JoAnn Falletta

Hi Michael. Thank you for inviting me.

I saw that. Wasn't that amazing?

Well, if I'm lucky. If I'm lucky. But, you know, before before COVID, I was really Michael traveling every week. And as much as, uh, I got used to it. I mean, and I loved so much being in those places and working with those orchestras, that, um, you know, I, I've made made the travel work. You know, as you know, traveling is not easy and, but but so it feels very strange now to be in Buffalo since March 12th. I mean, it's quite amazing to to have not been able to really travel. Of course, all the concerts in the summer have been canceled and probably we'll see other cancellations. But it's made us, you know, sort of reinvent how we how we how we do our music, how we think about music.

Well, you know, being here in Buffalo, uh, as sort of quarantined in Buffalo, um, it's it's enabled me to focus on the philharmonic and how we come out of this for the orchestra, because that is tantamount. I mean, that is the the paramount importance. So, so how do we stay in front of our public? I've been auditing, um, concerts, archival concerts, um, uh, editing them and, uh, making sure that every week we're in front of the public, our public on the air. Um, we've been making, uh, you know, those crazy things where everyone plays from their their living room and we try and put it together. We've done some of that. Um, there's a lot of keeping in touch with people. I've been looking more at repertoire that I never had the chance to look at. Uh, which is good. I mean, doing a lot of of research. But it's it's still not the same as as, as you know, making music in front of people, playing to an audience, and that that we really miss.

Well, I'm I'm just leaving them now after, I well, it would be 29 years. Yeah. So, but, uh, and it was it was it's a few, it is a beautiful orchestra, and beautiful experience. And, um, you talked about phrasing. I think architecture is something you learn. Well, I shouldn't be telling this to a composer, because of course, it's all about architecture when you're writing. But what our job is to realize that architecture for you. You know, so we have to think about the architecture, and thinking about architecture in the largest sense, and then the individual architecture of the phrase is what enables us to give music momentum. And we owe that to the composer.

You know, I think I'm very lucky in Buffalo. And I'll say that because I I came to an orchestra with a history of risk-taking. When you go back to Lukas Foss's days, when Lukas was, this was the epicenter of the new music world. And Lukas, Lukas was a kind of person who sought out the the most avant-garde works and played them for what was then a conservative audience. So he changed that audience. He changed that audience. And then that was followed by Michael Tilson Thomas, who also is a great great lover of new American music. So I think that our audience here has has developed at least at that point a kind of open-mindedness. And they trust us now. So, yes, they love the the the, you know, the big favorites, but I think they enjoy even more if that big favorite is on a concert with a new piece, if the composer is with us and can talk to us, if it's a world premiere of something and we have the honor of doing it, I think they're very involved. And they're they trust us. Because they can't know all of these pieces, but they they know if it's on our stage that we believe in it and we're going to play it to the best of our ability.

Yeah.

Yes, but I've I've maybe it's the music. But but I've been there now 20 years. And, um, at this point, I think probably, um, when I look back, I can really see that change has happened. You know, you can't do that in two or three years. You can't do that if you're only in the city for six weeks a year. You have to be invested in the sound of your orchestra, in the culture of the orchestra, and where they're going. And what's helped us too, Michael, and you'll appreciate this, is the fact that we record so much. We record for Naxos, as you do, and we record for our own label. And in recording, we're sort of documenting where we are and we're giving the musicians a certain way of listening to music. You know, when when they know it's forever, it's going to be on their desk and it's going to be heard on radio and and uh, they they analyze how they approach their their art form. And that's really changed the orchestra. They are listening in a very profound way now because of all the recordings.

Well, we do, and I was very lucky to inherit it. It seemed that at at some point, much prior to my time, uh, the Buffalo, um, Philharmonic had had put into its contract a great amount of electronic media guarantee, EMG. So that they were being paid all along for the possibility of making recordings. Now, for most of those years, they never took advantage of that, because it it was a poor city, it was a difficult time, and they frankly couldn't afford the other costs of making recording, not just the musicians, but the engineer, the editing, um, the production of the disk. So, uh, it wasn't used, and we we have that. And I when Naxos approached us, we knew we could do it with with limited expense. I mean, we still have expense, but it's so much less because we have so much electronic media guarantee. So, we're able to sort of document who we are now.

Yeah. Well, we do, yeah. Well, we do abide by those rules. We have to abide by those rules. And and I think that the musicians when they approach recording, uh, and they know that they can only take, I think it's 20 minutes, 15 minutes from that hour. They're very focused on making sure it's it's as perfect as it can be. It's tough, though. It is tough to record in the US.

Well, it's true. I mean, I wish I wish we had we had that possibility of doing more, but, uh,

Our orchestras are great. Yeah, and American orchestras are so fantastic, Michael. I'm sure you agree with me. I mean, first of all, they can play anything. They can play anything. I mean, and no matter how difficult it is. And they're also very nimble. I mean, they can play a pop concert one weekend and turn right around and and work on a Mahler symphony on Tuesday. So they're very, uh, intelligent, very alert, quick learners, and, uh, and always prepared.

Yeah, please.

Oh my gosh.

Well, you know, I actually saw you in Albany just a little bit before you got ill. And, uh, I was I was devastated to hear that, but you're you're fine now and and you're you've got your goals ahead of you. That's good.

No. And I I hope we can be a part of the the Tim Fain concerto goal, because that's that we love Tim, and, uh, we love your music, and that would be fun for us.

Yeah.

I think it's it's made me think that it is bigger. You know, and and we, you know, we have a wonderful audience that supports us in Buffalo. But I think and in spending all this time concentrating on music, especially music I didn't know, new music. Um, I think that we have to live more in the 21st century, Michael. I really believe that. And I've always I've always loved new music. But as you say, sometimes there is a certain amount of of pressure put on conductors to do the most popular pieces. And you can understand that. I can understand that that the audience loves to hear them, and they're more likely to buy a ticket if they know the piece.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They're excited and they're and they they know, uh, they know what it's going to be about. So, but I I think that that we have to we have to look to the we have to live in the future. I mean, I think that or live in the present and plan for the future. So that, um, there are a lot of voices out there that should be heard. And, um, that's made me reaffirm my belief in that. Now, I'm going to have to take the board and the management along with me, and and I think we can. But, um, I think it's exciting for instance to live in a world where you can hear a piece by a Renaissance composer and and a 21st-century piece on the same program. And that's sort of continuum of music to me, continuum of music is very important.

Isn't it fantastic?

Schütz.

Yeah.

Well, I I spent time at Mannes with Carl Bamberger. My first couple of years there, um, I I was privileged to be in his class. And, uh, what an amazing man. Uh, you know, in in Mannes, we lived in a very [inaudible] because most of our teachers were actually they were they were refugees. You know, I didn't probably realize that at the time, but they were refugees from from the Second World War who had come to New York and were, these were amazing musicians like Carl Bamberger, and were teaching us young American kids who knew nothing. And, um, what a beautiful man. And the way he talked about music, do you remember Michael how he talked about music? He talked about Beethoven 6, not in terms of the techniques of of of of conducting, but I mean as he always would say, think of Vienna and the fields of Vienna and the wind rustling through those fields. And he brought it to life. I mean, saying that I still I still get a little shudder thinking of him saying that. It was like, how beautiful. I mean, it just or he, you know, spent time talking about how how precious that Mozart would write, you know, take one moment of his life to put a little dot on that note and and we have to treasure that. I mean, his love of music was so intense.

Yeah.

He would sing a lot, do you remember? He would sing very often.

I mean, I I think of architecture as well when I study it. You know, you look at here's a score that you've never done or it could be a score that you sort of know like a a Bruckner 4, the first time I did it. You know the sound of it and you've heard performances, but you're studying the score for the first time. And for me, it's important to see the big cathedral first, not reading from note one to the last page. To understand what's what's the edifice? What's the building? What is the structure of it? And maybe some of that comes from Mannes, you know, we we studied Schenkerian analysis all the time and to see the the way it's put together in the biggest sense and then work inwards. So that's how I always approach it seeing how it works for in a big structure and then get smaller and smaller and smaller until you're looking at details of actually an oboe line or why the recap is different than the the exposition, you know, in what way. Um, and I I love that. I love score study. I don't think you can be a conductor if you don't really love it.

Yeah.

Yeah, it moves. You know, it could be that sometimes tradition, pieces become kind of tradition-bound and because someone very important does it slowly, it becomes the way you have to do it. But I think you're absolutely right. If you can't say the sentence or finish the phrase or sing the line, the music is not going to project forward and that's what it's all about.

Yeah.

Well, I do. I I I listen to a lot of things, but I find that for me it's better to study it first. So that you have in your head, in your in in your the ear inside, you have an idea of what you want, or what you think, or what the page is telling you without someone else in the way. Because essentially, I mean, and you, I hope you would agree with me, we have to be instructed by the composer. And and he's not talking to us usually. I mean, it's a great pleasure if they're there, but but, um, that that music has to come off the page and speak to you without an intermediary at first. Then, when you feel you feel confident enough to go to the next level, you can listen to Toscanini. You you can listen to to well, you know, listen to someone who knew the composer well, like Eugene Ormandy with Rachmaninoff, or Sibelius, you know, people who are standing there right next to the conductor saying, no, move that phrase or, you know, I'd love to have a little more time. Or then, you know, okay, that's the composer's voice coming to us.

Yes. Well, you know, he also felt that that orchestra came to understand him, the Philadelphia Orchestra. They they adored him. I mean, he was their conduct, their composer.

And they they loved him and he loved them. I forgot what score it was, but he insisted in one score that he dedicated the piece to every single member, and every every name was on the front piece of the score. It probably doesn't exist anymore.

I don't think it was the first symphony, but it might have been [inaudible].

Third. It might have been the third. Yes, it might have been the third. So, um, every single person in that orchestra was someone he loved, you know, So so maybe they're they they knew his voice, you know, without without even being told very much.

You know, I don't know if I would point to particular pieces, because I have done so many pieces. I mean, some things I have never done like a Messiaen work. I'd love to do that. But but I I don't have I don't have, uh, big holes in which I say, oh, I never got to do this. I feel I feel very I feel like my career has given me the opportunity to do so much and to learn from orchestras in such a real way. So, um, just to to now look look into the future. And I think that that's a responsibility I'm feeling even more keenly now.

Yes. I mean, I think everything that's happened to me in my life, my just growing up, growing up with orchestras, learning from musicians, it's different. I mean, but I would say it it it's organically different. It's not all of a sudden I say, you know what? I have to take it twice as fast now. No, that's not me. But but the idea that, um, I I'm free enough now to let the musicians around me inform the piece more and I love that. To let them have a voice so that Buffalo Philharmonic's Beethoven 3rd, which we which we're in the process of of releasing very soon, is different than the Virginia Symphony's Beethoven 3rd or Albany Symphony if I did there as a guest, um, because yes, my idea of it is is the same, but I want to I want it to be theirs. And so that's a big difference, I mean, and and that sort of invitation to the musicians, offering them lots of of ideas, but listening back to them at at who they are.

I still think of it as something that moves, moves and sees the light in the middle of it. Sees the hope in the middle of it. And maybe maybe that speaks to me now about the situation we're in.

Thank you so much. I adore you too.