The Mind Over Finger Podcast - 041 Marin Alsop: Forging Your Own Path

Episode Date: September 6, 2019

To start Season 2, I'm really honored to bring you a conversation with the incredible Marin Alsop, who's someone I've admired so much for so many years! In this episode, we discuss Making things happen for yourself, finding balance between pushing yourself to grow and not becoming overly self-critical, bringing a score to life, how she nurtures focus in her work by planning carefully, and the importance of becoming our own best teacher!   ALL ABOUT MARIN ALSOP: Website: https://www.marinalsop.com/ Baltimore Symphony Orchestra: https://www.bsomusic.org/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marinalsop.conductor/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marin.alsop.conductor/   Marin Alsop is one of the world's great orchestral conductors. She's described as an inspiring and powerful voice in the international music scene, and a Music Director of vision and distinction who passionately believes that "music has the power to change lives". She is recognized across the world for her innovative approach to programming and for her deep commitment to education and to the development of audiences of all ages. Upon her appointment as Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in 2007, Maestro Alsop became the first woman to head a major American orchestra, and was the first woman to conduct last night of the Prom in its 100 year history. Among her many awards and academic positions, Marin Alsop is the only conductor to receive the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship, she's an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music and Royal Philharmonic Society, and was recently appointed Director of Graduate Conducting at the Johns Hopkins Peabody Institute. She attended the Juilliard School and Yale University, who awarded her an Honorary Doctorate in 2017. Her conducting career was launched in 1989, when she was the first woman to be awarded the Koussevitzky Conducting Prize from the Tanglewood Music Center. As part of her artistic leadership in Baltimore, Mastro Alsop has created several bold initiatives: including 'OrchKids', for the city's most deprived young people, and the BSO Academy and Rusty Musicians for adult amateur musicians. Maestro Alsop conducts all of the world's major orchestras, and in addition to her position with the Baltimore Symphony, she is Principal Conductor and Music Director of the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra, Chief Conductor of the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, and Music Director of California's Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music. Her extensive discography has led to multiple Gramophone awards and includes highly praised recordings with all of the major labels, including Naxos, Decca Classics, Harmonia Mundi and Sony Classical. If you enjoyed the show, please leave a review on iTunes!  I truly appreciate your support! Visit www.mindoverfinger.com for information about past and future podcasts, and for more resources on mindful practice. Join the Mind Over Finger Tribe here!  https://www.facebook.com/groups/mindoverfingertribe/     THANK YOU: Most sincere thank you to composer Jim Stephenson who graciously provided the show's musical theme!  Concerto #1 for Trumpet and Chamber Orchestra – Movement 2: Allegro con Brio, performed by Jeffrey Work, trumpet, and the Lake Forest Symphony, conducted by Jim Stephenson. Also a HUGE thank you to my fantastic producer, Bella Kelly!   MIND OVER FINGER: www.mindoverfinger.com https://www.facebook.com/mindoverfinger/ https://www.instagram.com/mindoverfinger/

You're listening to the Mind Over Finger Podcast, episode number 41. Welcome to the Mind Over Finger Podcast, discussions on mindful music making, efficient practice, and building a purposeful career. And now, your host, Dr. Rene Paul Gaultier. Hi, everyone. So happy to be back with you for season two of the podcast. I hope you had an incredible summer. I hope it was enjoyable and rejuvenating and that you feel ready for the year ahead. Personally, I'm so excited about the lineup I have for you guys this year. I have some incredible guests. So get ready to hear from solo violinist Arnaud Sussman,

Sarah Whitney, and Lara St. John. I have for you the concertmaster of the Chicago Lyric Opera Orchestra, Robert Hanford, principal violist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Milan Milislavdjevic, principal cellist of the LA Philharmonic, Robert Domaine, principal flute of the Seattle Symphony, Damari McGill, principal oboe of the Cleveland Orchestra, Frank Rosenwein, principal trumpet of the Met Opera Orchestra, Billy Hunter, principal percussion of the Cleveland Orchestra, Mark Damoulakis, Northwestern University professor, author, and former Chicago Symphony Orchestra principal bassoon, David McGill, and none other than the wonderful string pedagogue, Simon Fisher.

And that's just to name a few. And to start the season, I'm really, really honored to bring you a conversation with the incredible Maren Alsop, who someone I've admired so much for so many years. Maren Alsop is one of the world's great orchestral conductor. She's described as an inspiring and powerful voice in the international music scene and a music director of vision and distinction who passionately believes that music has the power to change lives. She's recognized across the world for her innovative approach to programming and for her deep commitment to education and to the development of audiences of all ages. Upon her appointment as music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra

in 2007, Maestro Alsup became the first woman to head a major American orchestra and was the first woman to conduct the last night of the prom in its 100-year history. Among her many awards and academic positions, Maren Alsup is the only conductor to receive the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship. She's an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Music and Royal Philharmonic Society and was recently appointed Director of Graduate Conducting at the Johns Hopkins Peabody Institute. She attended the Juilliard School and Yale University, who awarded her an honorary doctorate in 2017. Her conducting career was launched in 1989 when she was the first woman to be awarded the Koussevitzky Conducting Prize from the Tanglewood Music Center.

As part of her artistic leadership in Baltimore, Maestro Alsop has created several bold initiatives including Orchids for the city's most deprived young people and the BSO Academy and Rusty musicians for adult amateur musicians. Mastro Alsop conducts all of the world's major orchestras and in addition to her position with the Baltimore Symphony, she is principal conductor and music director of the Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra, chief conductor of the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, and music director of California's Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music. Her extensive discography has led to multiple gramophone awards and includes highly praised recordings with all of the major labels including Naxos, Deca Classics, Harmonia Mundi, and Sony

Classical. In this episode, we discuss making things happen for yourself, finding balance between pushing yourself to grow and not becoming overly self-critical, bringing a score to life, how she nurtures focus in her work by planning carefully, and the importance of becoming our own best teacher. Let's go to the show. well thank you so much for doing this my pleasure excited to have this chance to speak with you i'd love to hear about your artistic path in in your own words and the one thing that i'm specifically curious about is what brought you to conducting and what it was like to forge this path because you have opened many doors for women you were dreaming of conducting at a time

where for many girls it wasn't really a possibility and you just kind of went ahead and went with it so i'd love to hear about that sure um well i'm happy to share you know it i think something people probably don't think about but you know we never set out to sort of forge a new path i think it just happens because as a result of you know wanting to pursue one's dreams and I was very fortunate to have two professional musicians as parents so this gave me I think if I hadn't had that I might not have had the the stamina and the determination but my parents were extremely supportive of me as long as I wanted to be a musician if I wanted to be a mathematician that was not going to fly so it was a completely different or even a doctor they they would say

you know when i went to yale as an undergraduate my parents were the only parents on the planet that said seriously why do you want to waste four years doing that you know they just they thought music was such a joyful career for them and uh it should be for me also so when i played piano from a very young age and then violin and when I saw Bernstein conduct when I was nine I decided, ah, that's what I want to do, I want to be a conductor. And so as long, as I said, as long as it was a musician that I wanted to be, they were very supportive and they were extremely helpful when other people were discouraging, when people would say, oh, you know, you're too young or girls don't do that.

My parents were very, they were very non-plus by this. You know, they always said you can do anything you want to do, that's the most ridiculous thing we've ever heard, and people shouldn't say that to young people. So they were always super, super, super supportive. That said, of course, conducting is not an easy path for anyone, regardless of your gender, and or your age, and or your nationality. There are all kinds of, I think, potential strikes against young people going into conducting. So it's very hard to know whether the path was challenging because I was a woman, or because I was young, or because I was American, or, you know, what exactly were the issues. But I assumed it was difficult because it was difficult, and because conducting was difficult.

So when I would receive, you know, yet another rejection or come up to another obstacle, I just thought, well, I really just have to be better. And I have to improve. And how can I use this experience? My parents were always very positive about everything. And, you know, how can you use this experience to get better? And so that's really what I tried to do. That's a great message to all of us.

But it's true, you know. It's so easy to... And I'm still guilty of it, of course, that it's so easy to say, well, you know, I didn't get that because they didn't like my sense of humor or they didn't like my personality or they didn't like this. And then it gives you a pass on having to analyze and look at yourself, you know. But it's a balance, too, because, you know, if you're too critical, that can also be difficult.

But I was fortunate in, I think, being just critical enough. and I was reading about you starting your own orchestra at a young age and I think that it's such a great way to get experience and once again be create initiatives and really kind of create opportunities for yourself what do you say now that you're also a teacher and you help you know guide a lot of young conductors what would you say they need to acquire as far as skills and maybe both musically and also personal skills in terms of leadership i i love absolutely love teaching um and i love uh working with all kinds of young musicians but especially young conductors i think there's a i hope that i can impart to them a philosophy of of being proactive always

so that you're not sitting around waiting for someone to like a manager or there's this impression that if you get a manager then you have a career this is not what happens at all if you get work you can get a manager but i try to impart upon them that they need to discover themselves you know find out what your repertoire is find out where your strengths are and really play to those strengths especially initially at the start of one's career and if things are not happening make them happen you know or if you feel that you're being pigeonholed into one repertoire then do something dramatic so for me I started with I love jazz I had a swing band for 20 years and so I started with this American jazz crossover stuff which

I really loved and nobody else was doing at the time and that that then led me into contemporary American music which then then became really a sort of I became known for that and that was very hard to break out of it so then I figured out a way to do a Brahms cycle and record it with the London Philharmonic. So that was completely, that broke me out of that. And then I started working with the Age of Enlightenment Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and you know, period music, that was completely different. And then I did a Mahler cycle, you know what I mean? Like I try to, I try to, I want to stretch myself, of course, as an artist, but I also don't want to become stuck in one niche. But you have to have a niche in order to get

out of a niche so I think in a way for young people starting out find your niche you know find what you're good at and really really really be great at it so that when someone's saying huh you know I need an ex I really need someone to conduct this panophthanic piece or whatever it is you know and then they think oh yeah well so and so I he he did a great job or she did a great job with this and then they call you for that and then you go and you try to maximize that and be as successful and as capable as possible and then they hire you again. This is a great point and I'm having the huge honor of playing Trouble in Tahiti with you. What does that look for you this process when you sit down with the score for the first time and you are putting it together

getting ready to conduct well this is a very um a very exciting week for me because i actually directed it also so i've spent the last two days directing the singers which i never did before and um so uh it was a new kind of process because not only do i have to know the music from the conducting standpoint but also then i had to try to it's not that different from what i do as a conductor you know I want to get inside the skin of the piece you know what was Bernstein thinking when he wrote this piece who are these characters what do they mean and then of course understanding that for the time it was written in 1950s but how does it translate to our audiences today how can we feel a connection and a relevance so it's very similar process to to learning a score for

conducting it I go through the same things you know a lot of reading a lot of research I I analyzed the piece as much as I can and when it has a text it's also very interesting and helpful you know to really figure out what this text means and then today we're going to have the added bonus of Bernstein's eldest daughter Jamie who's going to come and join us this afternoon so you know we're getting the full treatment here this is great you were just talking about how you were thinking about Bernstein how does one find this balance between executing the score as the composer wrote it and then find your own

voice within it and make it your own well I don't think they're exclusive at at all. I think the conductor's primary and I think marquee responsibility is to the composer, always. I don't think, I don't think, if I as a conductor am thinking about what my personal interpretation is going to be, I think there's something wrong. Because I have to try to motivate everything I do on behalf of the composer. So if I make an interpretive decision, because I think and I feel and I'm convinced that the composer would have wanted it this way or could have heard it this way. So that's really what guides all of my interpretive decisions.

You know one question I get a lot from the listeners is this idea of really nurturing focus in the practice room or in your case maybe the study room. How do you go about it? Well you know I can also speak to it as a former violinist who practiced a lot, maybe too much. Because when I was about fourteen I went to study with a gentleman named Brodus Earle who was kind of a wacky, wacky guy and he taught at Yale. And I wasn't there yet but I was still in high school.

And he said to me, I think you practice too much. And no one had ever said that to me. No teacher from the Glomian School had ever said that to me. And he said, you know, I want to do an experiment, which is I want you to practice for this week only 20 minutes a day. But I want you to plan those 20 minutes for one hour. And so it was a great, I'm not sure how effective or successful it was, But the lesson was very, I think, very, very strong for me.

It made a huge impression on me. And so, therefore, I think that just mindless practicing, or mindless anything, is very, very ineffective. And I think, particularly for instrumentalists, it can actually cause a lot of injury. because we just keep doing the same thing in a bad habit. You know, I used to practice and watch TV and practice and read, you know, when I was a kid, always, all these things. As a conductor, it's harder to watch TV while you're, you know, you really need most of your brain.

Not that you don't as an instrumentalist, too, of course. But I think this idea of having a plan so that you're not just um you know i know everybody thinks okay i'll practice from eight till ten this morning or something but instead of just that i think to have some goals okay i really want to work on this phrase and then you start thinking i think that sets you up for success because then you start thinking about that phrase in advance whether you know it or not you know i really want to work on this exposition of this piece or you know something's been on my mind or you know my trills need some work i wonder how i could improve them and how could i work on

that today then your brain starts to do its amazing work of you know thinking in advance visualizing in advance all those things so I'm a big a big big big supporter of planning what you're going to do it's very funny because my son plays the violin he's 15 he plays violin and he's probably the most random practicer you've ever heard so it's almost as though I am being tortured every day and in spite of that he gets better so I do want to say that perhaps there is something to the random practice but i do believe that focusing your mind in advance is a huge leg up like i say sometimes as a student you have this luxury of wasting time and yeah learning by road

but when you get to a certain age like i have two children oh so you're busy i need to prioritize so it's really a learning um a lesson and prioritizing for sure it is and well i think sometimes it can feel especially if we're in the habits of you know I always practice X number of hours a day and then suddenly you don't have time to do that you feel you feel insecure but that's really just a habit you have to create another habit that visualizes yourself you know I'm sure that I haven't practiced violin now in probably 10 years but if I sat here probably for 20 minutes and really thought about it i think i could sound fairly decent but if i just picked up a violin i think

i would sound awful do you know what i mean so it's a it's a it's a real mindset and you have to also trust that you've built up the physical memory and um the sense of what it feels like to do something um enough over all these years that you can rely on that yeah it's so true what you're saying and you just mentioned physical memory and I apologize for jumping from one thing to the next but how does one mix you know being a conductor is so much about how visually you engage with the musician and and how do you go about connecting with an orchestra that you know you've never played with this happens to you all the time you jump on the podium and you have this great sea of new musicians you've never met how does that work oh no it's always fun i i enjoyed meeting the

orchestra today um i mean i try to i try to just work hard get things done and get done early that's my goal always you know i mean not not to get done early but just to to not let things go that that need attention to let the things that i think will solve themselves go you know trust the musicians and and really i find as a orchestral musician myself i valued efficiency capability and efficiency above all other things so that's what i try to be yeah i try to be capable and efficient and relatively entertaining that's about it because i find that you are so without saying a word so evocative with your hands it's so oh that's good easy to follow you and not every conductor has that no that's true i mean you know it's it's interesting that some

i see this with students all the time that you know someone will just have a gift for body language and physicality and the next person really does not have a gift but has the heart in there or the mind and has to work twice as hard so um i'm a great believer though that that by self-study and hard work one can actually get to that place i mean some some people i i remember the greatest one of the greatest compliments when i was that student at tango it was from the conductor maurice bravino who was in his 80s at that time and he said you know you have a beat musicians want to play for and you know that it's not something I found it's something I I was given you know somehow naturally but I think because I felt

that internally that's why I was drawn to conducting also you know so I think those people that don't have it though and are awkward on the podium haven't spend enough time really trying to find it and do you find that again I've never taken the conducting lesson in my life do you find that by working in the mirror yes watching on videos yes everything all those things for conductors um you know there's a big there's a big um discussion always about about practicing you know because I guess it seems very ego-centered to stand in the front the mirror but I tell my students that you know it would be like me I don't put the cello but you know I could study the Dvorak cello concerto and know every single note and then I would just

say okay I'm going to perform it now and you say but you never played the cello before it's the same conductors think well I've studied really hard now I'm just going to stand up and conduct but it's really a it's an instrument the orchestra and it's a physicality that you have to grasp And you can't tell me that suddenly, miraculously, you're going to stand up in front of 100 people and be exponentially better. If anything, you're going to be worse. So you really need to have the physical memory. Also, if you want independence of your hands, all kinds of things that go contrary to our nature as human beings. You know, we do everything in a binary way.

So it takes a long time to separate the hands out and and figure out how to use your space and What kind of sound to get from the orchestra and and I mean I could work on a forte piano Probably even now for an hour Until I find the right sound I want the right gesture those kinds of things but a lot of a lot of people haven't spent any Time doing that it's so true because even as a teacher now I see it even more than when I was a student but the teacher can tell you to go home and you know keep your pinky round but it only comes with searching yourself and trying many many things until when the teacher says become um yeah

it really internalized for yourself yes it and it has to um i think you have to i think that's a good point that uh until you become your own teacher you you really haven't grasped what assimilating information is. I think, especially in conducting, I strive for all my students to become their own best teacher. Yeah, this is a great one. I'd love to talk with you all day, but I know that you want to have... Your podcast has a limit as well, so that's good.

Can I take you through a round of rapid fire questions before we go? Sure, sure. For the people that dream of a career that resemble yours in some ways, Can you tell us a little bit about what your life looks like? Oh, it's fantastic. I think everybody should be fortunate enough to have a career like mine. Just the only drawback, really, I think, is being separated from your family and the travel. I love traveling, so it's not that. But living in hotels for months on end is pretty tough.

And I think the separation from friends and family is the biggest challenge. But aside from that, I don't think there's a better career. We talked about skills that young musicians should acquire, but I'd love to hear about maybe a performance that stayed with you all these years. Oh, gosh, you know, I had the chance to conduct the New York City Ballet in a world premiere ballet by Peter Martens. My father was playing the Barber Violin Concerto and my mother played in the orchestra. So that was really a very beautiful experience for me.

That's a wonderful memory. How about a favorite tool in the study room? A favorite tool? Oh, you know, I have these special red pencils that I can't live without, and I thought they stopped making them. I nearly had a heart attack. How about a favorite book? Oh, you know, I love to read.

My favorite book through most of my life has been The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann. But I love his writing because it's so musical and so music-oriented, too. See, that's why I love these questions, because it makes me discover new writers and new books. What's the best advice, or one of the best pieces of advice, that was ever given to you and that you'd like to pass on to our listeners? My father used to say, you know, if you don't enjoy the rehearsals, you'll never enjoy the concert and I think it's a great metaphor for living yes I agree and finally how about a quick actionable tip that the listeners could implement today in their practice room oh

really I think I think if you I would say start with ten minutes of planning for your practice today and really work your way up and just make a list of what you're going to focus on and the smaller the list the more success you'll have thank you so much i really appreciate no problem thank you guys so much for listening i hope you enjoyed this chat with maestro marin elsa i think a really important point that she brought up was that most often you don't set out to break barriers you're just going after your dreams and i love what she said about not having the perspective of things being more difficult because she was a woman and how she instead decided to focus on bettering herself and chose to have a positive attitude about it both are extremely

powerful messages because it's so easy to feel like we got the short end of the stick for whatever reason and get discouraged to feel blocked by a barrier that might be there because of our gender, race, socioeconomic background, or others. So I think it's extremely important for all of us to keep doing the things that we want to do, even if, or actually, especially if they've not been done before, or if someone tells us we can't do it. So just go forward with your dreams and your ideas and your goals as crazy as they might appear to others. Because first of all, you never know where it will take you.

But also, and more importantly, you could be forging the path and knocking down barriers for someone else's dream to come to fruition. Also, I would like to take this opportunity to express my support and send my love to my colleagues of the Baltimore Symphony. this orchestra is a world-class institution it's an american jewel and it's a pillar of the baltimore community and i really hope all efforts will be made by the board of directors to ensure not only the survival of the orchestra but its thriving and its growth because it is truly an incredible ensemble as always you can find the show notes for this episode and more information about my guests as well as resources on mindful and deliberate practice at mindoverfinger.com i hope to hear from you on social media so find me everywhere as mind over finger and if you're

looking for a community of mindful practice enthusiasts join the mind over finger tribe at facebook.com slash groups slash mind over finger tribe where you can find inspiration motivation and support as well as information and discussions on how to take your practice to the next level and enjoy the process. Again, thank you and à bientôt!