Auditioning for the performing arts isn’t want it used to be. With the Web, the search starts instantaneously when word goes out in a group email or a posting is made on a jobs website. And when respondents go to apply, the thick resumes and bulky videotapes that once had to be copied, then shipped off and circulated are now reduced to links and attachments forwarded with the click of a computer key.
In the end, though, the search for a new music director for the Atlantic Classical Orchestra will come down to live performance.
This season, the four finalists in the six-month national search will have a final audition live, as each conducts one program with the chamber orchestra. Suddenly, the winnowing of the list of 130 candidates to four and finally to one becomes a community process. It will include the impressions of orchestra and audience, a democratic if subjective aye or nay that could shape the orchestra’s future.
That formula is standard in the industry now for all but the largest orchestras, says ACO President and CEO Alan Hopper. In Florida, orchestras in Tampa, Jacksonville and Orlando, with budgets of $14 million, $8 million and $3 million respectively, have all recently gone through a similar process that culminated in a season of candidates guest-conducting. ACO, with a budget of $1 million, chose to go the same route.
And for good reason: seeing a conductor live is “a totally different experience,” says Hopper.
“You get the audience response, you see the orchestra’s response. In the videos online, you mainly see just the conductors. This is the whole package.”
This is only the second time ACO has had to find a conductor. The first conductor was its founder, Vero Beach’s own Andy McMullan, who created the orchestra 26 years ago and conducted it until 2004, when the baton was passed to the Grammy-nominated Stewart Robertson. Robertson, a fixture in the South Florida classical music scene who retired in April for health reasons, is credited with developing ACO’s high level of musicianship and broadening its repertoire.
Up to now, the selection process has been “very, very smooth,” says Hopper. A number of board members as well as the orchestra’s Friends committee were involved in the selection process. But only four people were charged with the selection: Hopper; board members Marie Juriet-Beamish of Stuart and Wat Tyler of Vero Beach; and flutist Christina Burr, one of the orchestra’s founding musicians who also plays with the Brevard Symphony. The four have been meeting every two weeks in addition to communicating via email.
“It’s been a lot of fun and very exhausting,” says Burr. “It’s been far more time consuming than I had imagined; we had just an overwhelming response from candidates. But It’s been really, really fascinating.”
Burr says they each watched “hundreds and hundreds” of videos.
For Hopper, nothing was more important. “The visual part is amazingly revealing,” he says. “The first think I looked at was their presence at the podium. Were their movements broad and wide and expansive with arms flailing all over the place? Was it more compact and precise? And how well did it fit the music? Some conductors over-conduct, in my opinion.
“And how did they express themselves personally to the orchestra when they were performing? Do they use facial expressions? It’s a very strong bond between what happens on the podium and what happens in the orchestra.”
And there are limitations to the sort of music ACO can play. As a chamber group with at most 40 members, the classical repertoire is mostly from the late 18th and early 19th century. At the same time, the group is keen to try new music, including commissions of its own.
“We’re a very specialized orchestra,” says Hopper. “They need to know the music that’s available and be committed to it. That’s all they’re going to have with this orchestra; they aren’t going to be conducting Mahler.”
They felt some “very strong young conductors” who applied were too inexperienced relative to the requirements of the post. And excellent organizational skills were a must since the orchestra plays in three cities with the main office in a fourth, Fort Pierce.
“We were looking for experienced conductors that had conducted for a long time and organizationally had created a festival or built an orchestra. In their career, what had they established?”
Others were too busy to be able to commit to one week monthly from January to April, the ACO season.
“There was one candidate that between all the commitments, couldn’t find the time to come down and conduct next year. That’s the nature of good conductors. They get busy,” says Hopper.
All had experience in pre-concert lectures, a task at which Robertson was particularly adept. Those communication skills came through as the committee held hour-long Skype interviews over a span of two days of the top eight candidates.
Even as the list was “narrowed and revisited, narrowed again and revisited,” it became clear the committee was in accord on what the members had in mind for the orchestra’s future.
With the Skype interviews over, the committee met to shrink the list to four. But before debate began, they decided to first write down their top choices. Three of the four had the same four people, and one was only different by one person.
Whether that kind of unanimity continues is anyone’s guess.
“All of the final candidates are just so highly qualified,” says Burr. “I would be completely thrilled to play with any of them. What’s really fascinating is that they all had very different personalities that really come through.”
Each of the finalists will conduct one of the four ACO concerts, staged in Vero Beach, Stuart and Palm Beach Gardens.
“When it comes right down to it,” says Burr, “Everyone will come across as certainly qualified and capable. I know every one of them would come in and do a spectacular job. But after they spend a whole week here, somebody will just feel the most right.”
The candidates for conductor of Atlantic Classical Orchestra, in order of their appearances next season:
• David Amado, who conducts in January a program of Von Weber, Shostakovich and Schubert, with Lindsay Garritson as piano soloist. Amado is beginning his 12th season as conductor of the Delaware Symphony;
• David Loebel takes the baton in February for a program that includes Ravel, Respighi, and Haydn. Leonid Sigal is violin soloist. A native of Cleveland who studied at Northwestern University, Loebel has been associate director of orchestras at the New England Conservatory of Music since 2010;
• Rei Hotoda conducts a program of Mozart, Beethoven and Shostakovich in March, with Jon Nakamatsu as piano soloist. This season, Hotoda assumes the role of associate conductor of the Utah Symphony Orchestra, the first woman conductor in that orchestra’s 75 year history. That follows stints with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra;
• David Handel wraps up the season and conducts the orchestra in performances of Alfonso Leng, Beethoven, and Tchaikovsky. Giora Schmidt is the violin soloist. Handel is principal guest conductor of the Moscow City Symphony – Russian Philharmonic. Prior, he was music director of the National Symphony of Bolivia.
