Roderick Cox, this week's WYSO conductor, has taken the podium in front of ensembles like the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Philharmonic, but growing up, he wasn't always sure he wanted to be a conductor.
Cox spoke with IPR's Nancy Deneen about how his summer as a camp counselor at Interlochen helped steer his musical aspirations.
Listen or read below to find out more about Cox and his work with WYSO students as they prepare this week's repertoire: Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony and Joan Tower's Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman.
Attend the WYSO performance in person or tune in to Classical IPR to hear the entire concert; it starts at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday.
On this week's repertoire
You want the students to enjoy playing the music and working on the music, so it's important to bring pieces that are exciting and fun to play and experience in one's youth. I certainly chose Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony before everything was happening with Ukraine and Russia, but it is probably the most important piece symphony of the 20th century.
It's a fantastic work that not only teaches us about what it means to be a human being but also sheds a bit of light on the conditions of this specific composer's life. I couldn't begin to understand the sort of turmoil and life experiences that went into shaping a person like Dmitri Shostakovich. But this piece really is, more than almost any other piece written before its time, one that closely connects to not only what's happening in the world around the composer but also his inner struggles and spirit.
This piece also teaches us a great deal about the 20th century and what was happening in the Soviet Union at that time. And it seems perfectly right for today's world to hear this piece once again because we're dealing with some of the same issues around the world in terms of tyranny.
On the challenges of working with summer youth ensembles
It's very different for every ensemble, and especially when you're a guest conductor, you're going into a situation with unknown variables. You do know the score and the music very well and have spent a great deal of time getting to know the composer's language and musical voice. And then the ensemble starts to play and presents quite different things than you may have imagined in the score study process. And then you have to quickly galvanize these musicians around a unified interpretation in terms of transmitting the message of this composer to our audience.
But with an orchestra that's quite young, you also have to be aware that it's probably their first time playing this piece in general. So how do you go about introducing this very important piece to these young people over the course of the week? I just met them this morning, and right now, we're really just getting to know each other, sorting out a number of the house cleaning things. And then this gives us a chance to really dive deeper into this music throughout the week as we get closer to the concert on Sunday.
Hopefully, if students go on to a career in an orchestra, these house cleaning things, as I say, good and bad, become less and less because of the students' experiences with the piece. And as professionals, they can immediately start to get into the very deep, interpretive aspects of the music. But the important thing is that they will have their experience of playing this music at Interlochen. Their next time will hopefully be even more enriching because they will feel like they know it better, and this piece has an opportunity to grow within them as they get older.
On the Roderick Cox Music Initiative
Well, this music initiative's concept was coming to mind in 2018 when I left the Minnesota Orchestra as associate conductor, and it began in 2019. It was inspired by my own story growing up as a young musician in Macon, Georgia.
I had access to classical music. I had access to a wonderful music education program. But when one wants to pursue music at a higher level like one does here at Interlochen, you need financial support and community support to help with those things if you don't have those types of resources.
I had help from a local foundation, the Otis Redding Foundation, when I was younger. And as I became older and grew in my career, I realized it was not enough just to tell young people that if they practiced and worked hard, they could become great classical musicians because that's not necessarily realistic. They need help; they need support. So I established this initiative to gather small donations from a community of supporters and friends from the Twin Cities to help provide assistance and mentorship for young people in the Twin Cities area, St. Paul and Minneapolis. We've worked with WalkerWest Music Academy and the MacPhail Center for Music to help more than 20 kids by means of financial scholarships over the past three years.
The Twin Cities community, the people who live there and the supporters and friends I have there are fantastic. We're still constantly receiving wonderful and very generous donations that have gone towards helping these young people. And we have a very small team of people who meet on Zoom and organize this whole thing. So it really has been a ground roots effort, but we've still been able to maintain contact and support even through COVID.
On his hopes for students' and audiences' takeaways
A concert is certainly an experience, and I hope they all take with them the experience of either being in the concert as a musician or being in the audience. For example, I remember last time I was at Interlochen a decade or so ago, hearing my first Brahms Symphony No. 1. I don't remember all of the details, but I remember it being a special moment. That's what I hope the young people and audience members take with them.
A piece like Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony is an event - there's a story attached to it. This piece was meant to rehabilitate Shostakovich, a piece about human struggle and isolation. So it's also very important that the audience members and the members of the orchestra are able to go on this journey with us together from the first movement's huge sense of struggle, making our way to what is a provocation of the last movement with sort of a fake rejoicing. But there are always glimpses of hope in this music as well. So I certainly want people to experience the weight of this monumental work.
On his previous Interlochen experience
I was here as a camp counselor many years ago. I'd heard of Interlochen when I was studying horn myself in college, and my horn teacher told me I needed to get away for the summer and rest, study and reenergize for the next year. But coming here really changed my musical life because it reinvigorated me. I came here and was around not just the students but other camp counselors that were studying at Northwestern and Juilliard and the Eastman School of Music and all of these fantastic music schools and conservatories. I was surrounded by this dedication towards the music, the idea of waking up in the morning and starting your day with practicing and this inspiring environment.
When I went back home, I fell in love with music all over again. It really gave me the energy to refocus myself and decide that this was a career I wished to do, which led me to find an environment that supported my passions and my love for music and to go off to Northwestern and study conducting. When you're from a small town, to come to a place like this and meet people from all around the world and have this bubble of inspiration is such a fantastic gift.
