By TONI MARIE MARCHIONI

Maestro Andreas Delfs lists Gary Larson's The Complete Far Side Cartoons not only among his favorite books, but also as possible concert programming inspiration. The German-born conductor, who currently resides with his family in Milwaukee, Wis., describes his programming objectives as "flexibility and spontaneity" rather than the formulaic "overture, concerto, and symphony."

Delfs, who is presently the music director of the Milwaukee Symphony, recalled the genesis of a concert he will conduct next year with the Louisville Symphony that is based on a Far Side cartoon. The drawn frame depicts new arrivals to heaven receiving a harp, and those to hell, an accordion. The sketch inspired him to choose music with the common thread of hell, including Strauss's Don Juan and Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld. As he affirmed in a recent telephone interview, "When a spontaneous idea comes to me like that, it normally ends up to be good, unusual, and exciting programs."

Andreas Delfs with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. (Photo courtesy of Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra)

While Delfs's Juilliard Orchestra program in February is not based on themes from a comic strip, it does hold several connections to his own time at Juilliard as a student. (He earned his M.M. in orchestral conducting in 1986.) Particularly, he remembers the first time he heard Prokofiev's Fifth Symphony (now one of his favorite pieces), at Carnegie Hall with the Saint Louis Symphony under Leonard Slatkin. At that time, he explains, "I knew—as everybody—Peter and the Wolf. Since I had worked in the ballet world for a couple of years, I knew Romeo and Juliet and Cinderella, but not really much else. That [Symphony No. 5] was the first Prokofiev symphony I heard and it just overwhelmed me because it's such a fabulous piece." Delfs continues, "It has everything that I like about Prokofiev, which is the glorious orchestration, the expansiveness of melody, and the virtuoso handling of harmony. Prokofiev was not being a 12-tone composer, yet was stretching the concept of shifting keys and multi-tonality, which were new limits for my ear at the time. I loved it right away." Even now, years later, he says, "I am still reminded of this surge of juvenile energy when I conduct this piece. It was always my wish to do it in New York sometime, because it was where I heard the piece for the first time."

The concert also includes student soloist Vasileios Varvaresos playing Lowell Liebermann's Piano Concerto No. 2. The programming choice stems from Delfs's Juilliard residency last year with Liebermann's opera Miss Lonelyhearts, when somebody suggested also performing his piano concerto. Delfs explains, "Lowell and I were at school at Juilliard at the same time and we're good friends. This piano concerto is one of his most successful, if not the most successful piece he has written. It is performed a lot, so it is already a standard of the repertory. I thought it was a great idea for Juilliard students to get to know a contemporary concerto, yet one that will not easily go away and is really worth their while." For Delfs, this process really represents "what Juilliard is all about." He says of this concert, "Here is a piece from a very well-established 20th-century composer who went to Juilliard, being conducted by an alumnus, being learned by a handful of students—one of whom ultimately wins the competition—and then is played by the orchestra. For me, it's a real Juilliard success story."

On the other hand, the opening piece—D&C by Heiner Goebbels—will be a new experience for many, as Delfs also wanted to introduce something that is "near and dear" to him to Juilliard and New York. While the work of Heiner Goebbels has been performed in the U.S. before, Delfs feels it has not been offered a large enough forum. He comments, "This is one of his greatest orchestra pieces. It's part of a great cycle that I've been trying to bring to New York with one of my own orchestras for a while."

The cycle, named Surrogate Cities, contains a number of movements that can each be performed individually. This particular movement, D&C, represents something that Delfs always admires in music: musical architecture. Calling Goebbel a "wonderful structuralist," Delfs explains that "it's music with a very smart blueprint. D&C is, first of all, a very exciting piece to play and to listen to. It is structure and form coming to life. Music has so many elements, including melody, harmony, or rhythm. Another element that is very hard to grasp and to forge into exciting music is the element of structure and architecture. The great symphonists all do that very well. We all know that Beethoven can take four notes that don't make much of a melody and then, by means of great construction, make a symphony out of it. And that's an element that in modern music these days is sometimes on the back burner, because color and rhythm are so much in the forefront."

Introducing new music to a community is not something that is new for Delfs; it is something that has truly been a foundation of his career. "It really started at Juilliard," he recalls, "because I established friendships with contemporary composers like Lowell [Liebermann]. After Juilliard my first job was being the assistant of another Juilliard alumnus, Dennis Russell Davies, who was music director [of the Stuttgart Opera] in Stuttgart, Germany, at the time. We did a tremendous amount of contemporary music, and I built relationships with composers like Philip Glass, Hans Werner Henze, Berio, and Penderecki." Since then, these relationships and this dedication to new music have "grown over the years, and I was always feeling proud and happy to introduce new American works to the European audiences and vice versa. I always had one foot firmly grounded in Europe and one in America, and that was wonderful because I could be an advocate for each country's music in the other world."

Juilliard Orchestra Andreas Delfs, Conductor Vasileios Varvaresos, Pianist Avery Fisher Hall Friday, Feb. 16, 8 p.m. Please see the Calendar of Events for more information.

Delfs has consistently maintained conducting opportunities on both continents, but during his dual tenures with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and Milwaukee Symphony, he recalls, it was difficult. "I had to say 'no' more often than I wanted to. I love working in Europe, but you can imagine that when you have two music directorships, your calendar is pretty full." Once he left his post at Saint Paul in 2004, he was able to expand his European schedule once again. More recently, his extensive travel has encouraged him to look for a residence there. He jokes, "It comes a point when you'd love to have a pair of tails in a cabinet in Germany somewhere." Consequently, after nine years with the Milwaukee Symphony, Delfs an-nounced in December that he will leave his post there after the 2008-09 season.

While he and his family are sad to leave their "great life" in Milwaukee, they are also looking forward to moving back to Europe. Specifically, Delfs is excited at the prospect of re-experiencing on a daily basis the great sense of tradition that you feel there. He reminisces, "Every city, every day is filled with great buildings and beautiful old streets. The bells of the cathedral ring and invite you, and you walk over a bridge that is 600 years old but still has the original drawings on it. It feels like being in one of the most beautiful museums, but it's alive with your everyday experience."

Luckily for American orchestral musicians, however, Delfs plans to continue his career in both places. He does not want to leave behind "that easy-going attitude of American musicians. It's a cliché, but it's true: Americans are more friendly, are more fun, and are easier to get along with. It's just such a relaxed and fun life here. You can find that in Europe as well, but not as consistently. I'm also talking about people you have to deal with on a regular basis—taxi drivers, shop clerks, tax auditors. I get many more smiles and much more friendliness here than in Europe. And I enjoy that. I need that. It's kind of my life elixir."

Toni Marie Marchioni is a master's student in oboe.