sacrifice required to make great art. To be an amateur musician requires no apology nor explanation. In fact we embody the root of the word “amateur” from the French, meaning “lover of.” Your love of music, music-making and for each other shines within the walls of Libby Gardner Hall and beyond. I have no doubt we will continue to do so.
Many of you also know that I am an amateur of sorts. Not in music, for that is my profession, but in poetry. Last night I sat down in an attempt to fend off the blues that often follows a great performance. It seemed the natural form in which to create a new poem, my gift to you. I hope you enjoy it. Have a great summer. I’ll see many of you in July for our Abravanel concerts!
Rob
Robert Baldwin Music Director, Salt Lake Symphony
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Post-Mahlerian Cutoff Blues
by Robert Baldwin
Last week we had a concert, a very grand affair;
Last week I gave a downbeat, a thousand notes went flying in the air;
The orchestra was hot, and the choir they sang with flair.
We played about Death, Life, and After, too;
The Reaper made a visit, but Baby, watcha gonna do?
Oh, children resurrect, that’s how you keep on staying true.
Mr. Mahler was a poet, a bard of words and sound;
Mr. Mahler, such a poet, in Vienna was the best around;
When he’s played in Salt Lake City, we done nearly gone and raised him from the ground.
Now the clapping it’s all over, and we’ve taken our final bow;
Mr. Mahler’s finished speaking, left the audience entranced in the Now;
We provided fertile ground, and he simply used us as the plough.
It might seem kinda strange, using Mahler and the blues;
A form not yet invented, but today it’s just last week’s news;
How else I’m gonna tell ya, that we rocked the roof, and stood ’em in the pews?
Now I’ve got a long, long summer, no Mahler in any week;
Not for next year either, but my season–it ain’t so bleak;
Thanks to Maestro Gustav, my paddle’s now finally got a creek.
You might think I’d be lonely, now that all is silent here;
It might be just that only a note or two is left for my ear;
But I got the Mahler memory, to carry me throughout the year.
5/22/19
Copyright, 2019, Robert Baldwin
A Conductor’s Musings on Mahler 2
Philosopher Alan Watts once said: “No one imagines that a symphony is supposed to improve as it goes along, or that the whole object of playing is to reach the finale. The point of music is discovered in every moment of playing and listening to it.” Though not referring to Mahler specifically, I find no better quote summarizes the journey we are about to take together on May 16th with Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony.
The music of Gustav Mahler represents the apex of the symphonic and choral- orchestral repertoire. It firmly resides in the land of masterworks, and certainly most of Mahler’s pieces deserve to be considered alongside the greatest works of other composers. Mahler’s Second Symphony is such a work, easily considered among greatest choral-orchestral works of all time. It shares the podium with Beethoven’s Ninth, the Requiems by Mozart, Verdi and Faure, Handel’s Messiah, and Orff’s Carmina Burana.
But the work is much more than that. Like Beethoven’s great capstone, the chorus is used sparingly, yet to great dramatic effect. In fact, the choir waits to sing until 80 minutes or so into the work, and then shockingly, sings a capella! In Mahler’s hands, the chorus is merely the next logical color choice to use at this point in the symphony. But this is not the only giant force used so sparingly. The organ plays only the closing few minutes of the work. The off-stage compliment of horns, trumpets, percussion similarly do not appear until the last movement. And we mustn’t forget the most alluring choice of all, the two solo voices: a mezzo soprano who sings the otherworldly 4th movement, “Urlicht,” and a soprano who joins in the 5th movement.
Yes, it is a BIG work, but it’s not only about large forces (over 300 will be involved in this performance). It is also about stamina. The orchestra needs to play for over 90 minutes, navigating a multitude of dynamics, articulations, stylistic conventions and ensemble combinations. There are solos for nearly every player and section. Mahler’s orchestra challenges the musicians to both perform and listen differently from most of the orchestral literature.
While the work itself is a challenge to play, it is also an inviting one of personal journey; and this is where the audience gets involved. I know of almost no other work that grips both audiences and musicians alike and with such power. Musicians leave rehearsals physically exhausted, emotionally engaged and spiritually charged. Audiences experience much of the same, never feeling that 90 minutes have passed. Our patrons are in for a great ride!
How can such a huge piece, be so demanding and yet also so uplifting? Perhaps Mahler left us some clues in the composition of the piece. Each section has meaning both on the surface and also hidden in layers.
His Symphony No. 2, also known as the Resurrection Symphony, was composed over a long period from 1888 to 1894. It was his first work of many that established his lifelong depictions of beauty and the afterlife. But Mahler was also creating a completely new soundscape, one never experienced before and only hinted at from the opera stage. There is a great interiority to his work. We are pulled into Mahler’s vision, much as a poet or great novelist might do. We are able to see through his lens and thus find out something about ourselves.
Mahler’s invitation to “look here,” comes from an unusual place initially: Death. The first movement is a massive expose on the eventuality of our lives, the power of fate, and the terror with which we often view death. But this is no mere caricature like Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, nor is it meant to drag us into the depths of despair like Faust. It is actually the most external of all the movements, and began its life as a stand-alone tone-poem titled “Totenfeier” (Funeral Rites). Soon after writing it, though, Mahler realized it was just the beginning, not the end: to look at life starting from the perspective of death was perhaps revolutionary in symphonic music.
The second movement takes us into that life with much nostalgia. Mahler gives us a favorite dance from his country, an Austrian Ländler, with the musical instructions to play “very leisurely, never rushed.” In an early program Mahler described this movement as a “remembrance of happy times in the life of the deceased.”
The third movement is a wonderfully sarcastic look at the meaningless activity of human life. Explained through metaphor, Mahler quotes his earlier music from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, a setting of “St. Anthony of the Fishes,” humorously depicting a drunk St. Anthony of Padua preaching to the fish, who lift their heads to listen, fail to understand, and simply go about their business of being fish. The writing in this movement is vivid and descriptive, and extremely challenging, as the orchestra is depicting giant school of fish!
This quizzical depiction is questioned in the 4th movement, Urlicht (Primal Light), where we finally hear our mezzo soprano ask the eternal question and ask to be released from a meaningless life. This beautiful song is also from his Knaben Wunderhorn songs, and is by far the shortest of the movements. I consider it to be a respite as well as a bridge to the Finale.
The 5th and final movement starts with a death shriek, one that we have already heard in the third movement, but perhaps lacked context when it first appeared. This opens one of the most innovative and expansive movements in history, where Mahler, literally, pulls out all the stops. Here we are transported to the afterlife though a musical journey. The Dies Irae of the first movement returns, but it is no longer frightening, rather assured, even majestically scored. We are certainly in another realm with this music. The dead arise from their graves and we are carried along in a march that is oddly joyous and certain. Offstage brass calls, perhaps angelic summons, finally herald the first entrance of the chorus, who softly intone, “Rise again, yes rise again.” Our soprano and mezzo soloists now join as well. Even the offstage “angels” return to stage for the grand finale where the choir triumphantly declares:
“Die shall I in order to live.
Rise again, yes, rise again,
Will you, my heart, in an instant!
That for which you suffered,
To God shall it carry you!”
When the orchestra finally cuts off, the mood is one of joy, akin to Beethoven’s Ninth. But unlike that work, there is perhaps more certainly in Mahler’s music. In Mahler’s mind, and likely in that of the musicians and audience, it is not mere possibility and hope we celebrate, but certainty; conviction that we can rest assured. And it is glorious.
This journey with the Salt Lake Symphony, our soloists, Kirstin Chavez and Melissa Heath, and the Utah Voices has been equally glorious. It is also quite an accomplishment for two community-based ensembles. It is now our joy to share this great music with you. Sit back and enter into this soundscape. Our wish is that you be as moved and uplifted as we are by this wondrous music.
Copyright, 2019. Robert Baldwin
(Note: This post will also appear as program notes for the concert on 5/16/19)
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Concert Details:
Salt Lake Symphony with the Utah Voices
Melissa Heath, soprano, Kirstin Chávez, mezzo-soprano
Thursday May 16, 2019 7:30 p.m.
Libby Gardner Concert Hall
University of Utah Campus, 1375 E. President’s Circle, SLC, UT 84112
Tickets $15
Available at the door with cash, check or credit card.
Free Parking for Libby Gardner Hall: 100 South and Wolcott (1450 East)
Salt Lake Symphony Season Release
Here’s the 44th Season for the Salt Lake Symphony, year 15 for me as Music Director. Time flies when you’re having fun.
Salt Lake Symphony, 2019-2020 ~ The 44th Season. Robert Baldwin, Music Director
September 28, 2019. Fantastique! 44th Season Opener
- César Franck: Le Chausseur maudit
- Hector Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique
November 9, 2019. New Horizons. Julie Wright-Costa, soprano. World Premiere piece by John Costa, plus HS Side-by-Side performance.
- Alberto Ginastera: Estancia Suite, op. 8a (with side-by-side High School musicians)
- John Costa: World Premiere Piece for Soprano and Orchestra
- Aaron Copland: Symphony No. 3
December 5, 6 and 7, 2019: Amahl and Christmas Carol at the Grand Theatre.
Collaboration with the Grand Theater and University of Utah Lyric Opera Ensemble
(Robert Breault, Director of U Opera; Nick Harker and Michael Leavitt, conductors)
- Giancarlo Menotti: Amahl and the Night Visitors
- Michael Leavitt: A Christmas Carol
December 14, 2019: Let There Be Peace: Holiday Concert with Utah Voices
Robert Baldwin and Kelly DeHaan, conductors
- Dan Forrest: “Arise, Shine!”
- Other Holiday Favorites TBA
January 11, 2020 Family Concert: The Thrill of Music!
Robert Baldwin and Nick Harker, conductors. Justine Sheedy, choreographer. Dancers from the UofU School of Dance
- Richard Wagner: Ride of the Valkyries
- James Newton-Howard: Selections from “King Kong”
- Russell Peck: The Thrill of the Orchestra
- Hector Berlioz: March to the Scaffold and Dies Irae from Symphonie Fantastique
- Johann Strauss, Sr.: Radetzky March
- John Williams: Music from “Star Wars, Episode VII: The Force Awakens”
January 25, 2020 Summer Arts Piano Competition Winners Concert
Jinhyoun Baek, Guest Conductor
- Program TBD from competition winners
February 8, 2020: Annual Vienna Ball
March 14, 2020. Jie Yuan, piano; Robert Baldwin and Nick Harker, conductors
- Sergei Prokofiev: Symphony No. 1 “Classical Symphony”
- Paul Hindemith: Symphonic Metamorphosis on Themes by Weber
- Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 5 “Emperor”
April 25, 2020. Romantic Favorites. Bo Wu, Guest Conductor
- Franz Schubert: Overture to “Die Zauberharfe“ (Rosamunde)
- Bedrich Smetana: The Moldau from “Ma Vlast”
- Peter Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4 in F Minor, op. 36\
May 16. 2020 Nights in Jazz: with Kris Johnson, trumpet, and his combo
- George Gershwin: An American in Paris
- Orchestral selections with Kris Johnson and his jazz quartet
- Duke Ellington: Black, Brown, and Beige Suite
June 25, 2020. Spotlight Performance for the Utah Arts Festival.
- Program: All-American Spotlight
For ticket and other information, please visit http://www.saltlakesymphony.org/
From the Shore to the Depths
Benjamin Britten scares me. Don’t misunderstand, I’m sure he was a pleasant chap. And yes, he’s dead, so I suppose if he showed up in my living room today it would be a bit frightening. More to the point, it’s his music that gives me pause, makes me question reality. Britten’s music also entices, begging me to enter…
What I find in his music is sometimes so individual, so personal, that I am reticent to look deeply at first. It’s like entering another’s thoughts, someone who understands life much differently than I do. It forces me to ask, “Am I supposed to be here?” Britten’s art is a dark tunnel, where what awaits us is contradictory, containing both certainty and doubt; mystery and truth; beauty and terror.
He’s the Kafka of 20th Century music, in my opinion. And like that great writer, once you allow yourself to be open to his message, things will happen. The rusty cogs turn revealing glimpses of mist-enshrouding things you may or may not want to see. Wondrous things. Terrifying things. Meaningful things. But look you must. This is the musical star stuff that can be perspective-changing.
But first you have to dive in and wrestle with the notes, for revelation does not come without some major effort.
“As Gregor awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into an eighth note…” (not Kafka, but still Kafka-like)
This is a rather long-winded way of saying that I’m really looking forward to conducting Britten’s Four Sea Interludes with SLS for the March 16th concert. It’ll be my first trip with this trippy music. Also on the program: Beethoven’s Pastorale Symphony and Peter Boyer’s Festivities. Nature abounds, but the program defines human nature as well. Hope you can join us!
http://saltlakesymphony.org/welcome.php
Copyright 2019. Robert Baldwin
Thoughts on Mozart’s Coda
To me, the opportunity to perform a masterwork is similar to being allowed to touch a sculpture by a great artist like Michelangelo or Rodin. To feel every texture and contour, tracing your fingers where the master artist made his/her creation; each texture, rise and fall an imprint on eternity. What’s more, if you look deeply enough, there is artistic DNA embedded there. And like a scientist, secrets will be revealed to the performing musician who studies and prepares with patience, focus and openness. Then those secrets soon begin to work their inner magic on the initiate.
A musical score that weaves through the personal landscape while still clothed in tradition, Mozart’s Requiem is one of those works that is as satisfying both to the audience as well as to the performers–intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. We will preface the massive K.626 with one of Mozart’s other final and fantastically personal choral works, also written in the last months of his life, the ever-so-poignant Ave verum corpus, K. 618. Tender and introspective, it provides a perfect scene-setter to the Requiem.
Yes, I’m excited about this weekend’s performance. I cannot assure that you will be transported to a different plane of existence, but why take the chance that you may miss out? It’s something special! I hope you can join us.
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Mozart’s Coda
Saturday May 19, 2018 7:30 pm
Libby Gardner Concert Hall, Salt Lake City
Julie Wright Costa, soprano, Kirstin Chavez, mezzo-soprano, Robert Breault, tenor, Seth Keeton, bass
Utah Voices, chorus
Mozart Ave verum corpus
Mozart Requiem
Mozart’s Requiem has long been hailed as one of the great masterpieces of western art. To listen to this music is to be transported to a different time and space. Come hear the Salt Lake Symphony, Utah Voices and U of U Faculty Voice Quartet perform this masterpiece, as we bring our season to a close with style and gravitas. It’s a fitting end to a grand season of music.
Tickets: $15.
Available from utahvoices.org, or at the door with cash, check or credit card.
Free Parking for Libby Gardner Hall: 100 South and Wolcott (1450 East)
“What I have here accomplished, I will never achieve again.” ~ Camille Saint-Saëns
Once upon a time, I had a conversation with a respected, “high-seated” professional musician who expressed dismay that I was considering programming Camille Saint-Saëns “Organ Symphony.” He said is was a shame that I would consider programming “inferior music.” That comment floored me. I was young-ish, for a conductor anyway, and quite impressionable. It gave me pause and made me think that maybe I didn’t know what “good” music was, maybe he somehow knew better than I—so I cut it from the season program. The organ and the orchestra remained silent for that piece because I doubted my training, and more importantly, my instincts.
When this same person, years later, criticized my choice of Brahms Symphony 3 on the same grounds, I finally figured it out that his bias was pretty skewed—caddy wampus, even—or maybe he just hated anything titled, “Symphony No. 3.” Luckily, by then I had the experience to know better. Brahms was on and remained on. I’ve conducted several satisfying and successful performances of that work since.
This spurred me to revisit the Saint-Saens score about a year ago, a work I have played several times and have always enjoyed. It is a fine work. I like it. It’s OK to LIKE a piece of music. On the surface, it is a wholly attractive work, and while perhaps not deeply profound, certainly worthy of performance. The orchestra will love playing it and the audience will hopefully leave the hall happy. And that too, is fine. It may not change the world, but then again, it just might help. We find satisfaction in many different ways and through many different guises.
Of course, I’ve learned a lot over the years and by now know to trust my instincts (and take criticism with a grain of salt). But we must remember that WHAT we say to each other and HOW we say it can make a difference. You never know what may be squelched from a holier-than-thou attitude or a flippant remark. I, for one, am happy that I finally figured it out (at least this time).
So the stage and organ will only be silent for only a few weeks longer. I cannot wait to dig in to this work with the SL Symphony! It’s going to be a great way to open the season. Hope to see you there!
Salt Lake Symphony Season Opener
Saturday September 30, 2017 7:30 pm
Libby Gardner Concert Hall
Rachel Call, violin, Linda Margetts, organ
Walton Portsmouth Point Overture
Sibelius Violin Concerto, op. 47 in D minor
Saint-Saens Symphony #3 “Organ Symphony”
Copyright, 2017. Robert Baldwin, Before the Downbeat
You never know who is at your concert
“Problems can become opportunities when the right people come together” ~ Robert Redford
No, Robert Redford was not at last night’s Salt Lake Symphony concert. At least I don’t think he was in attendance. By the title of this post, one might think someone really famous was at the concert last night. That may indeed be true, but this is about the regular patrons, people who I spoke with or heard reports from others regarding their experience. While perhaps not as spectacular as saying someone “famous” was in attendance, recognizing the importance of every person is more important in the long-run.
For example, there was the unexpected visitor, a man from France who decided to attend our concert as part of his ski-vacation to Utah. Incidentally, he’s also the man who chuckled at the end of the concert, and reported that he found great humor and joy in the Hely-Hutchinson Carol Symphony. There was also a woman who was so moved to hear seasonal music other than the Messiah and Nutcracker that she asked if we do these pieces every year. She wanted to hear them again. (Sorry, no, but every year’s concert is different!).
Perhaps the most important patrons were the teenagers and young adults who were in attendance. Now, of course, teenagers are not normally thought of as happy concert-goers. More likely they are stereotyped as sullen types who don’t have a choice, being dragged to the concert hall by their parents. While there were undoubtedly some of those, there were also several young people who excitedly reported afterward that they played music, or had just started new instruments (French horn, percussion, violin). When asked why, they reported it was because they had been coming to concerts and love the sound of a particular instrument. They also said they love the sound of a full symphony orchestra. Their eyes were smiling, practically shining, as they said this, almost unable to contain their excitement. It is significant that they made a point to come to the stage and talk with our musicians after the concert. It is also very important that our musicians graciously engaged with them—the musicians of today together with both the musicians and audience members of tomorrow.
There was indeed a person of some local concert fame at the concert. We lovingly call him “Delta-Guy,” but his real name is John. He works for Delta Airlines, and seemingly attends every cultural event in Salt Lake City. He is spotted at Utah Symphony concerts, Utah Opera, Ballet West, collegiate concerts, high school concerts and practically every Salt Lake Symphony concert I’ve conducted for the past 12 years. He often is still wearing his work-clothes and airport ID badge, coming directly from SLC Terminal 2 to the concert hall. He is a consummate consumer of everything classical. We had a nice conversation after the concert about Samuel Barber’s Die Natali, which was on last night’s program.
We musicians sometimes worry about who is “in the audience.” Will this “person-of-note” hear me and be impressed? What does she think?” etc. “Will it lead to something further for me, my own fame, fortune, or maybe at least a gig?
There may indeed have been someone famous there last night. Actually, I have no idea. More importantly, there were several hundred people who wanted to be there and for which we made a difference with our performance. That is why we do what we do. And that, my friends, is what assures the future of our art form.
Copyright 2016. Robert Baldwin, Before the Downbeat
Photo credit: http://www.sltrib.com/entertainment/1414530-155/redford-weinstein-100-influential-filmmakers-robert
Before the Downbeat 