Conductor Jordan Randall Smith received 2nd Place in the 2019 edition of The American Prize in Orchestral Conducting.
As stated in the video, this interview was given to help share information about Mr. Meier’s book, The Score, the Orchestra, and the Conductor. It is an invaluable resource to any conductor looking to tackle particularly challenging excerpts or to merely understand the anatomy of the orchestra. In it, he illuminates and puts into print (often for the first time) the oral and even unspoken traditions of the orchestra.
Just Do It.
There was an undeniable electricity in that rehearsal that just crackled between the students. You could feel it, and they certainly felt it too. In fact, they all broke into spontaneous applause afterwards for themselves, for the work, and for that run-through.
…that more than any other skill is the one that I hope to teach students: not how to avoid failure, but how to learn from it and grow stronger because of it. The number one way to be resilient in music is to not simply wait for the proverbial phone to ring. Instead, create your own opportunities, and write yourself into your projects.
…At just 6 minutes, the Suite of Dances will make it possible for a complete work to receive performances on many additional programs where perhaps the cornerstone works have already been selected and a shorter work is desired.
…a particularly pernicious pattern of argumentation that I want to identify, debate, and debunk. It is the argument that consciously selecting music with the aim of increasing equity, inclusion, and diversity in classical music makes it less likely that the performer will program “the best music,” the music of highest artistic integrity, because they are now selecting for an arbitrary trait rather than solely based on the musical merits.
Here’s what’s wrong with that:
…It is critical that we take care of ourselves and allow ourselves to be pleased with imperfect performances; after all, there is no such thing as a perfect performance! The goal is to strive for perfection, to get as close as we can, and then share the perfectly imperfect result with our fellow-travelers. In so doing, we learn a valuable lesson in self-forgiveness and self-care which is crucial to longevity in the music career…