Copious Notes

The Lexington Philharmonic Orchestra will announce its choice for its new music director at Friday night’s concert, bringing to a close a two-year search for the successor to George Zack.

George Zack, whose successor will be named Friday. Photo by Matt Goins.

“This is the way we always wanted to make the announcement, and it looks like we’re on track to do it,” said Larry C. Deener, President of the Lexington Philharmonic Society, Inc.

Zack announced his retirement in December 2006, setting in motion a two-season search that saw 10 candidates conduct the Philharmonic between October 2007 and last month. Two candidates withdrew from the race after visiting — February auditioner Alastair Willis and March candidate Mei-Ann Chen.

That leaves eight candidates in contention for the spot:

• Kayoko Dan, assistant conductor of the Phoenix Symphony
• Alexander Platt, music director of the Waukesha Symphony in Wisconsin, resident conductor of the Chicago Opera Theatre and several other posts
• Darryl One, music director of the Victoria Symphony Orchestra in Texas
• Daniel Meyer, music director of the Asheville Symphony Orchestra in North Carolina, resident conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and several other posts
• Alfred Savia, music director of the Evansville Symphony Orchestra in Indiana
• Scott Terrell, resident conductor of the Charleston Symphony Orchestra in South Carolina
• Jeffrey Pollock, last post was assistant conductor of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra in Texas
• Morihiko Nakahara, music director of the South Carolina Philharmonic

Deener said the announcement will come just before intermission of Friday’s concert, which will feature the Lexington Singers and Lexington Philharmonic performing works by Gabriel Faure and Ludwig Van Beethoven. Lexington Singers music director Jefferson Johnson and University of Kentucky Symphony Orchestra director John Nardolillo will co-conduct the concert.

At the concert, Deener said plans are to have brochures available with the programs for next season’s Masterclassics series, which will be the new conductor’s first season with the Philharmonic.

There are nine contenders to become the next music director of the Lexington Philharmonic Orchestra.  But in a completely unscientific, inconsequential-except-for-fun Copious Notes poll, just over half the readers voted for Mei-Ann Chen, the last candidate to audition with the orchestra.

Mei-Ann Chen conducts the Lexington Philharmonic in a rehearsal March 24. Photo by Rich Copley | LexGo.

Chen, currently assistant conductor of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, received 51.6 percent of the vote.

All of the contenders received at least a few of the 64 votes. Chen’s closest competitor in the poll was October 2008 auditioner Scott Terrell, who received 20.3 percent of the votes.

Here’s how the vote broke down:

• Mei-Ann Chen, auditioned March 2009 — 51.6%
• Scott Terrell, October 2008 — 20.3%
• Darryl One, January 2008 — 9.4%
• Daniel Meyer, February 2008 — 6.3%
• Alexander Platt, November 2007 — 4.7%
• Kayoko Dan, October 2007 — 3.1%
• Morihiko Nakahara, January 2009 — 1.6%
• Jeffrey Pollock, November 2008 — 1.6%
• Alfred Savia, March 2008 — 1.6%

Two notes: The poll ran from March 28 through April 5, with only one vote allowed per computer. There is no way of knowing whether voters actually saw any or all of the auditioners. Like I said, this was for fun.

Also, if you had not heard before, February 2009 auditioner Alastair Willis withdrew from consideration.

As for the vote that matters, Philharmonic search committee chair John Carpenter says the committee — which had several members out of town for spring break, last week — will meet Tuesday night to begin the selection process.

Here’s our slide show of the candidates in the Lexington Philharmonic’s music director search. Mouse over the bottom to get controls. Click on the little comment cloud to the left to activate captions. If you click on a photo, it will take you to a larger version of it at Picasa, and you can click the link at the bottom left for a larger version of the whole show.

When we started the Lexington Philharmonic’s search for a new conductor, Barack Obama was still best known as a Senator from Illinois, AIG was pretty much known only to financial folk and golf fans, and CentrePointe sounded like a term out of Rand McNally.

OK, the length of the search for the Phil’s new music director has not been as dramatic as those comparisons that tell you the last time something happened dinosaurs were roaming the Earth. But, it has been a long journey for the orchestra, its search committee and the Philharmonic’s audience.

Now, with Mei-Ann Chen’s concert complete, all of the candidates have crossed the Singletary Center for the Arts concert hall stage, and it is up to the committee to choose from the nine hopefuls — 10 came to town, but February candidate Alastair Wills took his name out of the running after his appearance.

It’s been a dramatic couple of years for an orchestra that had the same person, George Zack, on the podium for well over three decades.

In the last two seasons, I know I have learned things about conducting and so has the audience.

Conducting is an entrepreneurial pursuit: Starting with Kayoko Dan, back in October 2007, I began hearing story after story about how aspiring conductors had to pull together pick-up orchestras to help them sharpen their skills. Alexander Platt, Mr. November 2007, organized performances of Benjamin Britten operas at Cambridge. Chen made friends with composition students at the New England Conservatory and organized performances of their works. If you play an instrument, you usually have that instrument to practice with. If you play large groups of people, that’s another thing altogether.

Mentors mean a lot: Scott Terrell, who we saw last October, went on about how influential David Zinman has been in his career. Chen did not have enough words for Robert Spano of the Atlanta Symphony, where she is assistant conductor. Almost every candidate we talked to had some sort of mentor who helped him or her develop and helped them get their feet in the first few doors.

Read the rest of this entry »

Morihiko Nakahara accepts a standing ovation following his concert conducting the Lexington Philharmonic. Photos by Rich Copley | LexGo.

Morihiko Nakahara has only been in Columbia, S.C., for half a season. But Friday night in Lexington, he showed he’s already getting the hang of SEC cities.

Complimenting the Lexington Philharmonic Orchesrtra, which he was in the middle of conducting, he said it was holding up well for being in the middle of a conductor search.

“Having a new conductor every cycle is like your basketball team having a new coach every game,” Nakahara said to the audience in the Singletary Center for the Arts. He also threw in a knock against Florida for good measure, assuring the audience he would be long gone by the time the UK Wildcats play the University of South Carolina Gamecocks next (Jan. 31).

Soloists Daniel Mason, violin, and Deborah Lander, viola.

Friday night though, he was the man in the hot seat, the eighth conductor to step onto the podium and audition to succeed George Zack as the Lexington Philharmonic’s music director.

Before the concert, the sign outside the President’s Room at the Singletary Center said “Concert Preview,” but it felt more like Nakahara and moderator Joe Tackett’s floor show.

Fielding Tackett’s regular question as to when the maestro might program a bass concerto, Nakahara said, “I have done a tap dance concerto . . . never going to do that again. I wasn’t planning on a bass concerto, but there’s always a price.”

He also had a little fun with LOVE, the name of the viola ensemble that played in the lobby before the concert. Told the name was an acronym for Lexington’s Original Viola Ensemble, Nakahara asked, “There are unoriginal viola ensembles? It sounds like there’s some competition in this town.” (LOVE, by the way, played an appropriately love-ly pre-show set.)

It was a night for the chocolate of instruments (Joe!) and Nakahara talked about how the Mozart Sinfonia Concertante for violin and viola, played by concertmaster Daniel Mason and UK viola professor Deborah Lander, spotlighted the viola section in addition to the viola soloist. He also talked about an underlying theme of dance in the concert, which included Dvorak’s Symphony No. 6 and opened with Ballata Sinfonica by Japanese composer Akira Ifukube.

The Ifukube, by the way, seemed to be a big hit with the audience.

“That was awesome,” the woman sitting next to me said. “I was not prepared for how wonderful it was.”

Others, during intermission, commented on being pleasantly surprised by the piece by Ifukube, best known for scoring Godzilla movies.

On stage, Nakahara was the first of seven male conductor candidates thus far to break from the traditional white tie and tails ensemble. He opted for a tuxedo jacket and open-collar shirt, which made him look very comfortable.

Further reading:

~ Loren Tice’s review (including a Mamma Mia! reference.)

~ Our profile of Morihiko Nakahara, including audio of our interview.

~ Tell the Philharmonic what you thought of Nakahara.

Morihiko Nakahara conducts the Lexington Philharmonic in a Tuesday night rehearsal. Photos by Rich Copley | LexGo.

Our conversation with Morihiko Nakahara was so wide-ranging, we did something a little different with this podcast. The audio focuses on his discovery of music as a child and his music education, while the story below is focused on his new job in South Carolina and candidacy in Lexington. Click the play button to heat the podcast.

Copious Notes podcasts are available on iTunes.

If Morihiko Nakahara finds himself in the throes of an inaugural season with the ­Lexington Philharmonic Orchestra later this year, it won’t be an unfamiliar experience.

The eighth candidate to succeed George Zack as music director of the Philharmonic is celebrating an inaugural season in Columbia, S.C., where he is the new music director of the South Carolina Philharmonic.

“It’s been so great to meet a lot of people in the community,” Nakahara, 33, says. “There are more people interested in what we do at the Philharmonic and how we can be a better part of the community. That’s a great starting point.

“Musically, it’s been great. It’s just the start of the journey for us. Things don’t change overnight in terms of ­ensemble ­building and how do we grow as an ­orchestra.” This week, Nakahara has gotten to know the Lexington community as he prepares for Friday night’s concert with the Philharmonic, featuring violinist Daniel Mason and violist Deborah Lander.

Other candidates for the Philharmonic’s top job have other orchestras under their direction. But the size of the Columbia ­orchestra and the freshness of the commitment bring up the question: Is Nakahara still interested in the Lexington job?

“I thought about the possibility of getting the South Carolina gig and how that might impact other searches I was in,” Nakahara says. “With Lexington, I decided not to withdraw. At that point, I had already been to South Carolina and decided they’re comparable groups.

“I thought, that might work to my ­advantage if I did both.”

And he doesn’t just mean he’d be ­drawing two music-director paychecks. Read the rest of this entry »