To call Los Angeles Master Chorale’s Artistic Director Grant Gershon a busy man would be a serious understatement. The LAMC has a concert this Sunday where 48 members of the ensemble will be performing Dixit Dominus by George Frideric Handel and Te Deum by Arvo Pärt with a chamber orchestra.
He is the Chorus Director for Los Angeles Opera’s presentation of St. Matthew Passion by Johann Sebastian Bach in conjunction with Hamburg Ballet. Bach’s monumental work runs over 3 hours and will be performed through March 27th.
On Wednesday, March 23rd, Gershon will celebrate his 20th anniversary with the LA Master Chorale in a gala that will feature the world premiere of a new work by composer Michael Abels and also the world premiere of a new arrangement of Morten Laurisden’s O Magnum Mysterium which will feature violinist Anne Akiko Meyers who commissioned the work.
Gershon has a lot on his plate. So what is he thinking in our post-pandemic world? What are his plans moving forward? Trying to pin him down is difficult, but he remains steadfast in his passion for music and for the LA Master Chorale. What follows are excerpts from my conversation with Gershon that have been edited for length and clarity.
During these horrible two years with Covid have you had time to consider who is it that you want to be moving forward and what is it you want to express? How are those thoughts influencing the choices that you’re making moving forward?
One of the things that came out of it was the idea of really focusing more on collaboration. It was in the early days of the pandemic that we decided to create the position of Associate Artistic Director for Jenny Wong, who was our fantastically gifted Associate Conductor. She, along with Reena Esmail, who’s a brilliant composer and is our Swan Family Artist-In- Residence, the three of us together would be kind of the artistic trio of leadership at at the Master Chorale. The whole idea of choral music is that you’re singing together, that you’re raising up and celebrating this multiplicity of voices and viewpoints. I’m just one person with one viewpoint and I think it’s really important for an organization to be more responsive and more reflective. That to me was one of the things that we had the opportunity to enact during this time.
As someone looking from the outside in at LAMC it might appear as though you are lining Jenny Wong up for succession once you decide to move on. Is that part of your consideration presently?
I think about that a lot. And I have to say Jenny is one of the most brilliant musicians that I’ve worked with. She came to us through a search process and did auditions with several other very talented emerging conductors. So she came to us as assistant conductor and then grew into the role of associate conductor and then into this leadership role. Let’s just say Jenny will be leading an organization very soon. If we can keep her in L.A. for as long as possible that’s fantastic. I do think about my own success and my own legacy really and just wanted to make sure that whoever eventually steps into this position is somebody who can can take the chorale in new directions and can really continue to grow the organization.
When we last spoke nine years ago you told me you felt the LA Master Chorale was a great, well-kept secret and that you hoped more people would learn about it in the future. You’ve traveled the world with Lagrime di San Pietro. I assume you believe that the secret is out now.
Lagrime was a great calling card for us. It’s really the first time that the Master Chorale has toured as an ensemble. So that’s now baked in to our post-pandemic profile. The other thing that we’re focusing on is obviously recording and that’s both commercial recordings and and also filming every concert that we do in Disney Hall so that we can do digital releases; either a full concert or individual pieces or sections of pieces on social media and on other platforms.
During the pandemic our social media presence really exploded. And the digital releases that we were able to put out there actually reached exponentially larger audiences than we could ever fit into the concert hall. I don’t feel like we’re a well-kept secret anymore. We’re well kept and we’re out in the world much more.
The situation in Ukraine is horrific and the performing arts and some artists have been caught in the middle of that for not denouncing Putin. Do you think artists can and should be separated from their art? Or are these political statements and affiliations something that are going to be looked at more closely moving forward?
I don’t think art can be divorced from society and politics. You go back to Mozart. You go back to Monteverdi. Every composer that I respond to has always been engaged in the in the issues of our time. I think with respect to Putin, there are some very clear-cut cases like Valery Gergiev, for instance, who so closely has aligned himself to that regime and to Putin personally. That’s very clear. I do think for some Russian artists it’s a real challenge and I sympathize or empathize with somebody who does not agree at all with what’s happening. The Ukrainian situation is so horrific and the aggression on the part of Russia is so clear-cut and unprovoked that I think that most Russian artists will have to come down on one side or the other and accept the results.
What is your biggest priority for yourself moving forward after twenty years with Los Angeles Master Chorale?
What I’m most focused on right now is our education programs. Specifically having grown up in Los Angeles I’m very aware that we don’t currently have a youth choir program that creates access for any young person that wants to sing in a choir. If we can, as the largest professional choral organization in the country, spearhead an effort to create a holistic and organic community-based youth choir initiative, that’s where I want to see us putting our energy going forward. Just helping to ensure that the art form stays strong and healthy, but also that as many people as possible have access to to the just immeasurable benefits of singing together.
I appreciate that you answered as it relates to the LA Master Chorale. But what about for you personally?
Oh gosh. I mean I want to see us doing more crazy projects and doing more touring, more singing around the world, more collaborations, more amazing projects with Gustavo [Dudamel] and the L.A. Phil, more recording. More, more and more is, I think, the bottom line.
To see the full interview with Grant Gershon, please go to our YouTube channel here.
Main Photo: Grant Gershon at an LA Master Chorale rehearsal (Photo courtesy Cadenza Artists)