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Talking Music With a Maestro
By DAVID PRATT
This fall, Maestro James DePreist, after leading the Oregon Symphony for more than two decades, came to Juilliard as the new director of conducting and orchestral studies. Shortly after accepting the post at Juilliard, DePreist also accepted appointments as principal artistic adviser of the Phoenix Symphony and as permanent conductor of the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, and he continues to maintain a busy and fascinatingly varied schedule abroad (including a London debut in the spring) and here in the United States. This all seems natural for a man who began his career immersed in both jazz and classical music, who brought European classics and contemporary American music to the Far East in the 1960s, and who served as assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein. DePreist's monumental and eclectic career—which includes having published two books of poetry—is now capped with a permanent position at Juilliard, where the maestro has so often served as guest conductor and where he was awarded an honorary doctorate in 1993.
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Conductor James DePreist (Photo by Wendy Leher)
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Read a related article, , about the Juilliard Choral Union.
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Maestro DePreist's first three concerts in his new capacity at Juilliard demonstrate the balance and eclecticism that have become his trademarks—as reflected, too, in his nearly 40 discs on Delos, Koch, and other labels. (A discussion of some of his recordings appears in this month's .) In September, he led the Juilliard Orchestra in a program that combined Mozart and Prokofiev with Juilliard faculty member Robert Beaser's 1997 Manhattan Roll; a concert in October with the Juilliard Symphony placed the New York premiere of the First Symphony of another Juilliard faculty member, Christopher Rouse, alongside Weber's Bassoon Concerto and some traditionally beloved Wagner.On January 22, 2005, the Juilliard Orchestra, led by Maestro DePreist, and the Juilliard Choral Union, under Judith Clurman, will offer Brahms's Third Symphony and Ein deutsches Requiem (A German Requiem). The venue will be one well known to Juilliard's new director of conducting and orchestral studies, and to his charges: Carnegie Hall.Maestro DePreist was in New York rehearsing his new protégés when writer David Pratt called him for the following interview. The conductor spoke with all the energy and precision he delivers on the podium. One envies the young musicians who now have easy access to this source of inspiration.David Pratt: I read the itinerary posted on your Web site. You have a busy international schedule, and yet you are not just "dropping in" at Juilliard between other commitments. You are spending substantial chunks of time here. How did you decide to make the commitment?James DePreist: After 23 years with the Oregon Symphony, I decided to leave that position, and suddenly there was a great deal of free time available. I'd had conversations with Joseph Polisi some years ago about coming to Juilliard, and this seemed to be the right time to say yes. I wanted to come here because it involves teaching and concerts with Juilliard's symphony and orchestra. I have been a guest conductor with the orchestra, and on those occasions I had the immediate feeling that I could do anything with young people at this level. The only way I could do this job correctly would be to devote this large amount of time to it. I thought at the time I said yes that I would not have to say yes to anything else! But then I was asked by the Phoenix Symphony to serve as an artistic adviser. I accepted because it was for a short time. Then came an invitation from Tokyo to conduct there. All this appealed to me greatly, because those of us who teach should be active in the field whenever possible.
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| Maestro DePreist enjoys the company of some canine friends during his tenure with the Oregon Symphony. (Photo courtesy of the Oregon Symphony) |
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DP: What are you expecting from Juilliard students? What has your experience been with them?JD: I don't compromise between the sound I look for at the Philharmonic or in Boston and what I expect at Juilliard. These are young musicians capable technically of doing anything I might ask. They are aware of a wide range of sonic possibilities, and they are not jaded, as one finds from time to time with orchestras churning out music week after week. Juilliard students have access to the best orchestral sounds, from the New York Philharmonic and the Met Opera Orchestra across the plaza, and from visiting orchestras. The Juilliard faculty gives them the resources to achieve the orchestral results we want, and there's a natural competitiveness in an environment like this that makes it appealing for any conductor. For me to be able to work here on a more extensive basis makes it absolutely irresistible.DP: In your discography I notice a great deal of contemporary music, music by composers not necessarily widely known. Will this form a good part of the repertoire you conduct here at Juilliard?JD: Juilliard students will naturally be inquisitive about the music of our time. I am inquisitive, too, and I know what my colleagues who are composers are doing. This music is not always necessarily good, but if out of 20 works by a contemporary composer you find one you really care about and do it in several places, that is an achievement. The goal should be always to desire to be open to those experiences. Juilliard students can devour contemporary works that might pose rhythmic or technical difficulties for other orchestras, but because we have the rehearsal time, we can cut through those difficulties. There's an ability and an affinity here for the contemporary music I care about doing. Of course, one still wants, for example, to learn to play Mozart with style and grace, but one tries to have a balanced palette of music, to go for new things. DP: What in particular do you now want to bring to or elicit from Juilliard players?JD: I want to make sure the musicians in the Juilliard orchestras have a wide range of orchestral expression. There may be a tendency, because they're so good, to fall into a "glorious trap" of large 19th- and 20th-century works, while neglecting Mozart and Haydn. The Juilliard orchestral players must have an awareness of the arsenal of colors and sounds at their disposal, and be open to the variety of conducting styles they will encounter here. This is so very, very important, and I hope to emphasize it in my concerts. I want students to realize the varied and bountiful feast they have before them. It will stand them in good stead as they work with orchestras around the world, adapting easily to a variety of styles.
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"Music making is about the human experience—not the white experience, not the European experience or the African-American experience. To the extent that we’re human,
it should be available to all of us."
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DP: Your students will probably read this interview. Tell me—and them—about your own student days. How did you start out, and at what point did you decide you wanted to conduct?JD: Well, I had planned to be a lawyer! You know, my aunt was Marian Anderson, so my family had "given at the office" so far as music was concerned. I went to the Wharton School [at the University of Pennsylvania]. I did also study at the Philadelphia Conservatory—piano and percussion—and I did arranging for Stan Kenton's band, but it was all avocational. I was serious, but I thought my career would be as a lawyer. Then I had the chance to go on a State Department tour to the Far East. There would be recitals and lectures and performances of American music, as well as of standard repertory. I had met Bernstein, and he said, "Well, on the tour you'll be able to find the thing you can do, and the one thing you can't do without." In Bangkok I decided conducting was what I really wanted to do. Now, on that tour I also contracted polio, so I didn't know if I would be able to work or conduct at all. But it was absolutely clear to me that conducting was what I wanted to do. Bernstein suggested I enter the Mitropoulos [Dimitri Mitropoulos International Conducting Competition]. I only got to the semifinals, so I went back to Thailand and worked with orchestras there. When I came back to the United States, I won first prize in the Mitropoulos. I became Bernstein's assistant at the Philharmonic for a while after that, before I went to Europe.DP: You mentioned you were once a jazz musician and arranger. Will Juilliard students find your style as a classical musician to be influenced by that?JD: The most neglected aspect of classical music training is rhythm—the placement of music in time. Rhythm is often the least developed concept early on in terms of pedagogy and internalization. Rhythm is like real estate: location is everything. I hope musicians at Juilliard will not fail to focus on rhythm when they have left school—not just because of the rhythmic quirks of 20th- and 21st-century music, but also because of the fundamental role of rhythm. As far as style, I never thought of myself in terms of one style or approach. I grew up with Stokowski and Ormandy in Philadelphia, that rich and warm and lustrous string sound. I'm biased because I grew up in that kind of sound field. If the repertory calls for it, that's the sound I'm seeking, as well as fundamental principles of how the line is shaped. DP: You mentioned contracting polio early, during your initial tour of the Far East. It seems not to have slowed you down at any point.JD: Everyone has one problem or another. It did give me pause because I wanted to conduct, and there was no frame of reference for braces and crutches onstage. What do you do with them? I used to stand up to conduct the first few times. It was in one sense a feat, but you really want the audience to focus on the music. The first time I worked with Itzhak Perlman he was of course sitting, and he said, "What are you standing up for?" I didn't have any answer except, "The conductor always stands." So from that moment on I sat down. Now, as a result of surgery, I use a wheelchair. I had to ask myself, "What is the frame of reference for coming on in a wheelchair?" But what's the big deal? Are people going to say they'd rather have me come on with crutches and braces? There wasn't a frame of reference; now, there is. DP: When you started out there was very little, if any, frame of reference for African-Americans on the podium, either.
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Juilliard Orchestra and Choral Union
James DePreist, conductor
Brahms’s Third Symphony and Ein deutsches Requiem
Carnegie Hall
Saturday, Jan. 22, 8 p.m.
For time and ticket information, please see
the calendar.
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JD: At that time there were two prominent African-American conductors: Dean Dixon and Everett Lee. They made their careers in Europe. Those of us who happened to be African-American and who wanted to pursue careers in classical music—and the same was true for my aunt, who was inspired by Roland Hayes—what we were drawn to was the music itself. I had been going to the Philadelphia Orchestra as a teenager, hearing that orchestral sound, wanting to be a part of it regardless of whether or not there were African-Americans in that field. When you are, for lack of a better word, "pioneering," the magnet is the music. It's an afterthought that you don't see other examples. When I was in college at the University of Pennsylvania in the mid-1950s, there were still two different locals of the American Federation of Musicians in Philadelphia—one black, one white. Certainly it was worse at the time my aunt was making her career. But one perseveres in spite of it. Music making is about the human experience—not the white experience, not the European experience or the African-American experience. To the extent that we're human, it should be available to all of us.David Pratt is a freelance arts writer living in New York City. In addition to The Juilliard Journal, he has written for The New York Times, Playbill, and many other publications.
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