By TONI MARIE MARCHIONI

Atlanta native George Manahan has come a long way since his days in a rock band. Once a Manhattan School of Music student playing keyboards and singing back-up vocals during the summer to earn money, Maestro Manahan has become one of the most respected figures on the New York music scene, in both the operatic and symphonic worlds. Now in his 10th year as music director of New York City Opera, Maestro Manahan will cross the plaza in order to lead the Juilliard Orchestra as a guest conductor this month.

But Manahan is no stranger to Juilliard. After earning a master's degree in conducting at the Manhattan School, he actually did some of his early conducting training at Juilliard with the America Opera Center (now the Juilliard Opera Center), where he had a year's fellowship. Under the tutelage of Czech conductor Peter Hermann Adler, who ran the center from 1973-81, Maestro Manahan studied repertoire intensively and played piano for rehearsals and coachings. And he currently works with student vocalists and conductors with the Lab Orchestra at Juilliard.

George Manahan conducting the New York City Opera Orchestra at one of its VOX programs, which offers audiences the first chance to hear works by American opera composers. (Photo by Carol Rosegg)

His interest in conducting came about in a somewhat roundabout way. "I had some conducting experience of various things in high school, but when I went to the Manhattan School, I was really a piano major," he said in a recent interview. It was not until the middle of his undergraduate work that he decided he wanted to pursue conducting. At that point, he would "form every ensemble possible, chamber orchestras made up of friends, and put on concerts in any recital hall available." These concerts allowed Manahan to conduct as much repertoire as he possibly could.

It was also during his undergraduate years that he discovered his love of opera. As he tells the story, the exposure was thanks to a former girlfriend who happened to be a soprano. "She was an apprentice at the Santa Fe Opera the same summer I went back to Atlanta to play in a rock band to make money. She happened to be covering the role of Mélisande in Debussy's opera Pelléas et Mélisande. I got the score to work on it on my own, just to learn it. And then I went out to visit her and saw all of the operas that they were doing and just loved it."

Despite discovering an affinity for opera, Manahan's background has been primarily in orchestra repertory; it is only since his appointment with the New York City Opera in 1996 that he has conducted a significant amount of vocal literature. Considering his former appointments with the New Jersey Symphony, the Richmond Symphony, and the Minnesota Orchestra, it is clear that he has been equally successful and comfortable in both arenas. "In this country especially, there is usually a divide between conductors who do symphonic work and those who do opera," he observes, so he feels "blessed" to have built his own career spanning both genres.

While Manahan cannot cite one individual mentor who had the greatest impact on his career, he also does not feel that he built his success entirely on his own. His two big breaks both occurred in the summer of 1980. As an Exxon Arts Conductor, he participated in an Exxon-sponsored program run by Jesse Rosen that selected young conductors to serve as assistant conductors in major orchestras. "When the major orchestras had an opening," Manahan explained, "Exxon would send out eight to 10 qualified candidates, and then the orchestra would have an audition. That's how I became the assistant conductor of the New Jersey Symphony." Seamlessly establishing the duality of his career, his opera debut occurred the same summer, while he was working as a chorus master with the Santa Fe Opera. "They were doing a Schoenberg evening, consisting of three one-act Schoenberg operas, if you can imagine. There was one American premiere—Von heute auf morgen [From Today to Tomorrow], a comedy. Robert Craft was supposed to conduct it, but he cancelled and they asked me to take over."

Juilliard Orchestra George Manahan, conductor Alice Tully Hall Monday, Nov. 13, 8 p.m. Free tickets available in the Juilliard Box Office. Please see the Calendar of Events for more information.

Even now that he conducts "so much opera," Manahan keeps his career equally divided between both genres during his time away from City Opera in the winter and summer. He appears regularly with the New Jersey Symphony, and also guest conducts orchestral repertoire at summer festivals such as Aspen and the Eastern Music Festival, "just to keep the balance." One constant factor in both of these genres, however, is his love for the music of Igor Stravinsky, whom Manahan names as "high on his list" of favorite composers to conduct.

It is fitting then, that a work by Stravinsky will appear on his concert with the Juilliard Orchestra. The program originated partly with an eye toward having "a cohesive program," but also because "when you're doing concerts at a school, it's more important to still be training the students." Prokofiev's weighty and substantial Sinfonia Concertante was already selected for a competition winner, so as the main work, Manahan chose the Mussorgsky-Ravel Pictures at an Exhibition. To balance these two well-known pieces and "keep the Russian motif "without having "some Russian Easter Overture to open the concert, as I want something challenging," he says, Manahan picked Stravinsky's Le chant du Rossignol as "a little more off-beat" opening to the concert. "It's not as well known, but it's early enough that it still has sonorities like Firebird and Petrouchka. It's big, complex, and quite exotic, and it has a lot of challenges of early Stravinsky; it's still pre-Neoclassical."

While the Stravinsky may be lesser known, Pictures at an Exhibition serves as the meat of the program—a "classic that all orchestral players should know," says Manahan. Because it is so often performed, he emphasizes the "challenges of articulation in the 'Promenades'" in order to make the piece his own. "Although Ravel orchestrates the music slightly differently each time, there are still some articulations in the string parts that I try to give a little variety to each time the 'Promenade' comes back, just to accentuate the different colors. It's such an amazing piece of writing by Ravel, the great orchestrator of all time. It's still fun for me now to go back and play through the original Mussorgsky on piano and see how he solved the pianistic problems."

Though he does not currently hold a faculty position, Manahan offers some advice for young conductors, despite his own sense that his words may be unconventional. He urges them not only to concentrate on the study and the preparation—"that goes without saying"—but also "to conduct everything you can get your hands on, even musicals—those are hard in their own way. You know, music is music! I think sometimes conductors in their early years turn down things that might still be a learning experience. If you have a group of players, there are still the same challenges whether it's a Mahler symphony or something lighter. The art of conducting is essentially getting musicians to play their best and to want to play for you."

Given Maestro Manahan's musical experience and expertise, his commitment, and his benevolent and witty personality, it is beyond doubt that this will be the case for Juilliard students this month.

Toni Marie Marchioni is a master's degree candidate in oboe.