New Music Director of the Brooklyn Philharmonic

[Ralph]

Totally overshadowed for most music-lovers by Manhattan and the New York Philharmonic and visiting top orchestras, the Brooklyn Philharmonic is a true treasure. Were it in any other city national attention would be assured.

From The New York Times:

August 12, 2005
Brooklyn Philharmonic Names a New Music Director
By DANIEL J. WAKIN

The Brooklyn Philharmonic yesterday named Michael Christie, a 31-year-old Buffalo native and the recently appointed chief of the Phoenix Symphony, as its music director.

He takes over after a two-year search that left the orchestra leaderless after the departure of Robert Spano, who had stayed on as an adviser. Mr. Christie, who was Mr. Spano's former student, will conduct three of the orchestra's four subscription concerts at the Brooklyn Academy of Music this season.

He will also start his job as music director in Phoenix in September, and continues in the same role at the Colorado Music Festival. For the time being, he said, he will continue to be a guest conductor at the Queensland Orchestra in Australia, where he was artistic director and chief conductor from 2001 to 2004.

Like many conductors before him, Mr. Christie put down an instrument to stand up on the podium. But his instrument was the trumpet, unusual in the conducting business, and unlike other instrumentalist-conductors, he never really had a chance for a trumpet career. Conducting took over too quickly.

Indeed, as a junior at the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, he won a special prize at the First International Sibelius Conductor's Competition in Helsinki, in 1995. That led to an apprenticeship at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and work with Daniel Barenboim. He studied with Mr. Spano at Oberlin. He said his most influential mentor was Franz Welser-Möst, who hired him as assistant conductor at the Zurich Opera. Mr. Welser-Möst is now music director of the Cleveland Orchestra.

Mr. Christie said, though, that the call of the trumpet had returned: the principal conductor of the Phoenix Pops orchestra is Doc Severinsen, who wants to play a duet at the start of the season.

"I've been practicing a whole lot," Mr. Christie said.

He said he regretted not pursuing a trumpet career. "I never had the chance to have the terror of an audition, to stand behind the screen, and no one knows who you are," he said. That has given him respect for orchestra players, he said.

"I keep flirting with the idea of one day taking a sabbatical and getting my chops as strong as I can and just showing up - and getting knocked out in the first round."

Mr. Christie said that it was too early to talk about programs next year in Brooklyn, but that he had expressed interest to the orchestra's management in doing works with chorus. New and unusual music, the orchestra's franchise in a city with Carnegie Hall, the New York Philharmonic and countless other musical groups, will also be high on the agenda, he said. He added that he was contemplating a program involving indigenous Australian music.

Mr. Christie said he had an open mind about the amplification system used in the 2,100-seat Howard Gilman Opera House at the Brooklyn Academy, which has drawn criticism. If amplification systems improve an orchestra's sound in a particular hall, "then I don't have a problem with it," he said.

Mr. Christie conducted one program at the Brooklyn Philharmonic last season. The performance consisted of a commission from Jennifer Higdon, "Dooryard Bloom," and Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

Allan Kozinn, a music critic for The New York Times, wrote that Mr. Christie led a "shapely, persuasive performance" of the Higdon work and delivered a "brisk and generally solid" account of the Beethoven Ninth, "give or take the occasional misjudged balance."

The perennially cash-strapped Philharmonic, which is made up of top New York freelancers, says it is on the road to financial well-being, having reduced its debt to $300,000 from $700,000 and raised $200,000 in cash reserves. The orchestra expects to retire its debt by the end of 2006, said Catherine M. Cahill, the chief executive.