On Wednesday, July 6th, the Chilean-born conductor will lead the LA Philharmonic New Music Group in performances of works by Gérard Grisey, Vivian Fung, Juan Felipe Waller, Gabriella Smith and Kaija Saariaho. On Saturday, July 9th, he’ll lead the Los Angeles Philharmonic in performances of the classical works of Devonté Hynes.

None of this material is anywhere near as well-known as Mozart’s opera. So the challenge Bortolameolli faces is how to excite audiences as much about music they don’t know as he can with music they do. Which is exactly what we spoke about last week in a Zoom call. What follows are excerpts from our conversation. You can see the complete interview on our YouTube channel.

I want to start by asking you about your TEDx talk, which I thought was really terrific. You begin by asking how do you prepare a child to attend a classical music concert for the first time? My question is how do you prepare an audience today for a concert that features exclusively contemporary classical music that they probably have never heard?

The last part of your sentence is the key one, because when you invite someone is because you really want that people to be amazed, surprised and enjoy. The one who delivers the invitation is the one that it’s already there, the enthusiast. So my first advice is always try to infuse your enthusiasm into your people. Because if something moves you, that’s why you want to share with them. 

I feel that new music is actually more linked to us than maybe a Mozart symphony. Music, art in general, somehow evolves with us in the way we experience the world, in the way we experience the sounds, the rhythms and how artists are so inspired by their surroundings. It’s kind of like a perpetual reflection of our structure.

What surprises you most about contemporary classical music?

I would say the most obvious aspect of the surprise is that we cannot expect something that we still don’t know. When you attend a premiere everything’s so new. How can I be safe? How can I be rooted to something that I know it’s going to happen. When you make this prediction, it’s like safe place, like finally tonic after a dominant [chord.]

The surprise in the contemporary music is everywhere. That’s also what makes it so fascinating, because the other thing is that our brain is so wired and we cannot change it because our hardware it’s the same. So the way we are wired is to make predictions, is to find something, “Now I understand this and this makes me feel good.” So since we cannot change that, the invitation is then enjoy it and enjoy the crazy ride and just try to let yourself go.

On the heels of graduating from Yale School of Music, you not only commissioned a new work as part of a celebration of the 100th anniversary of The Rite of Spring, but you also raised $10,000 for it to be performed – which is a pretty ballsy thing to do right out of school. What is it you’re looking for in new music?

Every single piece such as The Rite of Spring was a new piece. Some of them were a really subtle continuation. Other ones were breakthroughs. The new aspect of music and performing new music, it’s been always there. For me it’s essential to keep that spirit alive in every thing we do as musicians. If we only look back then we are missing the point. And the point is we are not only performing, we are pushing creation every day because that’s what it’s all about. This a life organism with an unstoppable pulsation of creativity. 

If you’re conducting The Rite of Spring you can’t have a conversation with Stravinsky. With these new works, however, you can discuss intention with many of the composers. What difference does that make for you and how you approach a given composition?

To have the chance to work with the composer is like a dream because then you understand the whole creation process. The composers know that even if they own the piece it has to be performed. So at some point they have to let it go. When you have the chance to be aligned in the same space for the rehearsals then you understand the whole process.

Even for for composers listening to a rehearsal is such an important moment, a key moment, because they make corrections, because they change things, because they actually understand how it works. Even the most experienced composer knows that the piece will behave differently. The paper is just a map; this is what I want. For us, who could be the most authorized voice than the composer? Then [it will be] much better, not only in terms of performance, but in terms of the experience, the ritual of doing this together.

You’re describing the conductor as cartographer.

I think it’s always kind of like that at the beginning. We always try to respect the score the most we can. We try to be as precise as we can. But at the same time you’re an interpreter, right? You make your own interpretations of every single aspect of the score. There are just few things that you cannot change: meter, rhythm, notes. That’s a definite aspect. But the rest of it, it’s what do you think about that? What is the thought of it? Nobody measured a forte, you know, in decibels. Even a metronome mark, which sounds to be or looks to be exact, it’s not because the way the music behaves in a particular acoustic theater with the audience will affect the shape of the counter, the phrasing. So all these kind fixed parameters, they’re not fixed. We have to try to be in the mind of the composer and extract that information.

You’re in Barcelona conducting The Magic Flute. What is the process by which you leave the world of a work composed over 230 years ago and enter the world – just a few days later – of these new/newer works?

I feel it’s the same. It’s an easy answer and almost a cheap answer. I don’t want to be cheap. I’m just saying that when you face music you’re putting together sounds, shaping the tempo, the phrasing, you’re understanding colors, you’re understanding balances, reacting to the energy of your players, reacting to your audience. So when you talk about those elements of music and you make it kind of like an abstraction above the repertoire, you find yourself doing exactly the same thing. The difference will be in terms of the score. But the way you face it, I always find it’s pretty similar.

I want to conclude where we started, which is with the one of the last things you said in your TEDx talk. You said that immediately on the heels of your father taking you to that concert at age seven it changed your life so profoundly that you wanted to spend of it changing our expectations. What are the challenges of changing our lives with music we don’t know versus changing in our lives with the music with which we are familiar?

I think the answer it’s more about how you experience the music more than the music itself. I deeply believe that our biggest challenge these days is to keep the flame on. Like the bonfire, where you sit around and you contemplate something that’s happening there and you are surrounded with people that will experience it at the same time. Then it will fade and will keep in your memory, in your heart, in your subconscious. You embrace the importance of that, which makes it so human. It’s part of our core nature to share an experience, to be there with a group of people. Then you realize that it’s far more about that than what is actually performed.

If it’s the right energy, if it’s well-performed and there is passion and commitment on stage, you could be incredibly moved by a piece that you never heard before. Even if it’s because you were shocked, you were provoked, or you were seduced by the sounds or the storytelling or the shape. I just encourage people to go with an open heart, an open mind. Go and experience the experience. Because there is a high chance that the experience itself will change your life.

Paolo Bortolameolli will lead the San Francisco Symphony in a program of works by Aaron Copland, Kevin Puts, Johann Strauss, Jr., and Richard Strauss on July 14th and 15th. On August 4th he return to Los Angeles lead the Los Angeles Philharmonic in a program of works by Camille Saint-Saëns at the Hollywood Bowl. For his full schedule, please go here.

To see the full interview with Paolo Bortolameolli, please go here.

Main photo: Paolo Bortolameolli (Photo ©Marco Borrelli/Courtesy of the Artist)

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