I didn’t get to the S.C. Philharmonic’s January concert because I had to be in Charlotte that evening to watch my oldest granddaughter participate in a national championship. And what was the competition? Cheerleading!

I had no idea what a booming industry has grown up around team cheerleading, and will share some impressions later, but first back to the Philharmonic. If you were in the audience or have read David Lowry’s Free Times review, you know that it was the Beethoven in Blue Jeans concert, but Morihiko was not on the podium. Guest conducting chores were handled by Erin Freeman, Associate Conductor of the Richmond Symphony. What is an associate conductor and why do some orchestras need one?

Well, the need for two or more conductors can arise from a combination of factors usually specific to the orchestra, the community it serves, and let’s be honest, the career of the orchestra’s music director. Let’s look at this last item first.

All conductors, or at least all those I know about, are busily trying to build their careers and improve their musical situation. (Most symphony musicians are, too.) That sometimes means auditioning for a better orchestra or one that plays more concerts or has a bigger budget and salary, or more famous soloists, a better concert hall, or perhaps even better management. When a conductor isn’t actually on a short list for that bigger or better job, he or she must still search for increased exposure around the country and/or abroad. Thus the need for guest conducting invitations, and those in the middle rungs of the career ladder will rarely turn down a guest appearance with another orchestra that fits the schedule. It’s all about exposure and building reputation and resume, although it’s also an honest chance to make music with different musicians. Bottom line is that when the music director is away, a guest conductor gets the musicians to play. And chances are that it’s in the music director’s contract that he or she can do this a specified number of times per season.

An orchestra that rehearses and performs only one week a month can still be very good, as is the S.C. Philharmonic, but it’s pretty hard to achieve the sophisticated ensemble and unity of expression of a group that plays together five or six days a week. Most regional orchestra managers wisely seek ways to get their musicians playing more often, and that’s where the specifics of the community come in. The more opportunities to play, the more pressure on the music director, and when that pressure begins to take a toll, (or gets in the way of those guest-conducting gigs), music directors need help, and that’s where the assistant or associate conductor comes in. It’s one thing to get an occasional guest conductor, but once the schedule gets really busy it’s probably better to have a qualified and carefully chosen associate to maintain musical and artistic consistency.

Some regional orchestras, for example, have a large educational program and perform many concerts for school systems throughout their own and neighboring areas. They may form chamber ensembles like string quartets, woodwind quintets and small brass groups to perform and even have short residencies in schools. Others have a regular series of young peoples concerts designed for specific age groups, from tots to teens. Some have a busy pops concert series often with high profile entertainers, and may hire another conductor to plan and direct these specific shows. Many orchestras do run-out concerts to nearby or somewhat distant communities (leave mid-afternoon, return in the wee hours). Some orchestras in communities with multiple venues travel to perform at them, drawing people who just won’t make the trip downtown to the main hall. Some orchestras do all of the above. The associate conductor can look after the planning, both musically and promotionally as needed, maintaining high musical standards.

A busier schedule can put strain on the players, too. Those extra services bring in more income, but that may still not total enough to live on. The wear and tear of those late night run-outs and extra concerts on the weekend takes a toll on those with full-time jobs and families. These days, the old adage about the danger of burning the candle at both ends is very apt, and certainly applies to more than symphony musicians.

Conductors All Over the Map

You’ve probably noticed that many orchestra conductors have music director positions in two communities, as does Morihiko, who had a concert in Spokane that same night. This situation can be found at all levels, from regional to international. For example, you would think that being music director of a very busy orchestra like the Chicago Symphony would be enough to keep the likes of 68-year-old Riccardo Muti fully occupied, but think again. Although he signed a five-year contract with Chicago last September, a few days later he also signed a contract to head the major opera house in Rome. Last month he also conducted in Paris and Shanghai. Muti is obviously a man with big plans, but also big ideas, and here’s one of them from a Chicago Tribune article last October, entitled “Building a Better Society through the Power of Music.”

Next CSO director aims to build [a] better city through music. Although he possesses a sly, even wicked sense of humor, Riccardo Muti is absolutely serious when he says that simply making good concerts as the next music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra won't be nearly enough.

"In this multi-ethnic society, we have to find a common language that will bring people together," says Muti, sounding rather like a cross between President Barack Obama and Deepak Chopra.

"Music is at once the most elevated and the simplest of the arts, because it doesn't have words. Words can be misunderstood or can convey ideas that don't correspond to what the words actually mean. Music doesn't have this problem; it speaks directly to one's feelings."

The Neapolitan maestro says he wants to reach deep into the neighborhoods of Chicago, collaborating with other organizations that already operate arts programs that seek to rescue young lives lost to crime and hopelessness. Having worked with juvenile offenders and youth at risk in Italy, he seems eager to do so here.

"Because young people are interested in pop or rap music doesn't mean they cannot become familiar with classical music little by little. Many of them believe it is beyond them; we must convince them otherwise. We must explain to them they don't have to know how the music is constructed to be moved by it. To do this, we need to educate them."

I wish Mr. Muti the best of luck, both musically and altruistically. But isn’t it a shame that our nation’s cities really do need “programs that seek to rescue young lives lost to crime and hopelessness?” Especially now that we actually have programs to rescue more mature millionaires and billionaires, the banksters! But that’s a topic for another day.

Musicians All Over the Map

I mentioned regional orchestras earlier, and was referring to ROPA, the Regional Orchestra Player’s Association. Its stated purpose is to promote the interests of the member orchestras and their players, and they have a fine reputation for doing just that. The 80 ROPA orchestras stretch from Richmond, VA to Spokane, WA, and their most recent conference was hosted by the Dayton Philharmonic in Ohio. The S.C. Philharmonic is not listed as a member on the ROPA website.

The other major orchestral association is for groups with bigger budgets (and probably bigger headaches), called ICSOM, the International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians. The mission of ICSOM is “to promote a better and more rewarding livelihood for the skilled orchestral performer and to enrich the cultural life of our society.” ICSOM represents over 4,000 musicians from the top 51 American Federation of Musician orchestras in the United States and Puerto Rico, including the majors in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, etc. The ICSOM conference last fall was hosted by my old outfit, the Virginia Symphony in Norfolk.

A Maverick Composer

Those of us not at the concert also missed, in addition to Beethoven’s Second Symphony, a rare opportunity to hear a work of that musical maverick (as in eccentric, individualist, one of a kind) Frederick Delius; specifically, The Walk to the Paradise Garden. Classical.net tells us that “Frederick Delius wrote music that is ephemeral, elusive, and sensuous, and although he is sometimes called an ‘English Impressionist,’ his is music which reflects the composer's emotional reactions. Delius owed most of his popularity to Sir Thomas Beecham, the British conductor who became his champion, and who insisted on performing Delius' music in concerts and recordings. His primary musical influences were Grieg and Wagner; in his biography of Delius Beecham speaks also of ‘the influence of the scenic grandeur of the Scandinavian peninsula … his own secret affinity with high and lonely places.’ Since Beecham's death Delius has not had a similar advocate.”

The Delius Trust web site will fill you in on his life and music. In brief, he was the son of a German immigrant and successful wool merchant in England. Frederick learned music in England, grew oranges in Florida (on the St. John’s River near Jacksonville) taught music in Danville, Virginia, studied at the Leipzig Conservatory, moved to Paris, and settled in near Fountainebleau with a German painter for the rest of his life.

Here’s a musical summary from the home page:

Now came Delius's high musical summer, which was to last from 1901, when he completed his operatic masterpiece, A Village Romeo and Juliet, to almost the end of the first World War. Appalachia dates from 1902, Sea Drift from 1903/4, and the large-scale A Mass of Life was composed during 1904/5. Then came Songs of Sunset (1906/7), Brigg Fair (1907), In a Summer Garden (1908, revised 1912) and the first of the two Dance Rhapsodies (1908). Much of 1909/10 was devoted to his last opera, Fennimore and Gerda. An Arabesque and The Song of the High Hills date from 1911, and from 1911/12 came the popular On hearing the first cuckoo in spring and Summer night on the river. These two pieces, together with The Walk to the Paradise Garden (an intermezzo extracted from A Village Romeo and Juliet) have earned their composer a quite unmerited reputation as a maker principally of pastoral miniatures. In 1907, Appalachia was heard at a London concert by, among others, the English conductor <http://www.geocities.com/Paris/1947/beecham.html>Thomas Beecham: he quickly assumed the mantle of Delius's greatest protagonist, and retained it until his death in 1961.

The web site describes these and others compositions of Delius: “The eclecticism in these works is evident, his inspiration deriving from the literature of England, Norway, Denmark, Germany and France, medieval romance, North American Indians and [African-Americans], the Florida landscape and the Scandinavian mountainscape.”

But around 1910 Delius grew quite ill, and again quoting Classical.net, “culminated in blindness and complete paralysis, although his speech and his mind remained unimpaired. In 1928 Delius, who had continued to compose, met a young man who thought he could assist the stricken composer. Eric Fenby, a Yorkshire-born composer who greatly admired Delius' music, moved into the Delius home and spent the next six years taking the elder composer's dictation. After several vain attempts at cures, Delius died in 1934.”

Of Handsprings and Sequins

Lastly, as promised, a few words about cheerleading. There we were at the Charlotte Convention Center watching granddaughter Jordan perform in something called the “Cheerleading and Dance National Championship.” It was an enormous, two-day event, with something like 150 teams swarming all over the huge center. Organized into a plethora of categories, a cast of thousands performed, hand-springing and back-flipping from 8 am to 9 pm to thunderous music, or at least pounding rhythms, frankly more like the sounds of battle. When my son-in-law’s father asked where the groups came up with the “noise,” we were tersely informed that each group had a “custom soundtrack.”  Custom or not, it certainly was a soundtrack and amplified to near-deafening levels.

Actually, everyone was impressed by the gymnastic skills, precision, and certainly the energy of the teams. Most of the participants appeared to be preteen girls like Jordan, and they were fantastically decked out in, well, leotards, Vegas showgirl makeup, and sneakers polished to the most uniformly glossy white you’ve ever seen. And the sequins! Oh, and the teeth–you’ve never seen such dazzling white teeth. An ad in the program explained why, offering a 15-minute “competition special” on-site tooth polishing, promising “14 to 8 shades whiter teeth!” (whatever that means) for only $129. Another “competition special” offered “One eyeshadow that does 8 things!” and a bargain at only 12 bucks. Fortunately, the ad didn’t specify what the “8 things” were. Why does a 10-year old need eyeshadow anyway?

But it was apparently for a good cause, and a good time was had by all. And Jordan’s team took first place. Am I proud of her or what! Hope the hearing loss isn’t permanent.