There are not one, but two concerts this weekend for the third week of Interlochen Arts Camp. The Detroit Symphony Orchestra — and its music director Jader Bignamini — has arrived at Interlochen for their annual residency, giving students masterclasses and playing alongside the World Youth Symphony Orchestra.
Both concerts feature music by Peter Tchaikovsky and Michael Abels. The concert on Saturday evening at 7:30 p.m. spotlights the DSO with Abels's "Global Warming" and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4. On Sunday at 7:30 p.m., some DSO musicians stay behind and play side by side with the young musicians of the World Youth Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Abels's "Unbound" and Tchaikovsky's Symphony no. 5.
Jader Bignamini, the conductor of both of these weekend's concerts, visited Studio A and spoke to Classical IPR's Isabel Li about conducting a mix of seasoned professionals and young high school musicians.
Isabel Li: Jader, welcome to Classical IPR.
Jader Bignamini: Oh, hello everyone, and thank you for inviting me.
IL: This is the sixtieth year that the DSO has been coming to Interlochen. You've been conducting these very special concerts of the DSO, where you have these young musicians who are playing with you for the first time, and DSO musicians that you have worked intensively with. What is it like conducting an orchestra with a mix of professionals that you know very well, and young musicians that have just been seeing you for the first time?
JB: So every time is a new experience and very enjoyable experience for me. I love the energy that they can bring into our rehearsals. And it's very helpful for me as a pretty old musician to have a new and fresh energy. And also for my musicians, they love to come here and to have the opportunity to work side by side with them. It's very helpful for all the young musicians, of course, because they have the experience and they can share the experience and heritage with them. But it's very helpful also to have a new energy, a fresh energy from the new generation.
So I think it's a part of our job as a musician, as an artist with big careers to share with them time and, you know, knowledge with all of them to teach how the process to work, to arrive at the very high level of a performance, in this case, with Tchaikovsky and the Abels. And, you know, it probably is the first time that they play these pieces with them.
We are doing Tchaik 5 and "Unbound" by Michael Abels, and [these] are two very different pieces. And it is also very helpful to have these two very different pieces to understand new languages and different languages. And of course, Tchaikovsky is the the big piece of the program. And it's very interesting to understand how they can be fast to learn the new language and also the discipline to be in the orchestra, because it's very important to understand how is the process and how is the behavior in the orchestra. And I'm very happy every time. I'm very happy about this kind of job not only teaching music, but teaching the orchestral behavior and orchestral process to arrive at the final result.
IL: Out of curiosity, do you give specific notes to the DSO musicians for them to guide the students in their performance?
JB: Every time I give them some specific note after the first and second rehearsal when I realized when where we need maybe more help or maybe more experience doing that. But the important thing is that the the principals are the younger musicians. They have to be ready and to be very well prepared. And of course, my musician helped them, but they have to play. And day by day they are doing better and better. And then it will be really good, as always.
IL: That's super exciting. Of course, as you mentioned, Tchaikovsky symphonies are a classic choice of repertoire for orchestras. I'm sure it's very popular among the young musicians too, especially Tchaik 5. What has been the most rewarding part of rehearsing Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5, which is such a beautiful and energetic choice of repertoire with the high school students?
JB: I chose this symphony because I think this is good thing to have, one of the big pieces of the big repertoire for all their lives. They will probably remember this experience for all their life. So it's good to have one masterpiece of the classical history of music like Tchaik 5. So we are working mostly about the style of Russian music, specifically Tchaikovsky or the right style and the right articulations or approach or sometimes we have some melodies. Maybe we have piano and they have to play maybe mezzo forte. The approach is very different in the Russian music, or maybe between Russian or French. So we have to, to understand this kind of language.
And I chose also Michael Abels's piece because it's very — so first of all, I like Michael Abels. He is our composer in residence and is very close to my taste of music. It is contemporary music and is also very enjoyable. There are a lot of beautiful melodies in his music and so also here is very important, the different approach and the different language to to play this kind of music. So it's very helpful for them to understand when they play a page of music, to think about the history around the composer, around the heritage, around the culture of the composer and the maybe the country from [which] the composer came. And so everything I try to teach very quickly because we don't have a lot of time. So we spend just this week. The young musicians are very busy with a lot of activities. So I try to concentrate a lot of information for them to be ready, not only for this concert, but to start the career because they have to be ready to start a career for the next generation of our musicians, and we need good musicians in the future.
IL: I want to talk about Michael Abels's music in a little bit, but before we get to that, what's a moment in the Tchaikovsky, when you were rehearsing with the students, that was especially meaningful? Can you pinpoint a part in the music?
JB: Yeah. I think that the most challenging movement is the second one. The second starts very slow with a long horn solo. And it is very challenging to find the way to have the right sound, especially in the strings to have a warm sound, to have a deep sound. I worked a lot in the long note that apparently is very easy to play, but to find the right sound, the right tone, it is not easy for young musicians. And actually, the second movement is also the movement where we have a lot of different tempi, a lot of rubati, a lot of accelerando, rallentando.
So they have to understand that the orchestra is a group of a lot of people, but they have to be flexible, very flexible in the same way. So to keep in touch with their soul, their body, to feel this in their body during the music and follow the phrases, the different musical phrases in every section. So to be able to play sometimes, to be able to sing is a very interesting and probably the most demanding movement of the symphony.
"I hope to teach [the young musicians] not only music, but the approach of the musician life."Conductor Jader Bignamini
IL: Well, you've had quite some experience conducting music by Michael Abels, who, as you mentioned, is the composer in residence of the DSO. He's also a Pulitzer Prize winning composer who many of our listeners might know for his film scores on Jordan Peele films such as "Get Out," "Us" and "Nope." The first piece on the program with the DSO on Saturday is "Global Warming," which is a work about globalization rather than crisis, and it's a mix of styles from around the world. He merges African, Middle Eastern and Western classical styles. Speaking of styles, as you mentioned, with the Tchaikovsky earlier, can you tell us about the styles of Michael Abels work in "Global Warming and how you interpret them with the DSO?
JB: "Global Warming" is a very particular piece by him. Me and all my musicians liked it so much because we played that in our main season. It starts between the first violin and the first cello. And they have to play the instrument in a very specific way. They have to remind us of the electric guitar. It's a very strange way to play that instruments, so we have to imagine being in the middle of the desert.
There is this introduction with some specific percussion, like a guiro, a particular drum. And then there is a kind of dance with the marimba. And then we have one melody continuing to repeat and to be in between the woodwinds, and then the strings are very rhythmical. So there is an explosion of sound at that moment, and at the end we can come back in the calm and we come back in the desert and we we finish the piece with the same kind of cadenza between the principal violin and the principal cello. It's very, very emotional, very enjoyable and involving for the musicians and for the audience. I'm pretty sure that everyone will enjoy this piece.
IL: And on Sunday, the World Youth Symphony Orchestra will play another piece by Michael Abels called "Unbound," which is a dazzling concert opener. What's a moment in that piece that you want audiences to listen for?
JB: So "Unbound" is a little different. So the language is very enjoyable because he composed pieces with very clear melody. And for sure, at the end of the piece, someone can whistle or sing the melody. And this is very, very good because it keeps in mind of all the audience and the musicians too, and this piece specifically is immediately very rhythmical. And also the strings, they have to be very rhythmical, like sometimes like percussions. And so there is this very simple melody that is developing. And at that moment, at the end we have all the brass is a very majestic finale, so powerful. The young musicians are enjoying that piece.
IL: That's wonderful. Speaking of young musicians, my final question for you is that you have worked extensively with young musicians, of course, here at Interlochen, as well as orchestras outside of Interlochen. What impact do you hope to make on the lives of the musicians who are here at Interlochen Arts Camp this week?
JB: I hope to teach them not only music, but the approach of the musician life. You know, to be musicians, you have to have a lot of talent, of course, but you have to have discipline. You have to practice every day. You have to practice hours and hours. And to do that, you need to be passionate because it takes a lot of time, a lot of energy.
And you fail sometimes, but you have to live with the mistakes in your life, but you have to be strong enough to go ahead and continue practicing, practicing, arriving in the highest level is possible. And here we have incredible talents in this orchestra. Every year I discover very young and great talents, and I'm very happy to be part of their life. Maybe in the future they will remember me. I'm very happy to share with them the discipline they have to keep in their life to be musicians, professional musicians.
