Thank you to Gayle Worland and the Wisconsin State Journal for covering our Music Director search and this weekend’s concerts, Visions, in Overture Hall, October 18-20. This story originally appeared in the Wisconsin State Journal’s Thursday, October 17 edition. If you are a WSJ subscriber, you may read the story on their website.
Gayle Worland | Wisconsin State Journal
Oct 17, 2024
The stakes are high, and it’ll take time before all the votes are in.
In fact, the process could take years.
Still, not long after the Madison Symphony Orchestra — the city’s largest performing arts organization — celebrates its 100th birthday in 2025-26, it likely will have a new artistic leader.
The MSO is in the process of selecting a music director to succeed John DeMain, who has served in that role for more than three decades. More than 100 people have applied.
The public can watch part of the process this weekend as one of the candidates for the job conducts the 91-piece orchestra in “Visions,” a concert to be performed in Overture Hall on Friday and Saturday evenings and Sunday afternoon. Nicholas Hersh is the first of three guest conductors scheduled to lead the orchestra this season, the MSO’s 99th. The others are Michael Stern, who will conduct the MSO in concert Nov. 15-17, and Joseph Young, the MSO’s guest conductor April 11-13.
Yet Hersh, Stern and Young are just the first wave in what has been a popular application process.
“We have conductors who are, to this day, sending us information about themselves to be considered for the search,” said Robert Reed, the MSO’s executive director and a search committee member. Though scores have already applied, “each week I still get an email from a candidate wishing to submit materials for the search. I wish I could say that part of the screening process was over, but we still have to do our due diligence to make sure (in case) the people who are still applying are people we would want to see.”
“Several” more finalists will be booked to conduct concerts in the MSO’s 2025-26 centennial season, said Reed, and those names will be released with the unveiling of the 100th season in March. If necessary, even more candidates could be asked to guest-conduct into seasons beyond 2025-26, he said.
“It’s not like a sports coach, where a person leaves and they hire someone a week later. It’s not that quick for us,” he said.
The MSO job could be seen as a plum post because of the high professional quality of the MSO’s musicians, the Overture Center’s outstanding 2,255-seat Overture Hall where the MSO performs, a strong organization and the everyday quality of life in Madison itself, Reed said.
More than a baton
The music director’s most visible role is stepping up to the podium with a baton and leading the orchestra in concert. But the job is far more complex, with plenty of behind-the-scenes work.
“They’re responsible for all of the artistic affairs of the organization,” said Reed, such as programming concerts and working with staff to secure internationally known guest artists. The music director shapes the sound of the orchestra, auditions and hires musicians to fill vacancies, and serves as the public face of the organization, both with donors and in the broader community.
DeMain took that role in 1994 as only the fourth music director of the MSO. The organization has grown tremendously since that time, and with a $6.5 million annual budget is today the city’s largest performing arts nonprofit, next to the bricks-and-mortar Overture Center for the Arts, which presents Broadway shows and other touring and locally produced performances.
This season DeMain will conduct most of the MSO’s concerts, including nights of Beethoven, Gershwin, Mozart and Strauss, and the popular annual “A Madison Symphony Christmas” in early December. The Grammy- and Tony Award-winning conductor is also the artistic director of Madison Opera, a separate organization, and will continue in that position after his retirement from the symphony orchestra.
Kyle Knox, the MSO’s associate conductor since 2018, conducts many of the orchestra’s educational concerts, community concerts and “MSO at the Movies” film screenings. Knox also serves as music director of the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras and is in the pool of candidates to succeed DeMain, Reed said.
“Any conductor for any of our subscription concerts is of the caliber to succeed John DeMain as music director. Kyle conducted one of our concerts last season, and so he is of the caliber and the committee will definitely consider him,” Reed said. “But he and anyone who conducts the orchestra will be considered.”
How the choice is made
The selection committee is composed of members from the MSO’s executive team, its board of directors and orchestra musicians, Reed said. The group meets several times a month and has spent “well over 1,000 hours reviewing the credentials of well over 100 diverse candidates from around the world,” he said. “We are really thrilled with this process so far, but it’s been a lot of work.”
“We have been trying to find that right person who is going to lead us into the next century on an artistic level and a community level. It’s been a very extensive process to screen so many different conductors, and some of it is very subjective,” he said.
Each candidate who makes the cut and is invited to guest-conduct a subscription concert works with Reed to select the music. That requires looking at what the orchestra has performed in the recent past, considering any soloist who already has been booked, and balancing that program with the rest of the season, as well as other factors.
The results of that collaboration will be heard from the Overture Hall stage this weekend and over more — possibly many more — weekends to come.
“We’re not setting some timeline where we have to make a decision by X day. We want to make sure we do our due diligence and find the right person,” Reed said. After an initial appearance, “If we need to bring somebody back to conduct the orchestra again, we will do whatever is in the best interest of the Madison Symphony Orchestra.”
If you go
What: Madison Symphony Orchestra
When: 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2:30 p.m. Sunday
Where: Overture Hall, Overture Center for the Arts, 201 State St.
Tickets: $15-$102. Purchase at the Overture Center box office or for an additional fee at overture.org or 608-258-4141.
Website: madisonsymphony.org
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Photo Credit: Peter Rodgers