Blog

Ok, not really, but...

I'm going to a conducting competition in Tennessee, and it begins on Sunday.  (The first round, though we have a meeting on Saturday night where we have to draw our order for the first round.)

Conducting competitions are always interesting, though more often than not it's difficult to truly judge a conductor in a competition.  It's so different than real life in that usually you have 8-10 minutes in the first round to make an impression.  Granted, in about 30 seconds, an orchestra has already decided whether you bring anything to the podium at all, so I guess it's fair to weed people out in the first round from such a short amount of time, but the actual job of a conductor over 3-4 (sometimes 5) rehearsals is different.  More often than not, orchestras for competition are pick-up orchestras, so they have to come together while you are conducting them, etc.

In some ways, conducting competitions are their own animal.  You have to pull out some skills that you may not use in a real guest conducting or a music director situation.

Now, speaking of music director situations, I have to talk a bit about Opera Vista - my new Opera company in Houston.  But, that has to wait until tomorrow.