🎶 2022-04-14 20:00:13 – Paris/France.
Anthony Parnther was on a mission. During a conversation via Zoom in late March, the bandleader and bassoon was calling from a hotel room in Kansas City. "I actually came here to buy a very specific contrabassoon, which is sitting right over there," he said, pointing to the bulky wood behind him. “I caught it this morning and I'm going to fly back to LA with it now. Upon his return, Parnther will play the instrument on the score of the highly anticipated Disney+ series Obi Wan Kenobi (premiering May 27).
The contrabassoon seems particularly appropriate: it resembles a Star Wars weapon, and his tone is as deep and otherworldly as the voice of Jabba the Hutt.
"I think it was played in the cantina band [from 1977's Star Wars],” Parnther said, wasting no time. “It's an instrument that looks more like a bassoon. »
Few people know the music of Star Wars as intimately as Parnther. He played bassoon on the scores of Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker (by John Williams), A thug (by Michael Giacchino), and Solo (by John Powell); and conducted Ludwig Göransson's score for the hit Disney+ series The Mandalorian, as well as the music for the sequel, Boba Fett's book.
“I had some affiliation with star wars,says Parnther, who adds that he had been "obsessed" with movies growing up in Lynchburg, Virginia in the 80s and 90s. The first-generation American son of a Jamaican father and a Samoan mother, Parnther went on to study music and Northwestern and Yale, eventually ending up in Los Angeles, where he led parallel musical lives. In addition to playing or directing numerous film scores (including Principle of use and this year turn red), he was for years the conductor of the cover of the LA Philharmonic and the Hollywood Bowl.
On April 24, Parnther will make his Carnegie Hall debut as guest conductor of the acclaimed Gateways Music Festival Orchestra, which is also performing for the first time at the famed New York institution. Founded in 1993, the Seasonal Orchestra is made up entirely of black musicians, who unfortunately remain underrepresented in classical music. Following the death of his longtime musical director Michael Morgan in August 2021, Parnther seemed the obvious choice to replace him for the gig.
"He's fascinating, on stage and in real life," says Lee Koonce, President and Artistic Director of Gateways Music Festival. "He's like a force of nature. He is this enormous presence. And a lot of people worked with him in Hollywood. Many of our musicians have played in Black Panther [Parnther is conducting performances of Göransson's score for the Marvel film at concert halls around the country]. So they knew him. They knew his work. They knew his work ethic, they knew this high level of musicality. And so he was the first choice of musicians.
The program, which Parnther inherited from Morgan, will include works by Brahms, as well as late composers George Walker and Florence Price. Carnegie Hall Perspectives 2021-2022 artist — and recent Grammy winner for album of the year — Jon Batiste will join the orchestra on piano for the premiere of his new work "I Can."
During our conversation, Parnther charted his journey from Lynchburg to Hollywood, shared his impressions of the play he will conduct in New York, and expressed his dismay at the lack of openings for Black American classical musicians: "The difference between privilege and disadvantage is opportunity. »
How did you find your way to the bassoon, which doesn't strike me as the first instrument a musically inclined child would gravitate towards?
Growing up in the 80s and 90s, I was obsessed with two things. One was Star Wars. But the other thing was I desperately wanted to go to theme parks and ride roller coasters. And in Virginia, we used to see ads for Kings Dominion all the time, which was a big Paramount Studios theme park near Richmond. I remember in eighth grade I heard the lady on the intercom say, "Will all the college band members show up at the bus for their trip to King's Dominion." And then half the class got up, grabbed all those weird instrument cases and ran away from there, leaving the rest of us behind. Two days later, when they came back from the trip, they were like, “That was so much fun. And we did this new ride and this new ride. And they're like, "Oh, and by the way, we're going back next year, and me and I hear we're going to play Star Wars.” I hope you are joking? Star Wars? Rule of kings? I'm in!
So what I did next was I opened the dictionary, like we do, to find out what instrument I'm going to play in the band. I opened it to the A section of and saw the accordion. And, and I'm like, “What a cheesy, horrible instrument. No, I need an instrument that people will respect and find really cool. So I turned to the B section and saw the bassoon. “This one is really going to knock them down. So I took my little dictionary the next week to the band manager and said, 'Hi, my name is Anthony Panther and I plan to play bassoon. I didn't even know how to hold it properly. So that's how it happened. And they didn't go to Kings Dominion the next year, and they didn't play Star Wars. I was duped and overcompensated all these years later.
You went to Northwestern and then to Yale, where you studied conducting. Did you know at that time that you wanted to make it your job?
I knew I just wanted to make music any way I could. And ideally, I wanted to do both: play and direct. Because I had so much admiration for Leonard Bernstein, and sometimes he sat at the piano. I tried to take the piano, and I was pretty miserable. I still am to this day. But I wanted to be the kind of musician who could do a bit of everything. So I still play [the bassoon] and I'm a very active player to this day. As a conductor, I think you have a responsibility to play your instrument as well as possible before asking someone else to play their instrument.
What are the differences between conducting a Hollywood score and conducting a symphony orchestra for a concert?
Well, the main difference – usually, not always – is that when I'm conducting film music, the composer is usually 20 feet away. And alive. (Not that I still only conduct the music of deceased composers for symphony orchestras.) But those are very different responsibilities. I just treat each day differently: Today my responsibility is to Ludwig Goransson [composer of the mandalorian and Turning Red, among many other scores]. And then the next day, my responsibility falls to Ludwig von Beethoven. In fact, I just found this. I feel smart enough for that. The two most famous Ludwigs!
Because film composers stand next to you, do you think you can't take so many liberties? Or does that make it more of a collaboration? How does their presence affect the music?
I don't feel that, even if I conduct the music of Beethoven or Mozart, it's my job as a conductor to take liberties. I have a very strict sense of it. It's my job as a conductor to make the composer's intentions come true. Now, I know there are other conductors out there who want to make their own mark, but I don't really agree. I'm really of the opinion that if I look at the score, most of the answers are in what the composer wrote. Of course, this is not always the case. There are places where you really have to know what the intent was at the time and things along those lines, but most of the answers are in the notation and it's my job to realize what was written.
How did your engagement with the Gateways Festival Orchestra come about?
I have long admired the Gateways Festival Orchestra. I have known him for at least 15 years. And longtime musical director Michael Morgan was an internationally renowned conductor. And he conducted one of the other great orchestras here in California for many years, the Oakland Symphony. When I started my undergraduate studies, it was the end of his time as associate conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. And it's one of the very, very rare times that an African-American has had a position of this magnitude in an orchestra of this level of prominence. He has therefore been an important figure in classical music for 35 to 40 years. Before he died [in August 2021]my plan was to assist the Carnegie Hall concert. But I was deeply honored that out of all the wonderful conductors the Gateways Festival Orchestra could have hired, they chose me.
Rehearsals probably won't start until the week before the show. But tell me about your impressions of the different pieces you will perform?
Michael and the orchestra had chosen this program, but I was really grateful to inherit it. You have music from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. And all this is extraordinarily different from each other. You have the Brahms, Variations on a Theme by Haydnand what is interesting in this play is that the themes are not by Haydn. [Laughs] But that being irrelevant, Brahms' themes are really basic symphonic repertoire. I mean, it's one of the most well-known and adored plays in all of literature. It's something many people have heard many times and it will be our opportunity to breathe life as only the Bridge Orchestra could.
And then we move on to Walker and Price. George Walker is the first black composer to win the Pulitzer Prize. And he, especially at the beginning of his career, was one of the most prominent pianists in the world. I think people will find it meticulously written, meticulously marked and very expressive. This one is particularly turbulent and shocking from start to finish. It is a piece that is shrouded in turmoil. Florence's pricing couldn't be more different. It's borderline neo-romantic, very melodious and melodic, while George Walker's work borders on atonality. So two completely different works by two revolutionary composers. And then of course, we have a score that I haven't seen yet, because it's being finished by Jon Batiste. So the ink won't even be dry on this piece when we start reading it. And then we'll end the whole concert with “Lift Every Voice and Sing”.
How does the mission of the Gateways Festival Orchestra to showcase the talent of black musicians speak to you, given the lack of representation of black musicians in symphony orchestras?
Well, that resonates deeply because there is a myth that there is a lack of qualified black classical musicians. And I can tell you that the lack is not in the availability of qualified musicians. The lack is in the platform or access to institutions for these musicians to flourish. So when people say, "Well, I just don't know any qualified black musicians," well, you're about to see an orchestra of 100 of them, all in one place. But I can tell you that it's a fraction of the people I know, and know, who have the same level of training and expertise and experience, but just don't have the platform to play many professional symphony orchestras. We count…
SOURCE: Reviews News
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