Nurturing talent is music to ears of NYPO director
Print Edition
Working with young musicians who are keen to learn and share their knowledge with others is a pleasure for Alan Gilbert, the 48-year-old music director of the New York Philharmonic.
Gilbert was pursuing this recently while in Shanghai for the orchestra’s first performance residency partnership with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra and Shanghai Orchestra Academy.
This was as part of the New York Philharmonic Global Academy initiative — customized collaborations with partners worldwide that offer intensive training of pre-professional musicians by New York Philharmonic members, often alongside regular performance residencies by the full orchestra.
With both his parents being New York Philharmonic musicians — his father Michael Gilbert retired as a violinist in 2001 while his mother Yoko Takebe still plays violin with its ensembles — Gilbert has had close links to the orchestra since childhood.
Being appointed 25th music director of the New York Philharmonic in 2007 was a childhood dream come true, he says. He cherishes opportunities to tour, share and communicate with audiences and musicians, and helps nurture young talent. He sees huge potential for classical music in China.
“China is a very important place for us to make connections, considering what happened in the last 30 years,” says Gilbert. “There are superstars like pianist Lang Lang astonishing the world already, and there are many young musicians coming to New York, eager to learn.”
Q: How do you see the New York Philharmonic’s partnership in Shanghai?
A: I believe touring is very important for orchestras, and it is very lucky for us to still be able to tour when many orchestras have reduced or even stopped touring due to financial considerations.
By touring, we can share our music with more people, show who we are and make connections with different audiences and cultures.
Today, it’s difficult to pay for tours that shift from city to city every day. This is not a bad thing but a blessing, as it encourages us to create residencies, partnerships and relationships with cities around the world, where we can engage more deeply with audiences.
By settling in a city for between 2 and 10 days, while presenting multiple concerts, we can show a more realistic picture of us, participate in more educational activities and meet more young musicians and audiences interested in classical music.
This is the model that we’re exploring everywhere at this time, and the Shanghai residency has definitely been one of the most important for us.
Q: What is the orchestra’s role in musical education?
A: Orchestras and musicians around the world always have such questions in mind — how do we use music to benefit people’s lives? How do we engage young people?
It is scientifically shown that children exposed to classical music perform better at school, but we do not need such scientific studies to appreciate the importance of music in people’s lives.
There’s a universal phenomenon of less support for music education at school. There used to be orchestras in every school, granting every student the opportunity to learn instruments. But this is not true any more.
Orchestras everywhere are trying to pick up the slack. We are trying to figure out how best to use our resources and energy for music education, not only because we can; but also because we should.
The Bernstein Young People’s Concert is one of our traditions and considered a standard for such trials.
Though people around the world agree that things need to improve, no one has figured out how. I’m proud of what we’re doing. It’s something we’re all deeply committed to.
Q: How do you see musicians’ role in terms of cultural exchange?
A: It’s a cliche, yet profoundly true, that music is an international language that bridges cultural gaps and help people communicate where words fail.
We are now only in the first stage of the partnership with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. But the idea of making connections through music is terrific. This is something important, not only in the musical level but also in the cultural level. Nothing is perfect the first time around, but the openness and willingness to share and learn is always encouraging. I believe that this will continue to grow.
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