Matthew Steven Brown a finalist for GJ Symphony job
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Matthew Steven Brown a finalist for GJ Symphony job
Matthew Steven Brown has experience conducting, composing and cultivating interest in orchestral music among all ages, and he is the second of four finalists to appear in Grand Junction in the hopes of being named the new music director of the Grand Junction Symphony Orchestra.
His concert “Brown Conducts Sibelius” features the local symphony along with guest flutist Rachelle Crowell, winner of the symphony’s Young Artist Competition, at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 23, and 3 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 24, at Avalon Theatre, 645 Main St.
Tickets cost $20–$40 for adults and $5 for students and can be purchased at gjso.org, by calling 243-6787 or at the symphony office, 414 Main St.
In advance of his visit to Grand Junction, Brown, currently the musician-in-residence at American University, a previous associate conductor for Canton (Ohio) Symphony Orchestra and a former cover conductor for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, took part in an email exchange to talk about his conducting background and interests outside of music.
Melinda Mawdsley: What are the challenges of being a guest conductor?
Matthew Steven Brown: I will have a little more than a week to convince dozens of people whom I do not yet know that they should culminate more than a year-long search (involving undoubtedly hundreds of applicants and countless hours of deliberation) by choosing me as their next music director — a decision which will have utterly significant implications for years, if not decades into the organization’s future. I need to convince the musicians that I have the technical and artistic ability to lead them effectively in both rehearsals and performances. I also need to convince the board of directors, specifically the search committee, that I would quickly become a known and trusted figure in the community, and as such, would be capable of working with (executive director) Mr. (Kelly) Anderson and the rest of the staff to provide strong institutional leadership and ensure the continued financial solvency of the orchestra during what is a difficult time for the arts nationwide. No pressure, right?
Mawdsley: Tell me more about the musical program you selected for these shows.
Brown: The pieces I selected are indicative of what my programming as music director would be like. I chose the opening piece by living composer and Colorado native Lee Actor because I believe it is critically important that orchestras give performance opportunities to people who are attempting to make a living writing music. All music was once new! It’s a fun little piece called Opening Remarks that I think will get the concert off to an energetic start. Next will be Tchaikovsky’s masterpiece, “Romeo and Juliet.” It is a time-tested favorite of both audiences and orchestras across the globe, and I can’t wait to play it to showcase what a fine orchestra Grand Junction has. The first half will end with a concerto, which will feature the winner of GJSO’s Young Artist Competition, flutist Rachelle Crowell. The piece she chose (and with which she won the competition) is a one movement flute concerto by Georgian composer Otar Gordeli. It’s not a piece you hear too often, but it’s a real gem. I have thoroughly enjoyed learning it, and am looking forward to working with Rachelle in these performances. The second half major work will be Jean Sibelius’ “Symphony No. 2 in D Major.” While not quite a standard “war horse” piece like some of the music GJSO’s audience is being treated to this season, it is nevertheless a stunning and passionate late Romantic symphony that builds to a breathtaking climax at the arrival of the fourth movement (which happens with no break between the third and fourth movements) that I know will have many in the audience on the edges of their seats. The piece begins beautifully and ends heroically, and I am thrilled to be able to perform it with the Grand Junction Symphony.
Mawdsley: I see in your bio you are co-founder and artistic director of the International Conductors’ Festival in Kyiv, Ukraine and you even composed a piece specifically for that festival, correct? What drew you to Ukraine?
Brown: I had the idea for the festival with a Swiss friend and colleague, Christophe Rody, whom I met at a conducting workshop in Estonia about ten years ago. We were having a conversation in a cafe in Tallinn that began just as two conductors talking over beers about things we hypothetically would change about that particular festival experience. After a few hours we had fleshed out a model for a festival that was so unique and exciting to us that we simply had to do it. We determined that finding the right combination of professional orchestra, vibrant world capital, and “budget friendliness” would place the festival somewhere in eastern Europe. Christophe immediately thought of his old Ukrainian friend Slava from their days playing together in the Cairo Opera Orchestra. Slava is a well-connected and “persuasive” french horn player in Kyiv who knew just the orchestra for us, and the rest is history.
Kyiv, and all of Ukraine has fallen on some very difficult times. Politicians, peasants and everyone in between flooded the center of Kyiv, known as Maidan, in the dead of winter two years ago in a peaceful protest turned bloody revolution that eventually overthrew a massively corrupt and ineffective government. All was looking up for a new Ukraine until, as we know, Russia got involved. The ongoing war in the east of Ukraine has claimed thousands of lives, and the fighting continues with no clear end in sight. Over the last nine years, I have come to know and love Kyiv, and many people who live there. I decided to write a piece to premiere with our orchestra there. I called it In Memoriam: Maidan and it is dedicated to the Ukrainian people and their fight for freedom and democracy. It makes heavy thematic use of phrases from the Ukrainian National Anthem, which was sung on the hour during the Maidan protests. A link to the performance can be found on my website: http://www.MatthewBrownConductor.com
Mawdsley: I see in your bio you are an amateur carpenter. What is one project you’ve built that you are particularly proud of? Also, I see you and your wife are avid gardeners.
Brown: I have developed a real love for woodworking over the years, and enjoy doing it as time allows — more so in the summer months. I have a wood shop set away from the house (we call it “the barn”), so I can go out there late at night and run power tools without waking the rest of my family. I love working with wood, and have made a wide variety of things over the years. As a musician, and especially as a conductor, my work is very ephemeral. Most of my time is spent sitting in a chair trying to hear music in my head, and then I perform it and that’s it. There’s nothing tangible left. I think that’s why I love making things as a hobby. The piece I’m most proud of is the crib I built, in which all three kids have slept. When Ann was pregnant with our first child, I kept reading about crib recalls, so I decided to make one myself (with a base that can double as a table for tea parties). Neither my wife nor I had any experience gardening before we met. But when we got married, we bought a little house in Ohio (where I used to work) that had a nice, sunny backyard. We started there just with a small patch that I fenced in to keep out the rabbits, and grew some tomatoes, bell peppers, and a few other things. Fast-forward six years to our home in Maryland, where we have little by little converted most of our front yard (which is where we have the sunshine) into an elaborate vegetable garden with raised beds, gravel walkways, bamboo climbing structures (for peas, not kids), a wildflower patch that we call “the wild west,” and a homemade 8×12 garden shed. I sometimes joke that my main reason was to have less to mow. But really, it has become our great summer passion. We grow a huge variety of vegetables and herbs, as well as flowers and shrubs of all kinds. The kids love starting seeds in soup cans at the kitchen table in February, and love even more to go out and harvest during the summer months. In fact, there have been times at the dinner table when they have groaned the usual childhood refrain, “I don’t want to eat my vegetables,” but then we remind them that they picked it themselves from our very own garden, and they promptly and proudly scarf it down. We never buy a single vegetable all summer long, and we still have enough to make sauces and jellies to keep for the winter.
Mawdsley: If selected, do you plan to relocate here? I see your wife is a college professor and you have three young children?
Brown: Yes. A music director should live, eat, shop and vote in his or her orchestra’s community, particularly in a place like Grand Junction where most, if not all the musicians live there as well (which is not often the case with smaller budget American orchestras, many of which draw much of their ranks from nearby larger cities). Not only would it be incumbent upon me as music director to live there, but Grand Junction also strikes me as the type of place where Ann and I would love to live and raise our three darling children. Living on a somewhat busy street in the sprawling suburbs of DC and commuting forty-five minutes in heavy traffic into the city for work makes it difficult to feel connected to one’s community, if one can even call it that. We want to raise our kids in a place where people know each other, and value a shared sense of community and common experience. We want to live in a place where the arts are vibrant and valued, while also affordable and accessible. My wife is a brilliant pianist, and we would love to be part of a musical community where she would have access to other people who enjoy playing chamber music as much as she does (something tells me there are some folks in GJSO who like playing chamber music). Ann has already checked out the local school district and she told me this afternoon that it looks great. Plus, we are both outdoor enthusiasts, and we heard there might be a fair amount of that sort of thing in western Colorado. It’s impossible to know what the future holds, but Ann and I do know that we would be very excited to start a new chapter of our lives in Grand Junction, and I plan to do everything I can during my time there to convince people that we are the right fit for the orchestra and for the community.
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