Musician enjoys getting a taste of real power

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/09/2009 (6207 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

What compels a classical musician to move from a sit-down, blend-in role in an orchestra to a standup job on the podium?

"It has to do with power, probably," admits Anne Manson, the new music director and conductor of the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, who started her career as a viola player.

"I don’t mean power in the sense of dominating other people, but artistic power and creative force.

"It’s just incredibly interesting and stimulating… To me, it’s more satisfying than playing your individual line."

Manson, 47, lives in Washington, D.C. She’s been conducting for more than 20 years, leading concerts for such prestigious orchestras as the London Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and operas for big-name companies like the New York City Opera and Canadian Opera Company.

The freelance maestro assumed the long-distance artistic leadership of the MCO last November and conducted three of its nine concerts last season. This season, she’ll helm four out of nine shows by the ensemble of about 25 players, many of whom are also members of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra.

On Wednesday, Manson will be on the podium as the MCO opens its 2009-2010 season at Westminster United Church with a world-famous guest, Grammy-winning solo percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie.

Then Manson and the orchestra will hit the road with Glennie for a 10-date Western Canadian tour that includes Vancouver and Edmonton, winding up in Brandon on Sept. 21.

Glennie, who is Scottish, suffered severe hearing loss as a child, but doesn’t consider herself disabled. She performs barefoot or in stocking feet and feels the musical vibrations through her body. She is a virtuoso on instruments such as vibraphone and marimba. Her aim in life, she has said, is to "teach the world to listen."

Manson has worked with Glennie before. She says the percussionist has such a high profile and broad appeal that she has become a worldwide ambassador for classical music.

"She is an extraordinarily powerful performer, extremely magnetic, and totally committed to what she does," says Manson.

The last time Glennie performed with the MCO, in 2008, the reverberations caused a piece of plaster to fall from the ceiling of Westminster Church. What does Manson think of the grand old church as a performing venue?

"It’s very well suited to the MCO," she says. "The challenge to me is that it’s so, so different without an audience."

The high-ceilinged church, she says, can be too resonant when it’s empty for rehearsals. Fortunately, with an audience to absorb some of the sound’s bounce, the acoustics have "a nice resonance to work with."

The Massachusetts-bred Manson, who lives with her lawyer husband and two sons, has been a trailblazer as a female conductor. Though women still haven’t achieved parity in the conducting profession, the situation is much better than it was 20-some years ago, she says.

"When I started out, a lot of orchestra managers would say, ‘It’s really too risky for me to put a woman on the podium,’ or, ‘The last time we had a woman, it was a disaster.’ You don’t really hear that very often now…

"They’ve realized," she says with a laugh, "that sometimes you have men on the podium who are a disaster, and it doesn’t mean you don’t book another man."

The MCO is the only ensemble with which the globe-trotting Manson has an ongoing position. She says the group’s commitment to touring, recording and giving exposure to works by living composers is a good fit for her.

This season will mark her first trip to Winnipeg in the frigid month of January. In fact, she’s coming twice, for an MCO show with Measha Brueggergosman (Jan. 6) and one featuring works by Shostakovich and Copland (Jan. 19).

Back on the subject of the conductor’s power, she says: "There’s a great level of frustration in orchestral musicians, often, because they don’t have the control that they would like over the artistic process and the artistic result.

"That’s something I don’t see in the MCO. Part of what is fun and interesting about working with a chamber orchestra… is allowing those artistic ideas to come forth. You get more space for that in a chamber orchestra than you do in a symphony orchestra."

alison.mayes@freepress.mb.ca

 

CONCERT PREVIEW

Dame Evelyn Glennie with the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra

Westminster United Church

Wednesday at 7:30 p.m.

Single tickets and subscriber packages at 783-7377 or www.manitobachamberorchestra.org

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