Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
Speaker 1: For the past twelve years, Zarin Made has run what
Speaker 1: is arguably the finest orchestra in the country, the New
Speaker 1: York Philharmonic. Zarin retired as the president and executive director
Speaker 1: of the Philharmonic at the end of this past season.
Speaker 1: He leaves behind Alan Gilbert the orchestra's musical director, a
Speaker 1: position that Zarin's older brother, Zubin held for thirteen years.
Speaker 1: Zarin Made is famous for his intellect, his passion for
Speaker 1: the music, and his insights and ideas about how to
Speaker 1: sustain a world class orchestra. It's hard to imagine someone
Speaker 1: better suited for that job. How would you describe your job?
Speaker 1: Getting paid for something I love to do? How's that?
Speaker 1: I get that impression? You know? Somebody said to me,
Speaker 1: you'll retire, Aren't you glad you won't have to do
Speaker 1: union negotiations anyways? It I love doing them. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a game. It's fun. Zaron's love for New York City
Speaker 1: is contagious. He experiences more of his adopted city in
Speaker 1: a weekend than most natives do in a lifetime. Saturday,
Speaker 1: I went to the opera Saturday night. We had a concert.
Speaker 1: Sunday afternoon. I went to another concert because one of
Speaker 1: the people who comes to conduct us was conducting his orchestra,
Speaker 1: and it was just very relaxing to go and do
Speaker 1: all those things. You know, I don't understand colleagues of
Speaker 1: mine who go maybe once a week to the concert,
Speaker 1: and I don't understand. I assume you go to the
Speaker 1: movies a lot. I watched movies a lot of don't
Speaker 1: necessary that the same thing. Yeah, I went to the
Speaker 1: movies yesterday morning, which is suddenly I've never done. I
Speaker 1: think I go to the symphony more than you go
Speaker 1: to the movies. No, I used to go to the
Speaker 1: movies two or three times a week. You know. Sometimes
Speaker 1: my wife and I go on a Saturday afternoon and
Speaker 1: go to the concert afterwards. We love going to the
Speaker 1: movies and to the theater. We're out all the time.
Speaker 1: He's talking about his wife of forty six years, Carmen Made,
Speaker 1: a former opera singer who is as invested in classical
Speaker 1: music and the arts as is Zaren. I've been teaching
Speaker 1: singing for fifty four years. For any singing teacher that's
Speaker 1: out there, it does take about fifty four years to
Speaker 1: figure out how exactly to do it, how to turn
Speaker 1: each new voice into its best, how to attack that
Speaker 1: instrument or encourage that instrument, because everyone is so different.
Speaker 1: But the main thing is to attack it from music
Speaker 1: instead of only from the voice. So to an extent,
Speaker 1: when you are instructing and when you are coaching, or
Speaker 1: whatever word you want to use, I would say, I
Speaker 1: teach you teach singing, and I'm obsessed with singing, And
Speaker 1: I joke about it because if I could sing, I'd
Speaker 1: have a completely different life. In my heart, I think
Speaker 1: I have the heart of a singer, but I have
Speaker 1: the vocal cords of a crossing guard or something. I mean,
Speaker 1: excuse me, interrupt you. You have the vocal chords of
Speaker 1: an actor. Carmen Madea is precise and doesn't hold back
Speaker 1: on her opinions, and over the last few years, she
Speaker 1: and Zarin have welcomed me to their classical music world.
Speaker 1: I've been listening to classical music since my twenties, when
Speaker 1: I discovered it while driving around Los Angeles looking for work.
Speaker 1: Through meeting Zaren, I've been able to live out my
Speaker 1: dream of being part of an orchestra, not as a musician,
Speaker 1: but by hosting the Philharmonic's radio broadcast on DEBT q
Speaker 1: x R and by serving on the Philharmonic's board of directors. Zarin,
Speaker 1: an accountant by trade, grew up in nineteen forties Bombay
Speaker 1: before it became the booming city of Mumbai. Back then,
Speaker 1: or at least in Zarin made his memory, it was
Speaker 1: more like a colonial fish village. For me. It was
Speaker 1: a lovely upbringing. We bicycle to school for forty five
Speaker 1: minutes to get to our school. We played cricket every weekend,
Speaker 1: and many fields that actually still exist. When your father
Speaker 1: was a musician, My father was a musician. Should we
Speaker 1: grew up in a completely absorbing musical and was a
Speaker 1: professional magician. Oh yeah, yeah. He was a violinist and
Speaker 1: a conductor, and he had started the Bombay Symphony, he
Speaker 1: started the Bombay String Quartet. Was his father classically. But
Speaker 1: this is one of the craziest things, Alec. I mean,
Speaker 1: you think back to when he started studying the violin.
Speaker 1: He was born in nine eight in the twenties, there
Speaker 1: were no recordings, there was no radio. How did this
Speaker 1: man get this bug to study Western classical music in India?
Speaker 1: And we still don't know, and he doesn't know when
Speaker 1: we asked him. He actually went to school, did a
Speaker 1: commis agree and statured working for the Income Tax Department
Speaker 1: trained him on the violin Uh an Italian musician who
Speaker 1: had ended up in Bombay by ship from Genoa and
Speaker 1: the you know, he gave private lessons and my father
Speaker 1: studied with him. What year did he found the Symphony
Speaker 1: in Bombay? In thirty nine? And there have been none
Speaker 1: prior of him and my brother and I grew up
Speaker 1: listening to sectional rehearsals of the Bombay Symphony in our
Speaker 1: living room, chamber music concerts. I mean, I know chamber
Speaker 1: music intimately only because we listened to it over and
Speaker 1: over and over again. Your brother has said, I want
Speaker 1: to bead this quote. There was little room for you
Speaker 1: to practice as a kid between him and your father.
Speaker 1: Did you had you wanted to play? No? I really never.
Speaker 1: I thought I was enough to listen to it, and
Speaker 1: I didn't feel any urge to want to learn anything.
Speaker 1: He didn't know, and I was perfectly happy doing that
Speaker 1: and going to school and listening to music, putting on
Speaker 1: records all the time. There's all seventy eight yet to
Speaker 1: get up every four minutes to flip the record and
Speaker 1: change it, and that was wonderful. Your your brother. When
Speaker 1: did he know that he wanted to go on that?
Speaker 1: He probably knew all the time, because I think the
Speaker 1: calling was there and he really wanted to be a conductor.
Speaker 1: Then he left India to study composition in Vienna with
Speaker 1: an eye to go into the conducting school. In a
Speaker 1: year after he was in Vienna, he got into conducting
Speaker 1: school and started having He was eighteen at the time.
Speaker 1: And my father continued working that way, and then he
Speaker 1: left India, came to England, worked in an orchestra, the
Speaker 1: Hally Orchestra, a great orchestra with Sir John Barbarolli, who
Speaker 1: was a music director of New York in the fourties.
Speaker 1: Then he came to Philadelphia and slowly both super and
Speaker 1: I gravitated to the United States. And when I've finished
Speaker 1: my accounting qualification in London, that came to New York
Speaker 1: to get a job. I was told that I would
Speaker 1: be drafted and sent back to England as a g I.
Speaker 1: So that's when I gravitated up to Canada in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty two. I was a bachelor. I thought this is
Speaker 1: a nice place. And that's how my life started in
Speaker 1: North America. Your father lived until one he died in
Speaker 1: two thousand and two. No, he was ninety four. He
Speaker 1: was ninety four, so obviously he had lived to see
Speaker 1: both of you. Was mesmerized. Yeah, I mean he was,
Speaker 1: especially with my brother, because you know, he lived through
Speaker 1: vicariously having grown up around musicians and your father. But
Speaker 1: I guess more notably your brother, who being a conductor
Speaker 1: in the modern age, those guys certainly have a presence.
Speaker 1: Shell say, did that help you? But the work you
Speaker 1: were doing and dealing with the orchestras and solo wests,
Speaker 1: and I suppose the way it helped ah when I
Speaker 1: was working as an accountant in Montreal and I was
Speaker 1: on the board of the Montreal Symphony, the way you
Speaker 1: are on the board of the New York Philharmonic. Of course,
Speaker 1: when musicians came to perform to conduct, I got to
Speaker 1: know them in the New Zubin so we kind of
Speaker 1: became friends and we'd see each other and we could communicate.
Speaker 1: And it's a small world. Yeah, it's a small world.
Speaker 1: So I got to know a lot of people that way.
Speaker 1: So of course that helped me in when I did
Speaker 1: decide to go into this professional running an orchestra full time.
Speaker 1: In I knew a lot of people. You went to
Speaker 1: Canada in sixty two sixty two, so I went as
Speaker 1: an account I was on the board of the symphony,
Speaker 1: and so from that it became my job at the
Speaker 1: symphony was like all other board members, you know, governance
Speaker 1: and raising money. Right. And then when we needed an
Speaker 1: executive director and couldn't find anybody, a few colleagues of
Speaker 1: mine and I decided that maybe I should do it,
Speaker 1: take a leave of absence and train somebody to run
Speaker 1: the orchestra. And in the end I got the bug
Speaker 1: and I said, I like this. Zarin remained at the
Speaker 1: helm of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra for nine years. Charles
Speaker 1: Detis was music director. Carmen made it remembers their collaboration.
Speaker 1: They made an exceptional team. What do you attribute that
Speaker 1: to that period there in Montreal. Well, first of all,
Speaker 1: everything was working in the right way. The mayor that
Speaker 1: was then in Montreal was very supportive. Charlie was at
Speaker 1: the height of his career and he brought to Montreal
Speaker 1: a very strong discipline to that orchestra. Charlie, as we
Speaker 1: call him, has a great ear and a great refined ear,
Speaker 1: that sort of balance of color and in tune playing,
Speaker 1: and he created for that orchestra a way of making
Speaker 1: sure that everything was harmonious and at the same time,
Speaker 1: the money the business was in a good place, so
Speaker 1: they could do many things, and recording was a great
Speaker 1: part of that. And they worked together to bring music
Speaker 1: to the parks, music to the school. And what about
Speaker 1: the orchestra itself. These people who are in these administrative
Speaker 1: positions of the music director themselves, they're handling this body
Speaker 1: of all these individuals. Not all orchestras are bodies of
Speaker 1: people who are easy to handle. I guess it's safe
Speaker 1: to say that Underta and Zaren you had a happy
Speaker 1: group of people. They were happy. We had a happy
Speaker 1: group of people because I think it's always been Zaren's
Speaker 1: feeling and his devotion to the fact that the musicians
Speaker 1: have all studied for many years and then they joined
Speaker 1: a group of people and they have to become underneath
Speaker 1: the battle of whoever the conductor is. That means that
Speaker 1: you have to make sure that your musicians are happy,
Speaker 1: make sure that everything that goes on in their lives,
Speaker 1: from money to traveling experiences, et cetera. From their unions.
Speaker 1: All of that is working well, and your respect for them,
Speaker 1: your respect for the musicians, and and Charlie's expertise, and
Speaker 1: he was so adamant that they make a great sound.
Speaker 1: M M. What was the musical world, the classical musical
Speaker 1: world like back then as compared to now. I think
Speaker 1: it wasn't that different. You know, people always think back
Speaker 1: and say the good old days. I think more people
Speaker 1: go to consists today than they did in those days.
Speaker 1: As the result of what I think in the last
Speaker 1: ten years, I would say the Internet is enormous. Technology
Speaker 1: has helped absolutely instead of saying it's the reverse. I
Speaker 1: think it's always helped expanded the audience. You know. It's
Speaker 1: like in sports, when they started televising all these baseball
Speaker 1: games and hockey games, the basketball games, it brought more
Speaker 1: people to the stadiums because they got used to see
Speaker 1: what was going on. It's so competitive here in New
Speaker 1: York for that ticket holders dollar. How do you think
Speaker 1: the city has behaved and the state has behaved in
Speaker 1: terms of supporting the arts. Have They've been a good
Speaker 1: partner for you. Look in the United States, one does
Speaker 1: not look to the date for support of the arts
Speaker 1: as compared to well as compared to Europe, and we're
Speaker 1: in Europe are the most generous. Every opera house and
Speaker 1: orchestra in Europe, I'm not talking England proper. Europe is
Speaker 1: supported entirely, entirely by the state. So Las Cala or
Speaker 1: Munich or Berlin. What do you think the budget of
Speaker 1: the Berlin for harmonicas similar to yours? Probably not as high.
Speaker 1: The payods are different and they don't have to pay
Speaker 1: anything separate for health care and pension, which is such
Speaker 1: a huge cost to all of us in every business.
Speaker 1: So yeah, the budgets will be different, but it's all
Speaker 1: covered by the Senate in Berlin. New concert hall complex
Speaker 1: as being built in Paris. It's being paid for by
Speaker 1: the by the city of Paris and the federal government,
Speaker 1: and it's going to be huge. I went to see
Speaker 1: it when I was a couple of months ago. I
Speaker 1: think it's going to be three or four hundred million euros,
Speaker 1: which for European terms is a huge amount of money,
Speaker 1: and it's going to be very beautiful. Genuel is designing
Speaker 1: it and it will open in two thousand and fourteen.
Speaker 1: They've invited us to go and play. Then fifteen, what's
Speaker 1: something you think the city could do. Let's confine ourselves
Speaker 1: to this institution. What could they have done that you
Speaker 1: had expected that they would do, or something you'd like
Speaker 1: to see them do. Let's go back to the basic thing,
Speaker 1: not just here, but everywhere that I would have liked
Speaker 1: more support for the arts generally from the leaders of
Speaker 1: our community, and that starts with the presidents, to the senators,
Speaker 1: to the governors. They do not go to the opera,
Speaker 1: they do not go to concerts. When we played in
Speaker 1: Berlin last year, Angel America bought her own tickets in
Speaker 1: came to hear our concert, and she came in the
Speaker 1: intermission to see Allan and Tomahimson was the And I
Speaker 1: think that shows the people of that city in the country,
Speaker 1: the importance of the arts. We don't have that anywhere.
Speaker 1: I think it would be a great boom for the
Speaker 1: city of New York if there was a summer home,
Speaker 1: not just for the orchestra, but you know, the orchestra
Speaker 1: might do in a three or four month period, twenty
Speaker 1: five concerts. You got all those other days that you
Speaker 1: could have jazz and pop, and you know, so why
Speaker 1: isn't the city behind the whole idea of doing something,
Speaker 1: of leading the charge to have a performance space in
Speaker 1: the city of New York. That's what I mean is
Speaker 1: lacking from the elected officials. So there's summer Home is
Speaker 1: something that we need to do. We need to redo
Speaker 1: this avery Offisher Hall. People keep saying this for acoustical reasons,
Speaker 1: and I keep saying, no, it's fifty years old. At
Speaker 1: me is redoing. You don't believe that every Fisher is
Speaker 1: as compromised acoustically, and some people mentioned at all. So listen,
Speaker 1: we play concerts on tour all over the world. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to give you numbers because I haven't worked
Speaker 1: it out, but I can tell you that there's maybe
Speaker 1: half a dozen holes that I think are better the
Speaker 1: Nabory Fisher. Most of the holes that we playing are
Speaker 1: really not that great. What is it in your mind?
Speaker 1: Because people struggle with this question. Acoustics for symphonic music
Speaker 1: is something that you assume it's important because people never
Speaker 1: shut up about it. Is it a science? Is that
Speaker 1: a team of technicians coming in? Look? Is it luck?
Speaker 1: I think the problem with every Fisher Hall is Carnegie
Speaker 1: Hall is eight blocks south of US. Okay, the press
Speaker 1: keep referring to it as acoustically challenged. If I can
Speaker 1: show you the reviews of this hole in nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: six when it reopened, from the New York Times and
Speaker 1: all the newspaper because there were more than one newspaper
Speaker 1: close period of time, it closer about a year and
Speaker 1: a half for what for renovations that that was a
Speaker 1: real acoustical redo. From the time it opened, people largely
Speaker 1: believe that it didn't address some of the problems. They thought,
Speaker 1: this is the greatest hall in the world. What do
Speaker 1: you think, for example, about what is considered a more
Speaker 1: modern hall in your new construction in l A. How
Speaker 1: do you think the Disney Hall sounds. I think it
Speaker 1: looks beautiful. I don't think it sounds as good as
Speaker 1: it looks, but it's a perfectly acceptable hall. What's one
Speaker 1: that's been built recently that you think that they got
Speaker 1: to write acoustically? If you can name one in the
Speaker 1: I would say in the last twenty twenty five years.
Speaker 1: I like the hall in Frankfurt. There's a couple of
Speaker 1: halls in Japan that are wonderful, the Chimo in Philadelphia.
Speaker 1: The Climb is not that great, It's okay, we just
Speaker 1: played there. It's improved also because they have all kinds
Speaker 1: of adjustable things. That's about it that I could think.
Speaker 1: I'm told the new hall in St. Petersburg is wonderful,
Speaker 1: and in London and in London when was the last
Speaker 1: time they run of that hall? But they did the
Speaker 1: Festival Hall about five hours six years ago. Major improvement.
Speaker 1: They spent I'm told a hundred and fifty million pounds
Speaker 1: something like that. Yeah, none of these things are cheap.
Speaker 1: And then you have to be out of the hall
Speaker 1: for a long time, you know. That's sort of the
Speaker 1: problems we have. And my success lab is where will
Speaker 1: they go? And now we have certain ideas of how
Speaker 1: to split the orchestra play in different halls. There's there's
Speaker 1: ways to travel around the Burrows and play. We'll be
Speaker 1: back in a minute with more of my conversation with
Speaker 1: Zaron maid to whose wife Carmen, has some thoughts on
Speaker 1: why his tenure at the New York Philharmonic was so successful.
Speaker 1: I think his idea for the orchestra has never really
Speaker 1: been a vehicle for himself, and I think people see
Speaker 1: that if you work with him closely, you'll see that. Also,
Speaker 1: he's an Indian, so he's good at business. He's good
Speaker 1: at numbers. He has an accountant after all. He has
Speaker 1: a great memory. So he's a type that gets respect
Speaker 1: for not having to check all the time what last
Speaker 1: year's season was. He hasn't in his brain when he
Speaker 1: makes a season up and you ask him, he doesn't
Speaker 1: have to check anywhere. It's in his head. He has
Speaker 1: a good background, not as a musician himself, but with
Speaker 1: his family, and he's always been interested in music, and
Speaker 1: as a young student in England went all the time
Speaker 1: to place and so on. So he has integrity. He
Speaker 1: has integrity. He's trustworthy. Absolutely, he's trustworthy when you just
Speaker 1: just when you meet him, when you spend five minutes
Speaker 1: with him. By the time you're done, you say, this
Speaker 1: guy's a gentleman and his trustworthy. But he also has
Speaker 1: some kind of presence if you use that correctly. I
Speaker 1: think you have to command respect and try to get
Speaker 1: things done, and get things done. More about zaren Nada's
Speaker 1: work with the New York Philharmonic. In a minute, this
Speaker 1: is like Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing. Now,
Speaker 1: what's changed here in the time of your benner when
Speaker 1: you came here was in what was the philharmonic um
Speaker 1: because the Philharmonic has unique concerns compared to other Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think salaries are higher, correct, No, the salaries are
Speaker 1: competitive with the major orchestras Chicago, Boston, even though the
Speaker 1: cost of living is higher. Yeah, that's unfortunately one of
Speaker 1: the things that the musicians you have to cope with.
Speaker 1: I think the changes that have taken place have been
Speaker 1: more in the way we've taken the orchestra out of
Speaker 1: every Fisher Hall, much bigger, better programmed parks concerts, so
Speaker 1: we're getting a lot of good people. The attendance in
Speaker 1: the parks has gone up enormously. Our use of the
Speaker 1: Internet and the media has changed enormously. We're not making
Speaker 1: recordings anymore, but we are, you know, taking out our
Speaker 1: broadcasts and downloading live and so on. Why aren't you
Speaker 1: making recordings anymore? Nobody's making recordings. No one's buying You
Speaker 1: can get it free on the internet. You can, you know,
Speaker 1: go on the iTunes and get any piece you want
Speaker 1: from eighteen different sources. Are you selling your material on
Speaker 1: the internet giving it for free? Give me for free? Um?
Speaker 1: The the fact that our radio broadcast and now international
Speaker 1: is a huge change that you know, you can hear
Speaker 1: a New York followed by concert in Moscow or in Adelaide.
Speaker 1: I think that never happened before. So technologies, technology is
Speaker 1: you know, we've taken hold of it, and I think
Speaker 1: that's important. We just did our first television show that
Speaker 1: we did in house. We brought the people and we
Speaker 1: directed it, and we did a concert from here for
Speaker 1: Chinese New Year's I'm told it was watched by a
Speaker 1: hundred million people. That's extraordinary that a classical music show
Speaker 1: was watched by a hundred million people. How have you
Speaker 1: changed during the time you've been here? How have I changed?
Speaker 1: Have you enjoyed being in New York? Yeah? I loved it,
Speaker 1: loved it. You're going back to Chicago, going back to
Speaker 1: Chicago Cheople to live there, and my family is there,
Speaker 1: my daughter, But otherwise we would stay here. My wife
Speaker 1: is not very happy about leaving New York. She's happy
Speaker 1: to go for the reasons I just said, but we're
Speaker 1: both unhappy to leave here. If you had enough money,
Speaker 1: i'd keep appeared that they're here. Sure are you gonna
Speaker 1: basically retire when you're there? Are you gonna still look
Speaker 1: I'm I'm not my father, as I said, work till
Speaker 1: he was ninety two. My grandfather worked till he was
Speaker 1: ninety two. I don't know if I worked till I'm
Speaker 1: ninety two. And it's not because of that, But I
Speaker 1: just don't feel like I can sit at home and
Speaker 1: do nothing or go and play golf. I'm not that
Speaker 1: type when you're home now. First of all, I wanted
Speaker 1: to mention you enjoy going to the concert hall. Uh.
Speaker 1: In the time I've known, you're never more happy and
Speaker 1: never more relaxed than when the music is playing. And
Speaker 1: you still have a high degree of appreciation and real
Speaker 1: love of concert music, which I find is not mutual
Speaker 1: exclusive from but interesting considering your wife, who's very, very critical.
Speaker 1: I always know what's what in the concert world, dilettante
Speaker 1: that I am, this pianist, this conductor. By looking at
Speaker 1: Carmen Menta's response, you don't want to go to the
Speaker 1: opera with her, they don't. She's even more vocal, she's
Speaker 1: even more harsh in her judgments because she's an opera file.
Speaker 1: But she's a singer, so you know that comes naturally
Speaker 1: to her. But when the two of your home. Do
Speaker 1: you listen to music? Sometimes? You know, we basically we
Speaker 1: don't put our background music. First of all, I listened
Speaker 1: to music that I really want to hear, and often
Speaker 1: on a Saturday afternoon or something out here, I'm reading
Speaker 1: the paper and the dead and Carmen's got we have
Speaker 1: a little player in the bedroom and she's off listening
Speaker 1: to Bach that's her go to. Yeah, she just you know,
Speaker 1: and I agree with her. Listening to music has been
Speaker 1: so much a part of my life and absorbing it.
Speaker 1: And I must say, when anything goes wrong with my life,
Speaker 1: or with my thoughts or with my family, I think
Speaker 1: it is the constant help to have a musical phrase,
Speaker 1: the line of a poem. In my mind. That means
Speaker 1: music has fed the internal life. So it's fine and
Speaker 1: you're never lonely. Sometimes I just put the paper down
Speaker 1: here the well temple coming through, and you're like, you like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, well, there's a kind of order to it.
Speaker 1: There's a kind of clarity, there's a rhythm. It just
Speaker 1: is uplifting. There's a joyousness to his music, which I
Speaker 1: find extraordinary. Same thing with Mozart. All those adjectives apply
Speaker 1: to Mozart. And I guess Beetho, and I mean it
Speaker 1: sounds pretty tried. With no Shubert. I want to hear
Speaker 1: the Shubert. I love Shugart shoe with song. Oh who's
Speaker 1: somewhere You're indifferent too, you haven't got enough. Give me
Speaker 1: one example of someone, and without being from the nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: that you think has been given a very very generous
Speaker 1: airing someone but you consider lucky. Well, I can't think
Speaker 1: of anybody. I think the people who want to survive
Speaker 1: are the ones that absolutely, absolutely and the same thing
Speaker 1: will happened in this century. You know, Shostakovich is going
Speaker 1: to survive, Benjamin Britten is going to survive. So there's
Speaker 1: not a time you're sitting there with Alan or with
Speaker 1: Mozelle before that and they say I want to play
Speaker 1: the blah blah blah, and you will say, oh god,
Speaker 1: whatever you do, don't play there anyway, of course, But
Speaker 1: because it's composer specific, and don't forget that in today's world,
Speaker 1: if you look at the composers of today, each conductor
Speaker 1: or pianist or alienist will have his or her not
Speaker 1: necessarily favorite with people they feel that they want to perform,
Speaker 1: and there's others they don't feel like performing. I think
Speaker 1: I think there's a difference. Of course, Look you with me.
Speaker 1: When many Acts did his hundredth concerts with the New
Speaker 1: Yorker The Money, and he played this piece of Messieur,
Speaker 1: he'd never played it before. We talked him into it.
Speaker 1: Is he going to play it again? I don't know.
Speaker 1: Did he like it? He said, I got to play
Speaker 1: it a few more terms before I could say I
Speaker 1: like it. But there are other pianists who endore the
Speaker 1: piece and plate all the time. So I think that's
Speaker 1: perfectly natural. I mean, these are people who are recreating something.
Speaker 1: They have to feel something, they have to be on
Speaker 1: the same plate. You have seen the greatest people. What's
Speaker 1: something you watch one of the greats that you watch soloist,
Speaker 1: vocalist conduct. You sat there and you just gasp and said,
Speaker 1: my god, I'm so happy I was here to see this. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, one of the things that stands out in
Speaker 1: my mind was the concert we did right after nine eleven,
Speaker 1: and we were supposed to do a concert with Anna
Speaker 1: Sophi Muta playing Beethoven and so, and of course she
Speaker 1: didn't come, and we decided we couldn't do that kind
Speaker 1: of an opening night. And Kurt Massour was in Europe
Speaker 1: and I called him and I said, I think we
Speaker 1: should do a concert. We shouldn't cancel it, and how
Speaker 1: about if you consider doing the Browns Requiem And he
Speaker 1: said absolutely, And I said, I have Tom Hamson who's
Speaker 1: ready to do it. The chorus are ready to do it.
Speaker 1: The orchestras on its way back from Stuttgart where they
Speaker 1: are stuck during nine eleven. And so he came and
Speaker 1: did it. And I made a little speech to welcome everybody,
Speaker 1: and I said, and please no plow said the end,
Speaker 1: just hold hands, look at each other. Court was a
Speaker 1: great conductor, really did something spiritually extraordinary that evening, and
Speaker 1: everybody was there felt that, and I don't think there
Speaker 1: was a dry eye in the house. The other one
Speaker 1: that comes to mind was when we played in Dresden.
Speaker 1: We did three concerts in Dresden in two thousand and
Speaker 1: five for the reopening of the Church of Our Lady,
Speaker 1: which was bombed in the waning days of the Second
Speaker 1: World War during the fire bombing, and it stayed as
Speaker 1: a rubble until the mid nineties when they put money
Speaker 1: together to rebuild it and a remarkable. Man came to
Speaker 1: see me and said, you know, we don't know who
Speaker 1: bombed Dresden, but it would be good if an American
Speaker 1: orchesta was to go and play there. I went dressed,
Speaker 1: and I met of people and we agreed to play
Speaker 1: there with Lauren conducting, and Folks Fable, which had built
Speaker 1: a factory there, sponsored the concerts. We've got a German
Speaker 1: cellist to play a work written specifically for that event
Speaker 1: by an Englishman. So we had three culpable parties if
Speaker 1: you want who participated. And we finished the concert with
Speaker 1: Death and Transfiguration Rick hard Strauss. And that was a magical, magical,
Speaker 1: unbelievable moment in this church sharing this music. It seemed
Speaker 1: like it was written for that occasion. And people were
Speaker 1: standing outside as the orchestra because there were no dressing us,
Speaker 1: of course in a church, and they walked out. It
Speaker 1: was a remarkable magic moment. My good friends, Zaron Maideer
Speaker 1: and his wife Carmen, have packed up and moved to Chicago.
Speaker 1: Carmen told me they were apartments sold in record time.
Speaker 1: Our apartment went up and there was only a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks, and we were told that it had been
Speaker 1: made it offer on. It turns out to be as
Speaker 1: therein successor, Matthew van Beeson. Now, Matthew was running around
Speaker 1: with his agent and unaware that it was your apartment
Speaker 1: until they came into our apartment. It was just an
Speaker 1: open house. So he came into the department thought he
Speaker 1: liked it. Obviously it's in a very good place for
Speaker 1: working at the Philharmonic. And as he's walking through the rooms,
Speaker 1: we have our pictures and pictures of all kinds of
Speaker 1: musicians all over the place. So he finally realized that
Speaker 1: he was in our apartment. And when he told me
Speaker 1: that I really liked was what gave it away was
Speaker 1: the collection of the CDs he said. He said he
Speaker 1: saw the music on the wall and he went, who
Speaker 1: the hell are these people? Look at this stuff? They
Speaker 1: and I'm happy to say we can leave all our
Speaker 1: LPs because we don't have the equipment to play them anymore.
Speaker 1: And Matthew does so that's great, so we don't have
Speaker 1: to think about packing them up and sending what's the
Speaker 1: proposed of the LPs stay with the apartment whoever buys
Speaker 1: the apartment. I'm not suggesting that the apartment become the
Speaker 1: official residences that were of the executive director of the Philharmonic.
Speaker 1: But it's just the right place to be. Even though
Speaker 1: I will see you again, it truly, truly, truly, it
Speaker 1: will not be the same, not, I want to say,
Speaker 1: not the same without you plural meaning you and your husband.
Speaker 1: It won't be the same without you sitting next to
Speaker 1: you and sitting in that box with you with some
Speaker 1: of the most fun I've ever had in my life.
Speaker 1: For this is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's
Speaker 1: the Thing. Thanks this week to Mark Travis and the
Speaker 1: New York Philharmonic.