1
00:00:01,720 --> 00:00:05,000
Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing,

2
00:00:05,640 --> 00:00:10,080
Speaker 1: My chance to talk with artists, policymakers and performers, to

3
00:00:10,200 --> 00:00:14,480
Speaker 1: hear their stories, what inspires their creations, what decisions change

4
00:00:14,520 --> 00:00:21,239
Speaker 1: their careers, what relationships influenced their work. I began listening

5
00:00:21,239 --> 00:00:24,680
Speaker 1: to classical music in my twenties. Job hunting as an

6
00:00:24,680 --> 00:00:26,720
Speaker 1: actor in l A meant you'd be in your car

7
00:00:27,160 --> 00:00:30,760
Speaker 1: three four hours a day. I drive around listening to

8
00:00:30,760 --> 00:00:34,360
Speaker 1: the local classical stations, sometimes pulling over to call from

9
00:00:34,400 --> 00:00:36,680
Speaker 1: my car phone to find out the name of the piece,

10
00:00:37,080 --> 00:00:40,360
Speaker 1: who composed it, who performed it, and who conducted. While

11
00:00:40,400 --> 00:00:43,080
Speaker 1: I was learning the difference between Maler and Mendelssohn. My

12
00:00:43,200 --> 00:00:47,560
Speaker 1: guest today as Apeca Solomon, a Finish French horn player,

13
00:00:47,640 --> 00:00:51,479
Speaker 1: also in his twenties, was making his conducting debut with

14
00:00:51,560 --> 00:00:56,440
Speaker 1: the Philharmonia Orchestra in London. Today Solomon is their principal

15
00:00:56,440 --> 00:00:59,400
Speaker 1: conductor and the new composer in residence at the New

16
00:00:59,480 --> 00:01:02,640
Speaker 1: York Philip Manik for the next three years. And that's

17
00:01:02,680 --> 00:01:06,080
Speaker 1: new because I, I mean, obviously, I've been composing for

18
00:01:06,160 --> 00:01:10,280
Speaker 1: decades and since I started studying music, really, but but

19
00:01:10,319 --> 00:01:12,440
Speaker 1: this is the first time I have an official position

20
00:01:12,440 --> 00:01:14,679
Speaker 1: as a composer as opposed to being a conductor of

21
00:01:14,760 --> 00:01:17,559
Speaker 1: some orchestra, and that for me, this is really fascinating,

22
00:01:18,120 --> 00:01:21,360
Speaker 1: exciting for a lot of people was fascinating. Actually, was

23
00:01:21,440 --> 00:01:25,760
Speaker 1: composition something that was the goal originally and conducting was accidental,

24
00:01:25,800 --> 00:01:32,200
Speaker 1: I'm told correct, that's true. Yeah, I I started studying

25
00:01:32,200 --> 00:01:36,319
Speaker 1: composition quite early in my teens. We started a group

26
00:01:36,319 --> 00:01:38,720
Speaker 1: of young composers in Finland. I was born and raised

27
00:01:38,720 --> 00:01:41,600
Speaker 1: in Helsinki, Finland. We had a group of young composers.

28
00:01:41,720 --> 00:01:45,080
Speaker 1: Mongst Lindberg was one of them. He was actually the

29
00:01:45,120 --> 00:01:49,240
Speaker 1: first composing composing in residents with the New York Philarmonica,

30
00:01:50,200 --> 00:01:53,080
Speaker 1: another very well non composer. Now, so we started this

31
00:01:53,080 --> 00:01:58,520
Speaker 1: group together, um so idealistic group of young tucks, kind

32
00:01:58,520 --> 00:02:00,960
Speaker 1: of trying to change the world olden you know. We

33
00:02:01,520 --> 00:02:05,720
Speaker 1: thought that new music is good for people, and therefore

34
00:02:05,760 --> 00:02:09,680
Speaker 1: we took it out to you know, gas stations, prisons

35
00:02:09,760 --> 00:02:12,679
Speaker 1: or people's homes. So and then it was one of

36
00:02:12,760 --> 00:02:18,080
Speaker 1: those missions. Um. And it turned out that the real

37
00:02:18,280 --> 00:02:21,200
Speaker 1: conductors at the time in Finland we're not interested in

38
00:02:21,200 --> 00:02:23,080
Speaker 1: our stuff. So we felt that one of us has

39
00:02:23,120 --> 00:02:25,640
Speaker 1: to conduct something has to be able to do it.

40
00:02:26,400 --> 00:02:30,600
Speaker 1: So I was kind of voted um to become the

41
00:02:30,680 --> 00:02:32,960
Speaker 1: conductor of the group because I had a lot of

42
00:02:33,360 --> 00:02:37,000
Speaker 1: performance experience. I was a home player French home player,

43
00:02:37,639 --> 00:02:41,280
Speaker 1: and I used to sub in in healthy orchestras in

44
00:02:41,320 --> 00:02:44,280
Speaker 1: the opera at radio orchestra on zone, so I knew

45
00:02:45,720 --> 00:02:47,840
Speaker 1: what it meant to be on stage and play and

46
00:02:47,880 --> 00:02:51,480
Speaker 1: so on. So I started studying conducting just for this

47
00:02:51,560 --> 00:02:56,160
Speaker 1: purpose basically, and so it was a fluke. And then

48
00:02:56,160 --> 00:02:58,080
Speaker 1: I realized that I actually enjoyed it quite a bit,

49
00:02:58,120 --> 00:03:00,480
Speaker 1: and it seemed to becoming natural you to me, and

50
00:03:00,520 --> 00:03:05,760
Speaker 1: so on, m what did you enjoy about it? The people? Now,

51
00:03:05,760 --> 00:03:09,640
Speaker 1: when I think about it, I wasn't so clear about

52
00:03:09,680 --> 00:03:13,120
Speaker 1: that before, But now when I have long periods of

53
00:03:13,120 --> 00:03:16,480
Speaker 1: of composing only, which is very lonely, of course, you know,

54
00:03:16,720 --> 00:03:21,720
Speaker 1: you're you're alone, essentially, it's very slow. You know, you

55
00:03:21,840 --> 00:03:28,640
Speaker 1: imagine something, then you kind of translate that dream into

56
00:03:28,680 --> 00:03:30,959
Speaker 1: a sort of notation and so on, and it's a

57
00:03:31,040 --> 00:03:34,440
Speaker 1: very slow processing and lonely, as I said, and and

58
00:03:34,520 --> 00:03:40,200
Speaker 1: the energies a different kind of energy. It's the sort

59
00:03:40,240 --> 00:03:43,640
Speaker 1: of marathon runner's energy, you know, the long haul you

60
00:03:43,680 --> 00:03:45,200
Speaker 1: have to kind of pace yourself, and you have to

61
00:03:45,240 --> 00:03:50,360
Speaker 1: be very very patient and so on. Whereas conducting, of course,

62
00:03:50,560 --> 00:03:55,480
Speaker 1: it's a very intense thing socially. I mean, you are

63
00:03:55,560 --> 00:03:59,440
Speaker 1: on stage with hundred other people, and in the rehearsals

64
00:03:59,440 --> 00:04:05,160
Speaker 1: you're trying to focused them. You're trying to present your

65
00:04:05,200 --> 00:04:07,320
Speaker 1: ideas about the piece in such a way that they

66
00:04:07,600 --> 00:04:11,920
Speaker 1: not only accept them, but they they would willingly follow

67
00:04:11,960 --> 00:04:14,160
Speaker 1: you to wherever you want to go, and so and

68
00:04:13,840 --> 00:04:19,440
Speaker 1: and and I really enjoyed that aspect of it. The

69
00:04:19,480 --> 00:04:21,520
Speaker 1: actual act of conducting, you know, standing there on the

70
00:04:21,560 --> 00:04:27,080
Speaker 1: box waving the stick in the air, is not very

71
00:04:27,120 --> 00:04:31,120
Speaker 1: interesting in my opinion. It's it's just like the tip

72
00:04:31,160 --> 00:04:33,279
Speaker 1: of the iceberg. But then why is that person there?

73
00:04:33,520 --> 00:04:36,680
Speaker 1: For those who don't understand that history of classical music,

74
00:04:36,720 --> 00:04:40,239
Speaker 1: there wasn't always someone standing on a podium conducting, correct,

75
00:04:41,160 --> 00:04:44,320
Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah. In the old days, I mean the

76
00:04:44,400 --> 00:04:46,920
Speaker 1: very old days we were talking about Bach and Hayden

77
00:04:47,040 --> 00:04:50,880
Speaker 1: and more Set and so on. The music was simple

78
00:04:51,000 --> 00:04:55,080
Speaker 1: enough and it behaved in a sort of predictable enough

79
00:04:55,160 --> 00:04:58,640
Speaker 1: way that the musicians could actually take care of themselves

80
00:04:58,640 --> 00:05:03,400
Speaker 1: without somebody giving the beat, and you know, giving instructions

81
00:05:03,400 --> 00:05:05,760
Speaker 1: as to where it course and so on. But then

82
00:05:06,480 --> 00:05:11,080
Speaker 1: it started to become a little more complex with bet often,

83
00:05:11,480 --> 00:05:15,200
Speaker 1: and you know bet often. Symphonies are already very difficult

84
00:05:15,200 --> 00:05:18,640
Speaker 1: to perform without a conductor unless you're okay with a

85
00:05:18,720 --> 00:05:21,120
Speaker 1: totally standard, middle of the road kind of approach. But

86
00:05:21,320 --> 00:05:23,839
Speaker 1: if you want to do something, if you want to

87
00:05:23,880 --> 00:05:25,680
Speaker 1: do something with the music, then there has to be

88
00:05:25,720 --> 00:05:29,400
Speaker 1: somebody behind a concept. And then, of course, you know,

89
00:05:29,440 --> 00:05:34,960
Speaker 1: we move on in history onto the big opera guys

90
00:05:35,000 --> 00:05:40,000
Speaker 1: their Divagner zone, and then you know, onto Schraus, Bruckner, Mahler,

91
00:05:40,240 --> 00:05:46,400
Speaker 1: you know, Stravinsky. That music cannot be played successful. It's impossible. Yeah,

92
00:05:46,400 --> 00:05:48,799
Speaker 1: it's impossible from the coordination point of view, but also

93
00:05:50,480 --> 00:05:55,240
Speaker 1: the way it's composed, because the composer assumes that the

94
00:05:55,320 --> 00:05:58,560
Speaker 1: interpretation has some kind of flexibility and ideas about the

95
00:05:58,560 --> 00:06:02,640
Speaker 1: tempo and the pacing so on. Wagner for instances, all

96
00:06:02,680 --> 00:06:05,480
Speaker 1: about the pacing. So what the conductor does is to

97
00:06:05,560 --> 00:06:09,919
Speaker 1: handle the flow of time, um over an arch of

98
00:06:10,400 --> 00:06:13,479
Speaker 1: I don't know, five hours, six hours on including the

99
00:06:13,480 --> 00:06:17,760
Speaker 1: breaks of course. UM. So it's a it's a profession

100
00:06:17,800 --> 00:06:26,400
Speaker 1: that became necessary. Um. And somehow Somewhere during this process,

101
00:06:26,800 --> 00:06:31,160
Speaker 1: the conductor also became more visible, more of the center

102
00:06:31,240 --> 00:06:34,320
Speaker 1: of the musical life and the musical musical process, the

103
00:06:34,400 --> 00:06:38,320
Speaker 1: musical culture than the composer had been. And of course,

104
00:06:38,360 --> 00:06:43,719
Speaker 1: if you think of the modern um recording industry, you know,

105
00:06:43,800 --> 00:06:46,440
Speaker 1: with the with the LP and especially c D and

106
00:06:46,440 --> 00:06:49,800
Speaker 1: now the tvds and what have you, had, the performer

107
00:06:49,839 --> 00:06:53,000
Speaker 1: seems to be the center of all almost all attention,

108
00:06:54,040 --> 00:06:57,320
Speaker 1: and the person who wrote the music, who in my opinion,

109
00:06:57,360 --> 00:07:02,839
Speaker 1: is rather a big part of the chain, is actually

110
00:07:02,880 --> 00:07:06,880
Speaker 1: not well recognized, yeah, but not not treated in the

111
00:07:06,920 --> 00:07:09,200
Speaker 1: same sort of heroic way as as the conductors are.

112
00:07:09,240 --> 00:07:14,080
Speaker 1: For instance, I had a really kind of illuminating experience

113
00:07:14,120 --> 00:07:16,040
Speaker 1: in in l A some years ago. I was I

114
00:07:16,080 --> 00:07:20,040
Speaker 1: was in a I was at Starbucks, actually queuing for

115
00:07:20,160 --> 00:07:22,560
Speaker 1: my coffee, and there was a guy in front of

116
00:07:22,600 --> 00:07:26,720
Speaker 1: me who asked where whether whether I was songs and

117
00:07:26,720 --> 00:07:29,320
Speaker 1: I said, yes, I am. And he introduced himself and

118
00:07:29,480 --> 00:07:34,160
Speaker 1: he said he was also a composer. And I said, um, okay, sorry,

119
00:07:34,160 --> 00:07:37,600
Speaker 1: I don't recognize your name. I'm sorry, sorry about that.

120
00:07:37,640 --> 00:07:40,520
Speaker 1: And he said, no, nobody does, but I write songs

121
00:07:40,560 --> 00:07:44,480
Speaker 1: for pop stars and and he said I told me

122
00:07:44,520 --> 00:07:46,560
Speaker 1: that he had written a couple of songs from Madonna

123
00:07:46,640 --> 00:07:51,520
Speaker 1: and you know these huge names and his his name

124
00:07:51,920 --> 00:07:57,240
Speaker 1: doesn't appear anywhere, and I thought, you know, this is symptomatic.

125
00:07:57,280 --> 00:07:59,840
Speaker 1: So it's not only a classical music problem. I mean

126
00:07:59,840 --> 00:08:03,560
Speaker 1: it's a problem across the board. There was some guy

127
00:08:03,600 --> 00:08:08,600
Speaker 1: in London composer who calculated that if if a composer

128
00:08:09,480 --> 00:08:12,600
Speaker 1: wants to get up to the minimum wage annual meanium

129
00:08:12,640 --> 00:08:16,920
Speaker 1: wage of the UK, he or she needs like one

130
00:08:16,960 --> 00:08:21,320
Speaker 1: point seven trillion downloads be here or or hitsp here.

131
00:08:22,000 --> 00:08:25,360
Speaker 1: What I want to get back to is you are

132
00:08:27,360 --> 00:08:32,000
Speaker 1: in London and you're at the phil Harmonia, correct, and

133
00:08:32,080 --> 00:08:36,280
Speaker 1: you're playing the French horn and not anymore to know

134
00:08:36,520 --> 00:08:38,480
Speaker 1: what what what? What were you playing at the moment

135
00:08:38,480 --> 00:08:40,920
Speaker 1: you were asked to step up and conduct Isn't that

136
00:08:40,920 --> 00:08:43,280
Speaker 1: when you were first asked to conducted? I was still

137
00:08:43,280 --> 00:08:46,400
Speaker 1: playing you're playing those And who was the conductor at

138
00:08:46,400 --> 00:08:49,320
Speaker 1: the time, Michael Tilson Thomas Tilson Thomas was conducting the

139
00:08:49,320 --> 00:08:51,480
Speaker 1: phe Harmonia. Then yes, he was supposed to do the

140
00:08:51,559 --> 00:08:56,160
Speaker 1: Third Symphony and what happened? I think he injured his

141
00:08:56,640 --> 00:08:59,560
Speaker 1: elbow like a tennis elbow or something like that and

142
00:08:59,679 --> 00:09:05,400
Speaker 1: had to pull out. And they called everybody on the

143
00:09:05,440 --> 00:09:08,920
Speaker 1: planet with no success, obviously, and then they ended up

144
00:09:08,920 --> 00:09:13,280
Speaker 1: with me, who was completely unknown. I had an agent

145
00:09:13,320 --> 00:09:16,800
Speaker 1: who worked with a few artists, but his main business

146
00:09:16,880 --> 00:09:21,360
Speaker 1: was in golf accessory uh and he operated out of

147
00:09:21,360 --> 00:09:25,960
Speaker 1: a golf course in a smallish city of in Finland

148
00:09:26,600 --> 00:09:29,120
Speaker 1: when nobody spoke English and zones so forth, so it

149
00:09:29,120 --> 00:09:30,840
Speaker 1: took a little while for the messages to get through.

150
00:09:31,840 --> 00:09:34,360
Speaker 1: I had had a long night with my pals, composer

151
00:09:34,400 --> 00:09:38,600
Speaker 1: pals when the call came in early in the morning.

152
00:09:39,720 --> 00:09:41,520
Speaker 1: So it's this guy from the golf course saying that

153
00:09:41,520 --> 00:09:44,720
Speaker 1: the Philimonia wants you to contact Marla three and I

154
00:09:44,760 --> 00:09:49,080
Speaker 1: told him to disappear in using expressions I will not

155
00:09:49,160 --> 00:09:54,679
Speaker 1: repeat here public radio. Yes absolutely, And he called back

156
00:09:54,720 --> 00:09:57,079
Speaker 1: a couple of hours later, when I was already talkable,

157
00:09:58,200 --> 00:10:00,559
Speaker 1: and said, okay, here's the deal. So do you want

158
00:10:00,559 --> 00:10:03,680
Speaker 1: to do it? And I thought, okay, So if it

159
00:10:03,720 --> 00:10:07,040
Speaker 1: goes well, fine, if it doesn't, at least I can

160
00:10:07,080 --> 00:10:10,480
Speaker 1: tell this to my grandchildren that I've done it once,

161
00:10:10,920 --> 00:10:14,240
Speaker 1: or at least tried to. And then I went and

162
00:10:14,320 --> 00:10:18,440
Speaker 1: did it. And that's how I became a full time

163
00:10:18,480 --> 00:10:24,920
Speaker 1: conductor for a while. Your parents were not musicians, correct, No, No,

164
00:10:26,040 --> 00:10:29,600
Speaker 1: My father was a businessman and my mom was mostly home.

165
00:10:31,120 --> 00:10:35,200
Speaker 1: They loved music, listened to music. They went to concerts occasionally,

166
00:10:35,200 --> 00:10:38,880
Speaker 1: but they didn't practice music in it and listened to

167
00:10:38,880 --> 00:10:42,560
Speaker 1: recorded music. Yes, my father especially, he loved opera, and

168
00:10:42,559 --> 00:10:44,440
Speaker 1: he loved Italian opera. So I had a lot of

169
00:10:44,559 --> 00:10:46,840
Speaker 1: very d and Puccini playing when I was going up

170
00:10:46,880 --> 00:10:49,199
Speaker 1: and had that affect you. I have had a very

171
00:10:49,240 --> 00:10:52,920
Speaker 1: problematic relationship with Italian opera every since. This is quite normal.

172
00:10:52,960 --> 00:10:55,320
Speaker 1: I guess you know it when your dad is really

173
00:10:55,320 --> 00:10:58,360
Speaker 1: into something, when and then you grow up, you kind

174
00:10:58,360 --> 00:11:01,560
Speaker 1: of decided not to be into the same thing. Um.

175
00:11:01,600 --> 00:11:04,000
Speaker 1: I think it's a healthy reaction. So that's not just

176
00:11:04,800 --> 00:11:07,920
Speaker 1: a finish thing. It's a no. I think it's the universal,

177
00:11:08,240 --> 00:11:14,000
Speaker 1: it's a global And once he came home, he was

178
00:11:14,080 --> 00:11:16,599
Speaker 1: very proud. He had bought a new recording of of

179
00:11:16,720 --> 00:11:19,360
Speaker 1: Laboy m and he said it. He told me that

180
00:11:19,400 --> 00:11:23,520
Speaker 1: he got it really cheaply. It was a special offer, um.

181
00:11:23,559 --> 00:11:28,800
Speaker 1: And it was a Deutsche Berlin version of the Labom

182
00:11:28,840 --> 00:11:34,120
Speaker 1: in German UM. And I grew up with this recording

183
00:11:35,320 --> 00:11:37,840
Speaker 1: It's funny because when I hear it now in Italian

184
00:11:37,960 --> 00:11:39,720
Speaker 1: it sounds all wrong. I can't listen to it in

185
00:11:39,760 --> 00:11:44,600
Speaker 1: Italian because it it's it's it goes in German in

186
00:11:44,679 --> 00:11:47,960
Speaker 1: my memory. And it's funny how we get conditioned in

187
00:11:47,960 --> 00:11:51,280
Speaker 1: our child childhood and it never changes when you when

188
00:11:51,280 --> 00:11:55,760
Speaker 1: you stepped up at the age of to conduct the

189
00:11:56,160 --> 00:11:59,680
Speaker 1: Maler third with the Philharmonia, did you have a sense

190
00:11:59,720 --> 00:12:03,680
Speaker 1: like what did you do that? You think? How did

191
00:12:03,679 --> 00:12:05,680
Speaker 1: it go? What do you attribute to that it was

192
00:12:05,720 --> 00:12:09,040
Speaker 1: so successful? Because everything I read they talk about you

193
00:12:09,160 --> 00:12:12,320
Speaker 1: becoming an overnight sensation as a conductor as a result

194
00:12:12,360 --> 00:12:15,160
Speaker 1: of this performance while you were doing it, where you're

195
00:12:15,160 --> 00:12:18,880
Speaker 1: saying yourself, Wow, this is really going well, where you

196
00:12:18,880 --> 00:12:23,319
Speaker 1: don't think about that. I think that the critical moment

197
00:12:23,440 --> 00:12:27,400
Speaker 1: is the first minute in the first rehearsal with the orchestra.

198
00:12:27,600 --> 00:12:29,559
Speaker 1: I mean most of my colleagues can actually say the

199
00:12:29,600 --> 00:12:32,920
Speaker 1: same thing. I'm sure that when you meet a new orchestra,

200
00:12:33,240 --> 00:12:36,920
Speaker 1: especially when you're young and you don't have that routine

201
00:12:36,960 --> 00:12:42,839
Speaker 1: how to deal with with people you don't know, Um,

202
00:12:42,920 --> 00:12:45,640
Speaker 1: that's the moment when you don't know how it's going

203
00:12:45,679 --> 00:12:50,079
Speaker 1: to go. Um. And with the Philomonia. I felt this

204
00:12:50,200 --> 00:12:54,000
Speaker 1: connection in a really strange way, and it's very hard

205
00:12:54,000 --> 00:12:56,440
Speaker 1: to explain. It's something it's something that happens between people.

206
00:12:57,040 --> 00:12:59,840
Speaker 1: I mean even in your private life, and you meet

207
00:13:00,040 --> 00:13:02,880
Speaker 1: body and you know from day one or the first

208
00:13:02,880 --> 00:13:05,160
Speaker 1: second actually that this person is going to be a

209
00:13:05,240 --> 00:13:09,720
Speaker 1: very important influence, positive constructive influence in my life. And

210
00:13:10,240 --> 00:13:13,520
Speaker 1: the opposite happens as well. All the flags go up

211
00:13:13,679 --> 00:13:15,880
Speaker 1: and you know that you you you have to stay

212
00:13:15,880 --> 00:13:18,920
Speaker 1: away from this person no matter what. And you're very

213
00:13:18,920 --> 00:13:22,160
Speaker 1: instinctual that way. Well we all are all are. I

214
00:13:22,160 --> 00:13:23,920
Speaker 1: think it's a it's a biological thing you know that

215
00:13:24,559 --> 00:13:27,000
Speaker 1: you know has to do with survival and you know,

216
00:13:27,080 --> 00:13:32,360
Speaker 1: the forming internal relations which tribe but you know, keeping

217
00:13:32,400 --> 00:13:35,800
Speaker 1: the cohesion of the society and isn't that um. But

218
00:13:36,679 --> 00:13:40,760
Speaker 1: so with the Philimonia, I felt straight away that wow,

219
00:13:40,800 --> 00:13:46,040
Speaker 1: these guys seem to not only accept me, but but

220
00:13:46,160 --> 00:13:51,800
Speaker 1: they seem to follow me and kind of willingly. UM.

221
00:13:51,840 --> 00:13:53,839
Speaker 1: And I was quite an experience because it was the

222
00:13:53,880 --> 00:13:57,160
Speaker 1: famous Philimoni Orchestra and the conductor was recorded the multi

223
00:13:57,240 --> 00:14:04,240
Speaker 1: at that time, and you know, it's like a deal um.

224
00:14:04,280 --> 00:14:07,000
Speaker 1: And I have had these kinds of experiences later on

225
00:14:07,040 --> 00:14:11,080
Speaker 1: in life as well, and they they it never fails,

226
00:14:11,120 --> 00:14:14,320
Speaker 1: the mechanism might. I felt the same kind of thing

227
00:14:14,360 --> 00:14:18,040
Speaker 1: in l A a year after the Philomonia concept when

228
00:14:18,040 --> 00:14:20,400
Speaker 1: I met them for the first time, and I had

229
00:14:20,400 --> 00:14:22,240
Speaker 1: no idea what to expect. That it was my first

230
00:14:22,240 --> 00:14:25,600
Speaker 1: trip to the US ever, so it was a culture shock.

231
00:14:25,680 --> 00:14:28,080
Speaker 1: And of course I start out in l A, which

232
00:14:28,120 --> 00:14:30,920
Speaker 1: is even more of a shocked than anything else would

233
00:14:30,920 --> 00:14:33,720
Speaker 1: have been. And then I can say that again, yeah,

234
00:14:33,920 --> 00:14:36,200
Speaker 1: And then I stepped in front of the band and

235
00:14:36,200 --> 00:14:39,200
Speaker 1: and and they're terribly nice. But but more but more

236
00:14:39,240 --> 00:14:42,080
Speaker 1: than that, you know, like connecting straight away and and

237
00:14:42,160 --> 00:14:45,960
Speaker 1: that for me is the very essential thing about making music.

238
00:14:46,040 --> 00:14:49,280
Speaker 1: And and with both focus with l A and the Philimonia,

239
00:14:49,280 --> 00:14:58,520
Speaker 1: I've sometimes had this very strange experiences, you know, some

240
00:14:58,600 --> 00:15:02,680
Speaker 1: kind of communication that is beyond certainly beyond words, but

241
00:15:02,720 --> 00:15:05,840
Speaker 1: also beyond gestures in a way. And I'm thinking of

242
00:15:05,880 --> 00:15:08,160
Speaker 1: something I can I can swear that they do it

243
00:15:08,200 --> 00:15:10,760
Speaker 1: before I've done it, so that they this this kind

244
00:15:10,760 --> 00:15:16,640
Speaker 1: of fine tuning, fine tuned trust in each other in

245
00:15:16,720 --> 00:15:19,720
Speaker 1: a way, and it has to be mutual otherwise that's work.

246
00:15:19,880 --> 00:15:25,600
Speaker 1: So after the performance of the Maler in London. You

247
00:15:25,680 --> 00:15:28,360
Speaker 1: were twenty six years old. When does your first assignment

248
00:15:28,440 --> 00:15:33,360
Speaker 1: come as a music director of ensemble? I started out

249
00:15:33,400 --> 00:15:37,120
Speaker 1: in Stockholm with the Swedish Radio Orchestra. Soon after this

250
00:15:38,560 --> 00:15:41,280
Speaker 1: un did the job you wanted. It was the best

251
00:15:41,400 --> 00:15:44,040
Speaker 1: orchestra in Scandinavia at the time and and still is

252
00:15:44,040 --> 00:15:45,520
Speaker 1: one of the very best, if not the best. And

253
00:15:46,200 --> 00:15:53,000
Speaker 1: um and that was perfect for me because I I

254
00:15:53,080 --> 00:15:56,360
Speaker 1: was in a in a culture that was familiar to me,

255
00:15:56,600 --> 00:15:59,280
Speaker 1: I spoke the language, and still it was away from home.

256
00:16:00,640 --> 00:16:04,480
Speaker 1: Was staying in the Scandinavian sphere? Did you want to

257
00:16:04,520 --> 00:16:07,360
Speaker 1: stay there for the time? Thing? It felt like a

258
00:16:07,440 --> 00:16:10,560
Speaker 1: very good idea because I I like the idea of

259
00:16:10,560 --> 00:16:14,080
Speaker 1: being in a culture where no particular translation was necessary,

260
00:16:14,080 --> 00:16:17,240
Speaker 1: and I understood the reactions with people, and they understood

261
00:16:18,560 --> 00:16:21,640
Speaker 1: reactions of mine or the lack of lack of lack

262
00:16:21,680 --> 00:16:25,600
Speaker 1: of reactions and um. And it was a very good

263
00:16:25,680 --> 00:16:29,640
Speaker 1: orchestra and they were very nice people and um and

264
00:16:29,720 --> 00:16:31,600
Speaker 1: the same kind of thing that there was a very

265
00:16:31,600 --> 00:16:36,480
Speaker 1: sort of intuitive understanding people. People who have a prejudice,

266
00:16:36,520 --> 00:16:40,680
Speaker 1: I suppose myself included that there's a Scandinavian soul and

267
00:16:40,720 --> 00:16:44,440
Speaker 1: that they crave music of a certain type or key

268
00:16:44,560 --> 00:16:46,040
Speaker 1: or do they want that not true? Did they want

269
00:16:46,040 --> 00:16:49,440
Speaker 1: to hear everything? I'm not sure there's a Scandinavian soul.

270
00:16:51,320 --> 00:16:56,400
Speaker 1: It's it's a it's a myth in many ways. Technically,

271
00:16:57,080 --> 00:17:01,320
Speaker 1: if we look out from the finished perspective and try

272
00:17:01,360 --> 00:17:04,200
Speaker 1: to decide who is who are the ones that are

273
00:17:04,200 --> 00:17:08,919
Speaker 1: closest to us in you know, historically, traditionally, temperamentally, in

274
00:17:08,960 --> 00:17:12,240
Speaker 1: every way, it's the sweet. Also, Finland was part of

275
00:17:12,280 --> 00:17:15,800
Speaker 1: Sweden for six years. Um, so there's there's a lot

276
00:17:15,840 --> 00:17:19,159
Speaker 1: of history, but still there's a fundamental difference in in

277
00:17:19,240 --> 00:17:25,520
Speaker 1: how we behave in social life and um, the Sweets

278
00:17:25,520 --> 00:17:32,440
Speaker 1: are very smooth, socially smooth, skillful to people. They work

279
00:17:32,560 --> 00:17:36,919
Speaker 1: very well in groups. They they're very successful in everything

280
00:17:36,960 --> 00:17:41,040
Speaker 1: they do. You know, they they are experts at selling

281
00:17:41,160 --> 00:17:46,200
Speaker 1: their products globally and internationally so on. Um, and they're

282
00:17:46,280 --> 00:17:50,119
Speaker 1: very brilliant in many ways. Finns. First of all, Finns

283
00:17:50,160 --> 00:17:56,119
Speaker 1: don't speak much. I mean talking using more than the

284
00:17:56,160 --> 00:18:00,040
Speaker 1: absolute minimum amount of words to get your mess it

285
00:18:00,119 --> 00:18:05,560
Speaker 1: across is somehow considered being frivolous or you know, suspect

286
00:18:05,680 --> 00:18:10,639
Speaker 1: or something like that. And yeah, some kind of you know,

287
00:18:12,040 --> 00:18:17,240
Speaker 1: trying to achieve your goal through flattery or whatever. Um.

288
00:18:17,320 --> 00:18:19,720
Speaker 1: I realized this. I saw this very clearly when when

289
00:18:20,600 --> 00:18:24,639
Speaker 1: after some years in l A, I went back to

290
00:18:24,680 --> 00:18:28,199
Speaker 1: my country house in Finland and went up jogging. And

291
00:18:28,240 --> 00:18:32,000
Speaker 1: I had learned this habit of greeting everybody like you

292
00:18:32,040 --> 00:18:34,119
Speaker 1: do in l A. You know, you're walking on the

293
00:18:34,160 --> 00:18:37,879
Speaker 1: street and you just great, great people. Um. And I

294
00:18:37,960 --> 00:18:43,400
Speaker 1: was greeting everyone, you know, every villager, and they looked

295
00:18:43,400 --> 00:18:45,840
Speaker 1: at me like some kind of space aliens. What what

296
00:18:45,960 --> 00:18:48,560
Speaker 1: has happened to this guy? He was perfectly normal a

297
00:18:48,560 --> 00:18:51,000
Speaker 1: few years ago. Now he's been in America anyway, Now

298
00:18:51,040 --> 00:18:54,320
Speaker 1: he's like this or what's rotic? What is this all about?

299
00:18:58,720 --> 00:19:02,439
Speaker 1: Salmon is rooted in the United States. Two of his

300
00:19:02,560 --> 00:19:05,760
Speaker 1: three children were born here. And I'd love to claim

301
00:19:05,880 --> 00:19:08,440
Speaker 1: Salmon and as our very own, but I'd have to

302
00:19:08,480 --> 00:19:13,080
Speaker 1: get in line. He's an international superstar, with seven honorary

303
00:19:13,160 --> 00:19:17,119
Speaker 1: doctorates from four different countries. Be sure to explore the

304
00:19:17,240 --> 00:19:20,760
Speaker 1: Here's the Thing archives. You can find my conversation with

305
00:19:20,800 --> 00:19:24,600
Speaker 1: Alex and Jamie Bernstein, whose father, like Solomon, had a

306
00:19:24,680 --> 00:19:28,640
Speaker 1: serendipitous debut as a conductor at a major concert hall.

307
00:19:29,080 --> 00:19:30,959
Speaker 1: So he gets back to Carnegie Hall at you know,

308
00:19:31,040 --> 00:19:34,840
Speaker 1: five in the morning and passes out, and then like

309
00:19:34,880 --> 00:19:36,560
Speaker 1: an hour and a half later, the phone rings and

310
00:19:36,560 --> 00:19:39,320
Speaker 1: it's Bruno Zerato of the New York Philharmonic saying, this

311
00:19:39,359 --> 00:19:41,879
Speaker 1: is a kid, you have to go on this afternoon.

312
00:19:42,480 --> 00:19:45,639
Speaker 1: And it was on the radio as a national broadcast.

313
00:19:46,080 --> 00:20:03,840
Speaker 1: Take a listen at Here's the Thing dot org. This

314
00:20:03,920 --> 00:20:06,720
Speaker 1: is Alec Baldwin and you were listening to Here's the Thing.

315
00:20:07,400 --> 00:20:10,960
Speaker 1: In two thousand three, the Walt Disney Concert Hall, home

316
00:20:11,000 --> 00:20:14,639
Speaker 1: to the l A Philharmonic, opened in downtown Los Angeles.

317
00:20:15,080 --> 00:20:19,480
Speaker 1: The spaces internationally beloved for its design and its acoustics

318
00:20:19,880 --> 00:20:22,040
Speaker 1: as a pack of someone in the music director of

319
00:20:22,080 --> 00:20:25,240
Speaker 1: the orchestra at that time, Chris in the space when

320
00:20:25,280 --> 00:20:29,480
Speaker 1: it opened. The project got started in the late eighties already,

321
00:20:29,480 --> 00:20:32,920
Speaker 1: so I was involved. I was a music director designated

322
00:20:32,920 --> 00:20:38,760
Speaker 1: from from So I started talking with Frank Garry already

323
00:20:38,760 --> 00:20:42,920
Speaker 1: then and um, but they had started the fundraising and

324
00:20:43,000 --> 00:20:47,560
Speaker 1: the first donation came in and in already I believe, so,

325
00:20:47,560 --> 00:20:51,960
Speaker 1: so it really was a fifteen year project. Um. And

326
00:20:52,000 --> 00:20:55,200
Speaker 1: then we started developing the idea and it came to

327
00:20:55,240 --> 00:20:59,960
Speaker 1: a halt a couple of times, um for financial ways,

328
00:21:00,520 --> 00:21:05,199
Speaker 1: financial and political like garious conception. It was not so

329
00:21:05,320 --> 00:21:08,200
Speaker 1: much about that, but it was just things that happened,

330
00:21:08,280 --> 00:21:12,640
Speaker 1: like the riots in ninety two in l A and

331
00:21:12,800 --> 00:21:16,520
Speaker 1: you know somehow around King. Yeah, when when you realize

332
00:21:16,560 --> 00:21:19,800
Speaker 1: that the society was kind of falling apart, and and

333
00:21:19,800 --> 00:21:23,520
Speaker 1: and and everybody realized that they were these huge tensions

334
00:21:24,320 --> 00:21:30,040
Speaker 1: and that the kind of peace and and rule of

335
00:21:30,200 --> 00:21:33,520
Speaker 1: law was just a base of thin layer on top

336
00:21:33,560 --> 00:21:36,840
Speaker 1: of it all. So I think everybody felt that that

337
00:21:36,920 --> 00:21:39,040
Speaker 1: there are huge problems that need need to be need

338
00:21:39,119 --> 00:21:43,359
Speaker 1: to be addressed. And at that point, to even speak

339
00:21:43,400 --> 00:21:45,440
Speaker 1: about building a new concert hole in downtown l A

340
00:21:45,600 --> 00:21:48,320
Speaker 1: felt like the wrong thing to do. And I think

341
00:21:48,320 --> 00:21:53,159
Speaker 1: it a new police station maybe, yeah, rather some you know,

342
00:21:53,240 --> 00:21:57,840
Speaker 1: more constructive ideas as to how to alleviate the situation,

343
00:21:57,880 --> 00:22:01,679
Speaker 1: how to make things better and so on. Um. But

344
00:22:01,800 --> 00:22:07,880
Speaker 1: then things moved on luckily later in the in the nineties,

345
00:22:07,880 --> 00:22:12,800
Speaker 1: and I think the turning point was in when the

346
00:22:12,800 --> 00:22:18,119
Speaker 1: Philharmonic did a month long residence in Paris and and

347
00:22:18,200 --> 00:22:21,080
Speaker 1: lots of people came to hear their own orchestra playing

348
00:22:21,080 --> 00:22:26,040
Speaker 1: in a great concert Hall in Paris to shutly and

349
00:22:26,040 --> 00:22:29,720
Speaker 1: and then that I think that was the thing that

350
00:22:29,800 --> 00:22:33,119
Speaker 1: changed the whole thing, that all of a sudden people

351
00:22:33,160 --> 00:22:38,639
Speaker 1: realized that a musical experience is really as some of

352
00:22:38,680 --> 00:22:43,520
Speaker 1: its parts. And one very important thing is that the

353
00:22:43,560 --> 00:22:46,280
Speaker 1: space where the Oxtrad place. And if it doesn't sound good,

354
00:22:46,840 --> 00:22:50,120
Speaker 1: there's little hope. What was it like to live so

355
00:22:50,160 --> 00:22:53,160
Speaker 1: many years in Los Angeles coming from where you came from,

356
00:22:53,200 --> 00:22:56,160
Speaker 1: and just culturally I loved it. I think it's a

357
00:22:56,240 --> 00:22:59,080
Speaker 1: really great place to live, and it takes a little

358
00:22:59,080 --> 00:23:01,480
Speaker 1: while to get used to it. To be honest, it's

359
00:23:01,480 --> 00:23:05,760
Speaker 1: allows the place to visit because in in two weeks

360
00:23:06,760 --> 00:23:10,240
Speaker 1: you're only confused and you don't get it, but it

361
00:23:10,600 --> 00:23:14,840
Speaker 1: really does grow on you and um and also for

362
00:23:14,920 --> 00:23:18,320
Speaker 1: me as a as an artist and as a as

363
00:23:18,320 --> 00:23:23,639
Speaker 1: a person, it was really incredibly helpful to be away

364
00:23:23,680 --> 00:23:26,160
Speaker 1: from the sort of European counton, you know, the sort

365
00:23:26,200 --> 00:23:32,440
Speaker 1: of arrogant European intellectual canon that you know in the

366
00:23:32,560 --> 00:23:35,520
Speaker 1: music world. And of course when I started out in

367
00:23:35,680 --> 00:23:38,240
Speaker 1: l A, I had this some kind of residue from

368
00:23:38,240 --> 00:23:42,080
Speaker 1: this European thing that okay, I'm here too to bring

369
00:23:42,119 --> 00:23:46,959
Speaker 1: some kind of culture to elevate you. Yeah, this culture

370
00:23:47,000 --> 00:23:51,400
Speaker 1: is medicine kind of thing which is vile. Thank god

371
00:23:51,440 --> 00:23:58,080
Speaker 1: I'm here, Yes, aren't you lucky? Um? And it was

372
00:23:58,119 --> 00:24:01,840
Speaker 1: an interesting process because I was talking about things, you know,

373
00:24:02,080 --> 00:24:05,480
Speaker 1: the way we used to in in your bost days,

374
00:24:05,480 --> 00:24:08,119
Speaker 1: and you know, with this kind of all kinds of

375
00:24:08,160 --> 00:24:11,800
Speaker 1: intellectual constructs and you know, the historic necessity of a

376
00:24:11,960 --> 00:24:14,400
Speaker 1: tonal music and listen that. And people were very nice,

377
00:24:14,400 --> 00:24:17,720
Speaker 1: they said, oh, yeah, great, interesting, But how does it sound?

378
00:24:19,200 --> 00:24:21,600
Speaker 1: Or asking these questions that are the obvious questions that

379
00:24:21,640 --> 00:24:24,480
Speaker 1: everybody should ask, but we we weren't for some reason

380
00:24:24,560 --> 00:24:29,120
Speaker 1: asking so what that sounds great? But um, what does

381
00:24:29,119 --> 00:24:33,120
Speaker 1: it do to me? How? How will I feel? One?

382
00:24:33,240 --> 00:24:36,960
Speaker 1: Is the actual effect and impact of what you're doing

383
00:24:38,080 --> 00:24:45,880
Speaker 1: on me? And and I couldn't quite answer to those questions.

384
00:24:45,920 --> 00:24:52,440
Speaker 1: And and this started a big process where I kind

385
00:24:52,440 --> 00:24:57,520
Speaker 1: of rethought my values, my life and my artistic hearth.

386
00:24:57,640 --> 00:24:59,959
Speaker 1: While you're in Los Angeles, yeah, while I was there.

387
00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:07,360
Speaker 1: And I describe that process. Um, it's hard to describe

388
00:25:07,400 --> 00:25:10,520
Speaker 1: it in words. But but what happened composition wise was

389
00:25:10,560 --> 00:25:14,280
Speaker 1: that I had come to a drought. For a few years.

390
00:25:14,320 --> 00:25:19,320
Speaker 1: I hadn't written anything, Um, and I was blaming the

391
00:25:19,400 --> 00:25:21,840
Speaker 1: conducting schedule. I was. I was conducting around the world,

392
00:25:21,880 --> 00:25:24,280
Speaker 1: and I was learning all that repertoire, you know, all

393
00:25:24,320 --> 00:25:26,359
Speaker 1: of a sudden, I was doing all the betomin symphonies

394
00:25:26,400 --> 00:25:28,800
Speaker 1: and the Brahms and the Bruckner and god knows what.

395
00:25:29,560 --> 00:25:33,840
Speaker 1: So I was I spent lots of hours in front

396
00:25:33,840 --> 00:25:39,320
Speaker 1: of the score buried. But it was not only about

397
00:25:39,359 --> 00:25:42,879
Speaker 1: the lack of time. It was it was more like

398
00:25:42,920 --> 00:25:46,440
Speaker 1: a crisis. I didn't know what to write and how

399
00:25:46,520 --> 00:25:53,080
Speaker 1: to write. And I had this like a dichotomy. Um

400
00:25:53,119 --> 00:25:58,000
Speaker 1: that the music I loved playing and performing was not

401
00:25:58,200 --> 00:26:03,080
Speaker 1: like the music I wrote. Um, I love playing the

402
00:26:03,080 --> 00:26:06,800
Speaker 1: the big lash stuff by you know, Racha, Schraus and

403
00:26:06,840 --> 00:26:09,400
Speaker 1: Maler and Bruckner and straviing skincy bellies and all that.

404
00:26:09,840 --> 00:26:14,960
Speaker 1: I love that resonant sound of symphony orchestra and the

405
00:26:14,960 --> 00:26:17,920
Speaker 1: the fact that when a hundred people played full throttle,

406
00:26:20,880 --> 00:26:24,159
Speaker 1: it's more thrilling than almost anything else in the world.

407
00:26:24,359 --> 00:26:27,040
Speaker 1: To witness that energy coming at you, it's more thrilling

408
00:26:27,080 --> 00:26:30,680
Speaker 1: than anything in the world, and almost anything anything. I agree.

409
00:26:30,760 --> 00:26:36,280
Speaker 1: Thank you. I'm with you on that. Thank you. And

410
00:26:36,359 --> 00:26:38,879
Speaker 1: the music I was writing at the time was not

411
00:26:39,040 --> 00:26:41,200
Speaker 1: like that. It was because I was still in the

412
00:26:41,480 --> 00:26:51,359
Speaker 1: European modernist um kind of box straight jacket rather where

413
00:26:51,400 --> 00:26:55,360
Speaker 1: so many things were forbidden. And it sounds utterly ridiculous

414
00:26:55,359 --> 00:26:58,760
Speaker 1: I'm here telling you what was forbidden, because there was

415
00:26:58,800 --> 00:27:04,919
Speaker 1: no particular body that was doing the forbidding. But it

416
00:27:05,000 --> 00:27:08,520
Speaker 1: was just like it was considered to be wrong to

417
00:27:08,920 --> 00:27:12,080
Speaker 1: write a melody. It was considered to be wrong too,

418
00:27:12,680 --> 00:27:18,040
Speaker 1: to use pulse. It was considered to be absolutely wrong

419
00:27:18,080 --> 00:27:23,800
Speaker 1: to do something that sounds like a modulation moving from

420
00:27:23,840 --> 00:27:25,720
Speaker 1: one key to another. And you didn't have anything like that.

421
00:27:26,720 --> 00:27:29,280
Speaker 1: So finally I get to a point in l A

422
00:27:29,640 --> 00:27:34,960
Speaker 1: with the sort of newly found freedom. I think that's

423
00:27:35,000 --> 00:27:37,520
Speaker 1: the thing about Southern California, the freedom, the sort of

424
00:27:38,800 --> 00:27:45,000
Speaker 1: um openness of the culture, that curiosity. You know, UM

425
00:27:45,119 --> 00:27:48,960
Speaker 1: many colleagues. I've been talking to composers and other artists,

426
00:27:50,080 --> 00:27:54,280
Speaker 1: people like Peter Sellers and Bill Viola, John Adams. They

427
00:27:54,320 --> 00:27:57,680
Speaker 1: all say the same thing that coming to southern Southern California,

428
00:27:57,720 --> 00:28:03,800
Speaker 1: or California rather, was essential for them to became the

429
00:28:04,000 --> 00:28:07,160
Speaker 1: artists they wanted to be, or had had the potential

430
00:28:07,480 --> 00:28:11,880
Speaker 1: to be. When the time comes to create the schedule

431
00:28:11,960 --> 00:28:15,000
Speaker 1: for a given season. What factors go into that beyond

432
00:28:15,080 --> 00:28:18,520
Speaker 1: availability of artists or whatever? Is it all you do?

433
00:28:18,600 --> 00:28:20,880
Speaker 1: You sit down and people just take dictation, You say,

434
00:28:21,000 --> 00:28:23,320
Speaker 1: I want to play this and this and this and this,

435
00:28:24,240 --> 00:28:29,880
Speaker 1: or their board influences. It's a it's a very complex process, actually,

436
00:28:29,920 --> 00:28:36,320
Speaker 1: because I think it would be irresponsible, irresponsible for the

437
00:28:36,400 --> 00:28:40,680
Speaker 1: music director to dictate every program according to his or

438
00:28:40,720 --> 00:28:44,080
Speaker 1: her tastes. Because at the end of the day, this

439
00:28:44,160 --> 00:28:47,720
Speaker 1: is a public institution. We are serving the public, and

440
00:28:47,720 --> 00:28:52,360
Speaker 1: and and and a symphony orchestra has to be and

441
00:28:52,680 --> 00:28:57,400
Speaker 1: is a constructive force in the community. And and therefore

442
00:28:57,440 --> 00:29:01,160
Speaker 1: it has to cater to more than one taste, and

443
00:29:01,160 --> 00:29:05,840
Speaker 1: and it has to find the balance between leading and

444
00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:09,960
Speaker 1: satisfying the needs. But also you kind of gauge the

445
00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:13,000
Speaker 1: reactions after every concept, And you know I did in

446
00:29:13,080 --> 00:29:16,600
Speaker 1: my years in la I did about thousand concerts with them,

447
00:29:16,640 --> 00:29:21,920
Speaker 1: so so I learned to read the reaction quite well,

448
00:29:21,960 --> 00:29:28,239
Speaker 1: I think, and and I I think that towards the end,

449
00:29:28,320 --> 00:29:31,960
Speaker 1: especially the audience was quite proud of the fact that

450
00:29:31,960 --> 00:29:34,680
Speaker 1: they are the cool audience. You know, they they can

451
00:29:34,680 --> 00:29:36,960
Speaker 1: take all this stuff. You know, they are comfortable with

452
00:29:37,000 --> 00:29:39,680
Speaker 1: new music. They are comfortable with less known works, but

453
00:29:39,720 --> 00:29:42,120
Speaker 1: also they love the Jakovs, they love their you know,

454
00:29:42,600 --> 00:29:45,440
Speaker 1: very direct commended and there's nothing absolutely nothing wrong with that.

455
00:29:45,920 --> 00:29:50,239
Speaker 1: When seats open up inside the ensemble itself described that

456
00:29:50,320 --> 00:29:52,360
Speaker 1: process of how those seats are filled? Is it a

457
00:29:52,400 --> 00:29:56,240
Speaker 1: committee typically of of of the orchestra itself? Do you

458
00:29:56,280 --> 00:29:58,280
Speaker 1: have an input into that? Every orchestra has a slightly

459
00:29:58,280 --> 00:30:03,160
Speaker 1: different process. What was it like a lost But first

460
00:30:03,200 --> 00:30:07,000
Speaker 1: of all, they announced the opening in in publications, you know,

461
00:30:07,040 --> 00:30:12,600
Speaker 1: the UM musical publications and and on the internet and

462
00:30:12,680 --> 00:30:16,160
Speaker 1: so on, and they get applications. In these days, a

463
00:30:16,240 --> 00:30:20,720
Speaker 1: major US orchestra gets at least hundred and fifty applications

464
00:30:20,760 --> 00:30:25,040
Speaker 1: for one position. If the positions are like principle player

465
00:30:25,200 --> 00:30:28,200
Speaker 1: or something like that, they might get three hundred or

466
00:30:28,200 --> 00:30:31,600
Speaker 1: five hundred insane numbers. In any case, so there's a

467
00:30:31,800 --> 00:30:36,680
Speaker 1: there's an auditions committee that listens to the candidates. Some

468
00:30:36,800 --> 00:30:41,080
Speaker 1: orchestras screened them based on the CVS and just invite

469
00:30:41,080 --> 00:30:45,120
Speaker 1: a smaller number of people to play. Some orchestras listen

470
00:30:45,120 --> 00:30:49,560
Speaker 1: to everybody. But in any any event, the committee elected

471
00:30:49,600 --> 00:30:53,720
Speaker 1: committee sits there and listens to everybody who play behind

472
00:30:53,800 --> 00:30:58,160
Speaker 1: the screen, so there are no extra musical issues at play,

473
00:30:58,720 --> 00:31:02,320
Speaker 1: UM and the and for the final round, usually the

474
00:31:02,360 --> 00:31:08,800
Speaker 1: music director joins them for the final round. They then

475
00:31:08,960 --> 00:31:15,880
Speaker 1: vote and recommend a number of players, mostly like five

476
00:31:16,000 --> 00:31:20,720
Speaker 1: or six, for the music director to choose from. The

477
00:31:20,840 --> 00:31:24,040
Speaker 1: music director does indeed choose, yes. But but you know,

478
00:31:24,520 --> 00:31:29,800
Speaker 1: this is also something where I think it makes a

479
00:31:29,800 --> 00:31:31,959
Speaker 1: lot of sense to trust the instincts of the players,

480
00:31:32,000 --> 00:31:34,880
Speaker 1: the colleagues, because they are the ones who actually sit

481
00:31:35,000 --> 00:31:37,560
Speaker 1: next to this finalists. How do you know which one

482
00:31:37,640 --> 00:31:40,480
Speaker 1: they favor? Well, it's they've told you. There's a discussion.

483
00:31:41,080 --> 00:31:45,360
Speaker 1: There's a discussion. And then quite often I used to

484
00:31:45,400 --> 00:31:47,520
Speaker 1: invite a couple of people to play with the Oxford

485
00:31:47,560 --> 00:31:49,520
Speaker 1: for X number of weeks to see how they fit.

486
00:31:49,600 --> 00:31:53,520
Speaker 1: Change And sometimes you know, people are doing individual people

487
00:31:53,560 --> 00:31:59,080
Speaker 1: are just not tuned into collaborating and and so on.

488
00:31:59,160 --> 00:32:02,200
Speaker 1: So and this this no way to discover this until

489
00:32:02,280 --> 00:32:05,680
Speaker 1: you you've seen it. During the time you were in

490
00:32:06,160 --> 00:32:11,840
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, how, if at all, was there any frequency

491
00:32:11,840 --> 00:32:13,960
Speaker 1: in which people tried to co opt you, especially with

492
00:32:14,000 --> 00:32:17,840
Speaker 1: your success as a composer into creating film score. I

493
00:32:17,920 --> 00:32:21,600
Speaker 1: had a couple of discussions with a couple of people directors,

494
00:32:21,600 --> 00:32:24,840
Speaker 1: but but it never materialized. And and I know, were

495
00:32:24,840 --> 00:32:28,280
Speaker 1: you open to the idea? Yes, yes, I find fascinating,

496
00:32:28,480 --> 00:32:30,560
Speaker 1: especially when I hear a great film score by a

497
00:32:30,680 --> 00:32:35,760
Speaker 1: great film composer. It it really is. It's an up form.

498
00:32:35,840 --> 00:32:38,160
Speaker 1: It really is an art form. But then when I

499
00:32:38,200 --> 00:32:40,360
Speaker 1: talked to my friends in the film business and they

500
00:32:40,360 --> 00:32:44,800
Speaker 1: tell me about the schedules, you know, like I think

501
00:32:45,360 --> 00:32:50,800
Speaker 1: James Newton Howard took over the King Kong project four

502
00:32:50,840 --> 00:32:52,960
Speaker 1: weeks before the film was supposed to be finished, and

503
00:32:52,960 --> 00:32:55,960
Speaker 1: he worked more than two hours of music in in

504
00:32:56,080 --> 00:32:57,720
Speaker 1: three and a half weeks. And I said, well, did

505
00:32:57,720 --> 00:33:01,160
Speaker 1: you sleep? He said, now, ye, that ideal. And that's

506
00:33:01,160 --> 00:33:03,440
Speaker 1: a skill. I mean to be able to do that

507
00:33:03,600 --> 00:33:07,640
Speaker 1: and and deliver like highest quality film music gets. It's

508
00:33:07,640 --> 00:33:09,760
Speaker 1: a skill, and I'm not not sure I have it.

509
00:33:10,560 --> 00:33:14,320
Speaker 1: Many conductors, many people in the classical repertoire, some of

510
00:33:14,360 --> 00:33:17,480
Speaker 1: them a bit older now, have tried their hand to

511
00:33:17,600 --> 00:33:22,760
Speaker 1: varying degrees as composers and had some success. Some pieces

512
00:33:22,800 --> 00:33:27,280
Speaker 1: they've done are are performed and are admired. Why do

513
00:33:27,360 --> 00:33:31,000
Speaker 1: you think some of your colleagues don't get the traction

514
00:33:31,280 --> 00:33:35,880
Speaker 1: with their work that you have had well lots of reasons.

515
00:33:36,000 --> 00:33:43,680
Speaker 1: I I believe first of all, our era, um is

516
00:33:44,840 --> 00:33:49,160
Speaker 1: that of specialists. You know, everything is getting more and

517
00:33:49,160 --> 00:33:54,440
Speaker 1: more specific. Everyone gets as small as small as segment

518
00:33:54,600 --> 00:34:00,120
Speaker 1: of the full process. And um, and if some is

519
00:34:00,160 --> 00:34:03,120
Speaker 1: trying to do more than one thing, that is immediately

520
00:34:03,840 --> 00:34:11,160
Speaker 1: suspicious somehow. UM. You know, if you think of say chocolate,

521
00:34:11,680 --> 00:34:13,759
Speaker 1: When I was a kid, I went to a supermarket

522
00:34:13,760 --> 00:34:17,360
Speaker 1: and bought a chocolate bar. Now I would go to

523
00:34:17,440 --> 00:34:24,280
Speaker 1: a you know, specialist chocolate late and I would choose

524
00:34:24,320 --> 00:34:29,279
Speaker 1: between beans from beans from the Jap chocolate and there

525
00:34:29,320 --> 00:34:34,080
Speaker 1: would be like six beans as opposed to sugar or whatever.

526
00:34:34,160 --> 00:34:37,239
Speaker 1: And and everything is just becoming more and more and

527
00:34:37,280 --> 00:34:41,360
Speaker 1: more specific. Um. So I think the same process happens

528
00:34:41,400 --> 00:34:45,680
Speaker 1: in in culture as well. The idea of covering a

529
00:34:45,719 --> 00:34:51,160
Speaker 1: bigger segment of the entire process is not popular um

530
00:34:51,239 --> 00:34:54,440
Speaker 1: for some reason, I don't know why. UM. This happens

531
00:34:55,640 --> 00:35:00,279
Speaker 1: with builders, you know, like people in construction work. You know,

532
00:35:00,400 --> 00:35:04,239
Speaker 1: people specialize in in smaller and smaller parts of the

533
00:35:04,280 --> 00:35:06,640
Speaker 1: building process. And then you have to have like eight

534
00:35:06,640 --> 00:35:10,680
Speaker 1: specialists to do your house instead of having one or

535
00:35:10,680 --> 00:35:13,400
Speaker 1: two guys in the past who would do everything and

536
00:35:14,880 --> 00:35:18,319
Speaker 1: and I think it has to do with that. The

537
00:35:18,480 --> 00:35:23,840
Speaker 1: other thing is most of mundane, I think it. You know,

538
00:35:23,920 --> 00:35:28,520
Speaker 1: in order to be a composer, you have to compose.

539
00:35:29,640 --> 00:35:33,680
Speaker 1: I you have to set aside the time and in

540
00:35:33,680 --> 00:35:37,359
Speaker 1: my case, I made the decision that I conduct only

541
00:35:37,360 --> 00:35:41,000
Speaker 1: six months a year or less and the rest is

542
00:35:42,160 --> 00:35:45,840
Speaker 1: for composing something you worked out. Yeah, this needs planning,

543
00:35:45,920 --> 00:35:50,360
Speaker 1: you know, and and of course an inspiration and couldn't

544
00:35:50,400 --> 00:35:53,319
Speaker 1: And you have to have management. You have have to

545
00:35:53,320 --> 00:35:56,560
Speaker 1: have people who support you in this um and of

546
00:35:56,600 --> 00:35:59,640
Speaker 1: course you know, to be totally you need isolation. Yeah,

547
00:35:59,719 --> 00:36:04,000
Speaker 1: you need to be in one place and and um

548
00:36:04,040 --> 00:36:09,800
Speaker 1: and also you know, conducting is is more lucrative from

549
00:36:09,840 --> 00:36:12,200
Speaker 1: certainly from the financial point of view, but but also

550
00:36:12,840 --> 00:36:15,960
Speaker 1: you know, you get this service, you fly first class

551
00:36:15,960 --> 00:36:19,000
Speaker 1: and you stay nice hot star. You're a star. And

552
00:36:19,320 --> 00:36:22,080
Speaker 1: people clap when you come in. I mean the clap

553
00:36:22,120 --> 00:36:27,240
Speaker 1: when you come in. Well, well by definition they clap,

554
00:36:27,640 --> 00:36:30,040
Speaker 1: and mostly they clap after the show. Also, so it's

555
00:36:30,400 --> 00:36:33,279
Speaker 1: it's okay. Composer is just sitting there, you know, uh,

556
00:36:33,600 --> 00:36:37,160
Speaker 1: and long days and quite often nothing different lives. It's

557
00:36:37,160 --> 00:36:41,680
Speaker 1: a different life. I had an experienced many years ago.

558
00:36:42,520 --> 00:36:46,479
Speaker 1: I was in Paris invited to they did the French

559
00:36:46,600 --> 00:36:51,759
Speaker 1: Radio did a festival of young then young European composer's work,

560
00:36:52,320 --> 00:36:55,359
Speaker 1: and they played a piece of Mind, and and I

561
00:36:55,400 --> 00:36:58,440
Speaker 1: went to hear the concert. I couldn't go to the rehearsals,

562
00:36:58,440 --> 00:37:02,000
Speaker 1: and and they had booked I guess a perfectly fine

563
00:37:02,040 --> 00:37:06,319
Speaker 1: little hotel close to the radio, French radio, and I'm

564
00:37:06,400 --> 00:37:09,680
Speaker 1: checking in with my wife and and I get really

565
00:37:09,719 --> 00:37:12,080
Speaker 1: sort of annoyed as look at this piece of you

566
00:37:12,080 --> 00:37:15,960
Speaker 1: know what, how can they expect anybody, anybody to stay

567
00:37:15,960 --> 00:37:17,840
Speaker 1: in a place like this. And she looks at me

568
00:37:17,880 --> 00:37:20,960
Speaker 1: and says, shut up. You're here as a composure, This

569
00:37:21,120 --> 00:37:23,640
Speaker 1: is composed life. You're not here as a conductor. So

570
00:37:24,080 --> 00:37:26,920
Speaker 1: just suck it up. Were there were zero piece you

571
00:37:27,000 --> 00:37:32,120
Speaker 1: wrote that that came out of you more spontaneously, When

572
00:37:32,120 --> 00:37:35,800
Speaker 1: that just came flowing out of you. It's always different,

573
00:37:36,000 --> 00:37:40,960
Speaker 1: It's always different. It's just slow. This is my experience it.

574
00:37:41,800 --> 00:37:44,719
Speaker 1: And you cannot make make it go faster. It just

575
00:37:44,760 --> 00:37:50,400
Speaker 1: takes the time it needs. And then sometimes a pieces

576
00:37:50,760 --> 00:37:56,000
Speaker 1: comes out pretty much as it should, and it sounds

577
00:37:56,600 --> 00:37:59,520
Speaker 1: as it should in the first rehearsal, and then I change,

578
00:37:59,600 --> 00:38:02,640
Speaker 1: maybe a up, a little dynamics or something, but that's it.

579
00:38:03,719 --> 00:38:07,440
Speaker 1: And then with some other pieces they I'm not born

580
00:38:07,640 --> 00:38:12,360
Speaker 1: right somehow, and and I take them back and fix

581
00:38:12,440 --> 00:38:16,160
Speaker 1: and modify and change things, and then played again, still

582
00:38:16,200 --> 00:38:18,480
Speaker 1: not good. And then in some cases this process has

583
00:38:18,640 --> 00:38:21,760
Speaker 1: gone on for a couple of years. In some cases

584
00:38:21,800 --> 00:38:25,879
Speaker 1: I've been able to fix it and you know, get

585
00:38:25,920 --> 00:38:27,880
Speaker 1: to a result that I wanted to have in the

586
00:38:27,920 --> 00:38:30,000
Speaker 1: first place. And in some cases I just gave up.

587
00:38:30,440 --> 00:38:32,920
Speaker 1: I thought, okay, this is it, Watson all you know,

588
00:38:33,560 --> 00:38:36,319
Speaker 1: this is the way it came out, and I'll I'll

589
00:38:36,360 --> 00:38:39,440
Speaker 1: try again. Do you yourself ever get overwhelmed by a

590
00:38:39,440 --> 00:38:42,440
Speaker 1: piece when you're performing it? Even now? Do you yourself

591
00:38:42,440 --> 00:38:45,440
Speaker 1: even find I mean, I have had other conductors say

592
00:38:45,480 --> 00:38:47,880
Speaker 1: to me, I tried my best to leave the tears

593
00:38:47,920 --> 00:38:50,680
Speaker 1: for the audience. But do you find sometimes even you

594
00:38:50,800 --> 00:38:54,600
Speaker 1: get crushed by the music you're playing? It does happen?

595
00:38:55,760 --> 00:38:58,520
Speaker 1: It does happen. Give me an example, if you will,

596
00:38:58,920 --> 00:39:05,920
Speaker 1: um there are two kinds of occasions. I think that there's,

597
00:39:07,200 --> 00:39:12,839
Speaker 1: you know, the expectation rewards cycle, where you know, there

598
00:39:12,880 --> 00:39:18,040
Speaker 1: are some spots in some works that I find so

599
00:39:18,440 --> 00:39:23,960
Speaker 1: unbelievable that when I'm conducting, I'm not hurrying exactly, but

600
00:39:24,000 --> 00:39:26,759
Speaker 1: I can't wait to get to that spot. And it

601
00:39:27,280 --> 00:39:30,960
Speaker 1: does it well some modulations, for instance, you know, like

602
00:39:31,480 --> 00:39:34,480
Speaker 1: in Brookness seven in a slow movement, when the the

603
00:39:34,520 --> 00:39:40,040
Speaker 1: big combination of the adagio where the whole orchestra falls

604
00:39:40,160 --> 00:39:43,279
Speaker 1: onto a C major chord, and it's just overwhelming, and

605
00:39:43,680 --> 00:39:49,120
Speaker 1: it's an experience which is physical and emotional and everything,

606
00:39:49,160 --> 00:39:52,600
Speaker 1: and it's almost sexual because it's spiritual. Yeah, it's it's everything,

607
00:39:52,680 --> 00:39:57,040
Speaker 1: and and it's very hard not to be very, very

608
00:39:57,080 --> 00:39:59,759
Speaker 1: moved by this. And it's funny because I've conducted this

609
00:39:59,760 --> 00:40:02,000
Speaker 1: piece I don't know, thirty or forty times and over

610
00:40:02,040 --> 00:40:05,759
Speaker 1: the years, and still it does it every time. But

611
00:40:05,800 --> 00:40:10,040
Speaker 1: then there's a different category, which is more like it

612
00:40:10,080 --> 00:40:12,319
Speaker 1: doesn't have to do with the actual piece so much,

613
00:40:12,360 --> 00:40:17,040
Speaker 1: but it's more like the it's called it flow. It's

614
00:40:17,600 --> 00:40:22,440
Speaker 1: it's those moments. And this is not it doesn't happen

615
00:40:22,480 --> 00:40:25,840
Speaker 1: every day or every week even but they sometimes I

616
00:40:25,880 --> 00:40:29,560
Speaker 1: experienced this kind of flow state where I feel that

617
00:40:29,640 --> 00:40:33,279
Speaker 1: I'm one with not only the piece, but also with

618
00:40:33,320 --> 00:40:35,880
Speaker 1: the orchestra and somehow in some way with the audience

619
00:40:35,880 --> 00:40:43,120
Speaker 1: also that we create this kind of ocean or a river,

620
00:40:43,440 --> 00:40:49,960
Speaker 1: and I'm just like riding on a wave. And I'm

621
00:40:50,000 --> 00:40:52,680
Speaker 1: this sounds terribly in your age, but I can't really

622
00:40:52,680 --> 00:40:57,000
Speaker 1: describe it very well. It's I'm receiving and not giving,

623
00:40:58,400 --> 00:41:00,680
Speaker 1: and I'm writing on something which is my much much

624
00:41:00,719 --> 00:41:04,640
Speaker 1: more powerful than myself, and those are incredible moments, and

625
00:41:05,440 --> 00:41:08,799
Speaker 1: but I cannot call them, you know. It's it's there's

626
00:41:08,840 --> 00:41:11,680
Speaker 1: no way to guarantee that this happens, and when it happens,

627
00:41:12,200 --> 00:41:15,840
Speaker 1: there's nothing like it as a peck of Salon in

628
00:41:16,239 --> 00:41:20,520
Speaker 1: the rare combination of conductor and composer. He said recently

629
00:41:20,520 --> 00:41:23,920
Speaker 1: that he's finally got the balance right A fifty fifty split.

630
00:41:24,400 --> 00:41:27,919
Speaker 1: To see Salmon at work, check out the orchestra app

631
00:41:27,960 --> 00:41:32,440
Speaker 1: he created for the iPad. This is Alec Baldwin and

632
00:41:32,480 --> 00:41:34,080
Speaker 1: you're listening to here's the thing