#dominiquevleeshouwers — Public Fediverse posts

Conductor Elim Chan: ‘I cannot run away from music’

Elim Chan (c) Willeke Machiels

‘When I was unexpectedly asked to conduct the “Dies Irae” from Verdi’s Requiem , I felt how raw and impactful music could be. I knew at once: this is what I have to do, I can no longer walk away from music.’ Elim Chan’s career is soaring; she will make her debut with the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra on 17 January.

In 2014 Elim Chan (Hong Kong, 1986) was the first female winner of the Donatella Flick Conducting Competition. The next season she worked as assistant conductor with the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO). After this she made successful debuts with Los Angeles Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and Orchestre National de Lyon, among others. As of the current season she is head of the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra.

The Dutch connection is working out fine as well. She earlier conducted the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and took masterclasses with Bernard Haitink. On 17 January she will debut with the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra in AVROTROSVrijdagconcert. On 18 and 20 January she will repeat the same programme in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. A blast is Percussion Concerto No.2 by James MacMillan, featuring Dutch Music Prize Winner 2019 Dominique Vleeshouwers as soloist.

Alongside MacMillan’s concerto Chan and the orchestra are playing Mendelssohn’s popular Hebrides and Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony. Chan is now a much sought-after conductor, but she began her career as an amateur musician in Hong Kong. As a teenager she moved to America to study psychology. That raises questions, which she kindly answered by e-mail.

Why didn’t you choose a musical career from the start? Didn’t your parents – or you yourself – see this as a serious possibility?

I think it was a combination of reasons. In my heart I certainly wanted to pursue a musical career, but I didn’t have enough faith in myself. I simply wasn’t convinced I could make it. Moreover, as a young person I was also very interested in psychology and forensic research, and I was a big fan of television shows like Crime Scene Investigation and detective and crime stories such as Sherlock Holmes. What’s more, my father knew from personal experience how challenging it is to try to earn a good living as an artist. Before he retired, he was a teacher of art and design.

During your studies at Smith College you were asked to conduct the ‘Dies Irae’ from Verdi’s Requiem. How did this come about?

I played the cello in the student orchestra and also took some conducting classes with the conductor. At that moment we were studying Verdi’s Requiem for a concert. During the dress rehearsal he wanted to assess the balance in the hall himself, so he asked me to conduct the Dies Irae.

The experience really shook me – standing in the middle of the massive sounds, it was the first time I felt how raw and impactful the power of music could be. On the spot I knew: I really have to do this, I can’t run away from music anymore. So I switched – and the rest is history.

In 2014 you won the Donatella Flick conducting competition of the LSO, which brought you to England. What has this meant for you?

I’m still grateful for the time when I was assistant conductor of the LSO and was able to work with one of the best orchestras in the world on a daily basis. The musicians are impeccable and always give the best of themselves in concerts. They are also generous and friendly people. Thanks to their knowledge of the repertoire and their guidance I have learned and grown a lot as a conductor.

Every time I get to work with the LSO, it pushes me to my limits as an artist. The musicians are very fast and perform at a very high level, even though there is little rehearsal time. So I have to be efficient. But in the meantime I have to highlight all the details in the music and let my imagination run wild. It is incredibly nerve-racking and exciting but also very rewarding!

At the LSO you worked as an assistant to Valery Gergiev, what is the most important thing you learned from him?

Gergiev is really a wizard as a conductor, especially with Russian repertoire. I know that orchestras are sometimes frustrated and stressed because he is probably one of the busiest conductors on earth. But what he does great is keeping every musician literally on the edge of their seat whenever he’s on stage. Because there is always that element of surprise with Gergiev: every time he conducts a piece it sounds totally different from the last time. Also the way in which he can bring out colours, textures, drama and tension in the music is absolutely unparalleled.

At the invitation of Gergiev you conducted his own Mariinsky Orchestra. Was this a culture shock or was it ‘business as usual’?

In the beginning it was indeed a bit of a culture shock, because they weren’t used to seeing a petite Asian lady standing in front of them. – I think I was the first female conductor who Gergiev invited to conduct his orchestra in concerts and on an international tour. But once I had started the downbeat, it gradually became business as usual.

 You are now principal guest conductor of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and chief of the Antwerp Philharmonic Orchestra. How do you combine all this?

It’s great how eager both orchestras are to grow, and to explore new paths. The musicians put their trust in me with remarkable openness and warmth. Yet, the two functions leave me enough time to return to orchestras close to me, such as the LSO, Philharmonia and LAPhilharmonic, but also to visit new orchestras. The challenge is to find enough time to study and rest in between. – “Be the conductor of your own life,” is my motto.

Where does your musical heart lie?

I’ve conducted a lot of Russian music and have a soft spot for Rachmaninov. His music somehow seems very natural to me, I find it very easy to embody. I love the Symphonic Dances, and his Second Symphony also has a special place in my heart. Another fascinating composer is Stravinsky, but also Bartók. I love rhythm, and they both write such remarkable and unique colours for orchestra. But I also love contemporary music, because I can play an active role in the creation of a new piece. The presence of the composer at rehearsals and concerts makes a huge difference and adds a lot of meaning and emotion to the process.

You will conduct the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra in standard works by Mendelsohn and Tchaikovsky and Percussion Concerto No.2 by James MacMillan. Did you already know his music?

Yes. I conducted Veni Veni Emmanuel, his first Percussion Concerto, a few times and gave the American premiere of his Fourth Symphony. His music is quite challenging, both physically and technically, since MacMillan writes really virtuoso parts for his performers. But it is always such a rewarding experience when you work through it. Listening to how everything fits together, the textures, the colours, the deeply religious undertones: it’s very emotional and has a powerful rhetoric in all passages.

What are the pitfalls for you as a conductor?

I find it a great and fun challenge to accompany a percussionist as a conductor. – We are both very physically engaged. At all times we have to be in absolute sync and communicate very precisely with each other to make the concerto work. Furthermore, it’s very tricky to get the right balance for all the complex and delicate parts MacMillan writes for the orchestra and the solo percussion.

What I like most about it is how MacMillan makes the “metallic” quality shine. Not only in the solo and orchestral percussion but also in the brass.

I’ll do the pre concert talks on 18+20 January in Concertgebouw, and interviewed MacMillan about his concerto before its world premiere in 2014.

#AVROTROSVrijdagconcert #DominiqueVleeshouwers #ElimChan #JamesMacMillan #NetherlandsPhilharmonicOrchestra

James MacMillan: ‘My Percussion Concerto No.2 is a musical and visual spectacle’

James MacMillan (c) Boosey & Hawkes

‘When Colin Currie asked me to compose a new percussion concerto for him, I grabbed this chance immediately, for this idea had already been in my mind for a while. I was very curious to explore new grounds and intended to create a completely different piece from my first percussion concerto Veni, veni, Emmanuel.‘ Practicing what he preached, the Scottish composer James MacMillan (1959) finished his Percussion Concerto Nr.2 in 2014.

It was premiered that same year by Currie and the Dutch Radio Philharmonic Orchestra in AVROTROSVrijdagconcert and broadcast live on Radio 4. The concert drew mixed reviews, but has nevertheless nestled snugly in the canon of contemporary music. Since its inception it’s been performed some thirty times, not only by Currie, but also by other renowned percussionists, such as Claire Edwardes and Martin Grubinger.

From 17-20 January the young Dutch percussionist Dominique Vleeshouwers will be the soloist in a run of three concerts with the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, of which the first again forms part of the AVROTROSVrijdagconcert Utrecht, while the other two will take place in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. There, on Saturday 18 January, Vleeshouwers will receive the prestigious Dutch Music Prize 2019 from the hands of Ingrid van Engelshoven, Minister of Culture.

Dominique Vleeshouwers

In his music James MacMillan strives for a direct communication with the public, often inspired by his Catholic faith. He made a name for himself with works such as The Confession of Isobel Gowdie, a Scottisch woman who was burnt at the stake for alleged witchcraft; The World’s Ransoming for alto oboe and orchestra, two large-scale Passions and his first percussion concerto, Veni, Veni Emmanuel. This monumental but lively and varied concerto marked his international breakthrough and has since been performed over three hundred times.

On the occasion of the premiere of his second percussion concerto in 2014 I interviewed MacMillan for Radio 4 after its first run-through in the radio studios in Hilversum.

In 1991 he collaborated closely with the Scottish percussionist Evelyn Glennie, and over a decade later he also sought Currie’s advice for his second percussion concerto. MacMillan: ‘I’ve known Colin since he was a teenager and we’ve performed my first percussion concerto together many times. I am impressed by the conviction and dedication with which he plays my music, and know his interpretation inside out. We’ve become friends and when he asked me for a new piece, I seized the opportunity with both hands.’

The Scot did not want to repeat himself however: ‘I was looking for new ways, not only in terms of theme and structure, but also in terms of instrumentation. Colin played a lot of percussion instruments for me that I did not yet know. For example, he showed me the recently developed aluphone, an instrument that consists of a long rod on which aluminium pods are mounted in the arrangement of piano keys.’

Aluphone as played in Percussion Concerto No.2

‘Its sound balances somewhere between glockenspiel and vibraphone and can be clangorous, bright and metallic but also sweet. It moreover has a deep resonance that can create a sort of halo, a sheen. I use that to dramatic effect.’

Unlike Veni, Veni Emmanuel that was inspired by Advent, Percussion Concerto No. 2 has no religious background: ‘It is a completely abstract piece, based on the sound of metal percussion instruments. Besides the soloist there are two orchestral percussionists and together they sometimes form a trio, for instance in the beginning. There all three of them play marimba, but in different octaves and with different material, thus creating a kind of meta-marimba.’

Remarkable too, is the use of a steel drum, which often conjures up associations with Surinamese music. ‘I deliberately avoided that’, says MacMillan. ‘The steel-drum has an unprecedented richness of timbres and can sound very sensitive. I am particularly interested in that last quality, because the core of my piece is lyrical. But it remains a percussion concerto, so I also play around a lot rhythmically and the soloist has to work really hard. He often changes instruments quickly, so the audience sees him running back and forth across the stage.’

‘It was exciting to write this piece, because I could explore so many new timbres. The virtuosic aspect is appealing to both player and audience, especially when he succeeds in almost superhuman feats.’ With a satisfied grin: ‘My Percussion Concerto No.2 is a true spectacle, not only musically, but also visually, giving it an extra dimension.’

Before the world premiere in 2014, I made a reportage for Radio 4, that has unfortunately been taken offline. However I saved my short talk with MacMillan and Currie, which is now available as a podcast.

#ColinCurrie #DominiqueVleeshouwers #ElimChan #JamesMacMillan #NederlandsPhilharmonischOrkest