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On Commencement Eve, Leppard Returns to Juilliard By PAUL KWAK
The sly irony in that culturally venerated event called commencement manifests itself at every educational institution in a bevy of celebratory events, from dinners and cocktail parties to performances, roasts, send-ups, and send-downs, all of which serve to remind students that these hearty congratulations are but fleeting moments that herald not the end, but what turns out to be the beginning of something greater (or, at least, something else)—namely, the rest of one's life. For Juilliard students, this reality can be even more daunting than it might be for their peers not graduating from conservatories, who face more stable (if less exciting) career trajectories on better-paid and more heavily trod paths. Inevitably, the prototypical Juilliard graduate will at some point (roughly around May 20) most likely ask himself probing questions about the utility of the education from which (and the field into which) he is graduating … will ask herself about what it means to contribute as an artist … or, at the very least, will try to figure out how to get a job in this business.
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| Raymond Leppard will conduct the Juilliard Orchestra in the Commencement Concert on May 19 in Alice Tully Hall.
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If it all seems a bit hopeless at times, one important commencement event provides a beacon of optimism and reassurance, in the personage of its guest leader, conductor Raymond Leppard, who arrives in New York to lead the Juilliard Orchestra in its final concert of the season on May 19 in Alice Tully Hall. The 77-year-old conductor laureate of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra (where he served as music director from 1987 to 2001) and artistic adviser to the Louisville Orchestra has proven himself a voracious omnivore in the music he has chosen to pursue over the course of his estimable career. He has made a name for himself through his realizations of Cavalli and Monteverdi opera scores, and has composed several film scores for such features as Lord of the Flies and Laughter in the Dark. While he has been an avid exponent of the orchestral repertoire in his post in Indianapolis, Leppard's credits also include a run of Benjamin Britten's Billy Budd at the Metropolitan and San Francisco Operas and the world premiere of Nicholas Maw's Rising of the Moon at the Glyndebourne Opera, as well as appearances at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and in Paris, Hamburg, Santa Fe, Stockholm, and Geneva. He has five Grammy Awards to his credit, and in the late 1950s, merged his academic affinities with his performing career when he was named a university lecturer in music at Cambridge University, having studied there himself at Trinity College. An accomplished harpsichordist, before moving to the United States Leppard was immersed in London's lively musical world, and for many years was identified with the English Chamber Orchestra.This is not Maestro Leppard's first acquaintance with Juilliard students. In January 1991 he conducted the New York Philharmonic and members of the Juilliard Orchestra in the opening concert of Lincoln Center's Mozart bicentennial festivities. The following year he led the Juilliard Orchestra in a reading, and in April 1994 conducted the ensemble at Avery Fisher Hall.
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| The conductor leading an orchestra reading at Juilliard in October 1992. (Photo by Jon Roemer) |
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Leppard brings his vast appetite for music of all kinds to the concert he will conduct on May 19 at Juilliard. The orchestra will traverse vast stretches of musical history, from Mozart's Symphony No. 33 in B-flat Major and Schumann's well-loved Cello Concerto to Stravinsky's Danses Concertantes and the Musica Celestis of contemporary composer Aaron Jay Kernis. Having programmed the Mozart for its youthful vitality, and underscoring his enthusiasm for the Schumann (which will feature artist diploma candidate Dmitry Kouzov), Leppard found programmatic innovation and balance in the work of Kernis. "I remember hearing the work in its first arrangement as a string quartet," he said in a recent telephone interview. "He rearranged it for strings, and it expanded itself in the process. It is a most interesting work."Programming new music like the Musica Celestis is important to Leppard because, as he puts it, "One hears an awful lot of first performances, and very few second performances." Leppard's commitment to contemporary music is tempered by a practical recognition that audiences must enjoy the music they are hearing, or they will not keep returning to the concert hall. In an article that appeared last year in the Louisville Courier-Journal, he told an interviewer that heavy doses of contemporary music may be fine in some contexts, but much of it constitutes "a repertoire that is almost lethal in bringing the public in. … There are a lot of very gifted composers whose purpose it is to communicate," he said at the time, "which for me is the only justification for music."Leppard also explains that rehearsal schedules and administrative demands can be restrictive and even directive in the creation of new music—particularly in the American context—and that allowing works that have been premiered to be propagated continually in performance is just as essential to their longevity as their initial creation.
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Commencement Concert
Juilliard Orchestra
Raymond Leppard, Conductor
Dmitry Kouzov, Cello
Alice Tully Hall
Thursday, May 19, 8 p.m.
For ticket information, please see
the calendar.
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Indeed, Leppard's ideas about his own musical longevity resonate with his attitude and approach to music, for he has made a career of branching out, evincing a certain refusal to be categorized or to confine himself to a particular niche of music. An expert in the work of Monteverdi and Cavalli, he now proclaims that he has moved on and is "done with that work." The same kind of intuition, Leppard says, led him to his exploration of the operatic repertoire, and through all of the major career junctures in his life. Even his trans-Atlantic move from his native England to America, he recalls, "simply seemed the right thing to do. I've never made a major decision of that sort in my life. I find that the way becomes clear."On the eve of a momentous occasion in every young person's life, it is difficult to imagine a more prescient and worthwhile message from a seasoned veteran of the arts, someone who has eschewed categorization for a truer pursuit of the music closest to his interests. While many graduates will consume themselves with the logistics of forging a career, Leppard's reminder is that one's path grows not fundamentally out of practical detail, but out of a loyalty to oneself and the art that most enchants and inspires; when and if that particular enchantment should expire, there is more music, more dance, more drama in which to find renewal. "I find that my interest in music has grown and grown and grown," Leppard reflects. As the Juilliard community convenes to celebrate the graduation of a new class of young artists, it may find inspiration in Maestro Leppard for the kind of artists that merge true and loyal sensibilities to their craft with an awareness of the global citizenry that is emerging as fundamental to the identity of a 21st-century artist.Paul Kwak is a master's student in collaborative piano and the recipient of the 2004-05 Juilliard Journal Prize.
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