This Sunday, August 2, the World Youth Symphony Orchestra will perform "The Art of Sailing at Dawn" by Margaret Brouwer and the Symphony no. 5 by Dmitri Shostakovich at Kresge Auditorium, under the baton of long-time WYSO conductor JoAnn Falletta.
Classical IPR will be broadcasting the concert on Sunday evening starting at 7 p.m., with pre- and post-show commentary by music director Amanda Sewell and members of Viridian Strings.
Conductor JoAnn Falletta visited Classical IPR's Studio A and spoke to Isabel Li about the two pieces on the program and what keeps her coming back to Interlochen for the majority of summers since 1993.
Isabel Li: You've been a conductor at Interlochen Arts Camp for so many summers now. This is your first summer back since 2024. How does it feel to be here in northern Michigan again?
JoAnn Falletta: Oh, it's so beautiful. It's just the most extraordinary place, especially in the summer where I'm spoiled by being here in the summer, but uh, just lovely to be here and very exciting because, uh, it seems to be a great musical year.
IL: Well, we want to hear more about that. We're so excited to have you back here this week. I want to jump into the first piece on the program, "The Art of Sailing at Dawn" by Margaret Brouwer. You know, in her description of this work that I read, she writes, "Imagine preparing to board a sailboat at dawn." It seems that this work is very visual, based on the titular image. When you're conducting this work, what images pop into your mind?
JF: Oh, it is definitely visual, and I love the fact that it's at dawn where it's so quiet at the beginning, and you can tell that nobody is around, except maybe this lone person going on the lake. So there's a little element of like, "okay, you know, got to be careful. It's just me out here." Wonderful cello glissandi that are some interesting sea birds. So she plunges us into this special place. It's obvious she loves it. I mean, she's a sailor and she loves this, and she gives us in sound only without actually seeing anything. Exactly the feeling of where we are.
IL: Do you draw on any experiences in your own life when you're conducting this many memories?
JF: Yeah. I mean, I spent my summers on Long Island in New York City, not in New York City, but in New York. And I loved the water, the beach, you know, the ocean at dawn and the lake here is very similar. So I think anyone who's been near a big body of water and the only one around, and the sun is just coming up. What a wonderful vision.
IL: Can you tell us more about Margaret Brouwer as a composer and her style? Have you ever conducted her other works?
JF: You know, this is the only work I've conducted so far, but I'm very intrigued by her. I met her personally at the Cleveland Institute of Music and just loved this work, and I asked her if I could play it here, perform it here at Interlochen and she was very happy. Her music is very visual. It's kind of neoromantic in some ways, but it's her own voice and she uses the orchestra beautifully. And I'm always intrigued by composers, especially who seem to be able to find all the colors of the orchestra. And she does that. So I hope people will get to hear that and understand what she's like, just a beautiful composer.
IL: And the second piece of the program, Shostakovich's Symphony no. 5, is an orchestral classic and has a remarkable history in the context of Shostakovich's life as a composer and the Soviet era. I'm curious, to what extent do you convey these underlying histories of this work when you're rehearsing it with the World Youth Symphony Orchestra?
JF: Oh, I do convey the meaning of this piece to them. In fact, you know, we started even with the first rehearsal, talking about what it means because it's just too important. This is a historic document of Shostakovich in a very bad place in his life, as was everyone, I think, in the Soviet Union under Stalin. It was very frightening place. And he was particularly out of favor, as you know, because of some previous music that he wrote. And this was intended to be an apology to Stalin for writing all of those, you know, crazy new pieces.
And he had to do it. I think had he not done that, even his life would have been in jeopardy. But we know now that even though it was accepted by Stalin as an apology, that he didn't mean it as an apology at all. I mean, the very famous words that he said, of course, after Stalin had died, he said, "Yes, it sounds like a man who is rejoicing, but he is rejoicing because there is a gun pointed at his head." That gives it a whole different feeling. It is one of the greatest pieces. I mean, there's joy in there. There's hope. There's atmosphere. I mean, I think, in the slow movement, I think about a little tiny house in Siberia with a candle and the loneliness of that and the number of people who disappeared into Siberia or worse in that terrible time. The music is a document like no other. It's fabulous.
"I always feel regenerated when I'm here [at Interlochen] and I go back home and I say, "yeah, the future for our classical music is a brilliant one."Conductor JoAnn Falletta
IL: And when you're rehearsing this with the young people of the World Youth Symphony Orchestra. How do you balance those complexities with sort of their level of playing, or do you have to do any balancing at all?
JF: I don't have to balance. I mean, the level of playing is very high, and sometimes knowing what the piece is about helps them focus on certain aspects, certain details that they might not have been so directly connected to. So I think that will help them. Of course, we can't do too much talking. We have to do a lot of playing. It's a long piece and it's very hard, but I hope that when they leave our performance that they'll feel like they accomplished a great thing in playing this piece.
IL: And why did you decide to combine Margaret Brouwer's music with that of Dmitri Shostakovich for this program?
JF: Well, I always feel it's important for us to have living composers on our concerts. And women especially, because even though things are much better for women, there still are not enough women getting getting places on on important concerts like this. So it may be probably is Margaret's first time being played in Interlochen. And I'm so glad that that we're doing that. And I think it makes our performers more aware of the fact that there are a lot of living people writing great music and gives them maybe the desire to explore some more.
IL: Tell us about a notable moment during rehearsal. What is it like working with this cohort of students specifically?
JF: Well, you know, they're very aware of their colleagues and they're all friends. And sometimes the most significant moments for me is when I ask, for instance, this morning, the strings not to play so loudly because their friend, the principal clarinet has this wonderful solo. And then all of a sudden it was personal for the strings.
They realize, oh, we need to quiet down so that our principal clarinet can really play softly and it makes the orchestra for them seem personal, like chamber music, because my ideal for them is that they will start thinking of the orchestra, not as a great big group of people, but as a large chamber music ensemble where they're always listening, they're always looking at, they're always responding to their colleagues. So I try and speak to them in that way. And it works.
IL: You've been conducting here for so many summers now, since 1993. What keeps you coming back to Interlochen?
JF: It's very inspiring for me. You know, the rest of the year I don't work with young people. I mean, I work with the people in, you know, professional orchestras. And when I come here, I see the future of classical music. And it's so hopeful because these young people are really gifted and they want to be better all the time. They want to improve, they're practicing, they're thinking, they're learning. It's a place of just great joy and great possibility for the future. So I always feel sort of regenerated when I'm here and I go back home and I say, "yeah, the future for our classical music is a brilliant one."
IL: On that very similar note, how do you hope to impact the students of Interlochen Arts Camp, as you have been doing for so many years now?
JF: Well, I want them to appreciate what we have, who we are as musicians, how lucky we are to be musicians, all of us. We are very lucky because there will be ups and downs in their careers. There'll be bumps along the road, but in in the truest way, to be a musician is to have a very special place in society. And I'm proud of them because they're choosing that. Many of them are.
Some of them will go on to other things. And I'm proud of them, too, because whatever they've learned in music will support them in everything they do in their life. They have a musician brain now, so that whatever they do, whether it's chemistry, or being a doctor or being a lawyer, whatever, they will have that musical brain always to help them. So I try and teach them the responsibility of sharing that love of music with with other people who might not have discovered it yet.
IL: And my last question for you, what are you most excited for, for this 99th year of Interlochen Arts Camp?
JF: Well, I'm very excited about the Shostakovich because I think that none of them have played it yet. So I hope that this will be a kind of memory, you know, in their minds when they're playing in the Philadelphia Orchestra or playing in the New York Philharmonic or San Francisco Symphony. They'll say, "oh, yeah, I played this symphony back at Interlochen." And I must tell you that, you know, when I'm guest conducting, there's so many people who come up to me and say, we were together at Interlochen in '93 or in 2012 or whatever. And I remember that performance and I remember that piece and I think, okay, this is the magic of Interlochen.
