Louisiana Philharmonic's New Leader

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I've gotta say I'm pretty excited. The LPO just wrapped up its season with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony on Friday night with an incredible performance.

Carlos Miguel Prieto has been named as the new Music Director and having seen him conduct several times and from his chats with the audience after the concerts, I certainly think he is the right man for the job.


From the Times-Picayune:

Sunday, May 21, 2006
By Elizabeth Mullener
Staff writer

Carlos Prieto bounded onto the stage, beaming a radiant smile. He opened his arms wide and bowed deeply. Then he turned his back, picked up his baton and went to work

For the next two hours, in his new role as music director, he led the members of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, wordlessly but intensely. His body movements ranged from fluid and dancerly to precise and military. His face showed everything from sublime repose to fierce tension. His baton sliced and pumped and glided and sometimes drew languorous circles in the air. And through it all, he revealed a guileless kind of charm that derives from his inclination to have a good time.

As he brought the orchestra to a thunderous finish with Ravel's "Bolero" -- the drums crashing, the trumpets blaring -- the audience was instantly on its feet. Again and again, he was called back to the stage. He embraced the concertmaster, he basked in the accolades, he turned to the musicians and clapped robustly for them.

And then, as the applause waned and he walked off the stage for the final time, someone in the audience -- a man with a booming voice -- called out two words that rose above the din: "Thank you!"

It was a Katrina moment: melancholy and joyful at the same time, heartbreaking and affirming, powerfully poignant. It got to everyone in the house. Including Carlos Prieto.

"It gave me hope," he says, remembering the occasion a few weeks later. "I didn't think it was about how we played or what we played. I think it was just simply THAT we played. I think he was thanking the orchestra for the great effort of putting that concert together.

"I didn't feel like the man was thanking me. He was thanking the orchestra. And if there was ever an orchestra that deserves the thanks, it would be this one."

. . . . . . .

Blond and buoyant at 40, with a boyish face, a trim build and blue eyes the color of plumbago, Prieto comes from a prominent musical family in Mexico City. His father is a world-class cellist. His ancestors, going back five generations, have been string players. And for at least that long, the Prietos have maintained a family quartet.

With a home in San Angel Inn, a colonial section of Mexico City, Prieto spends much of his time on the road with his family -- wife Isabel Mariscal, a former ballerina with the Mexican National Ballet; 2-year-old Ana and baby Cecilia, born in March. He holds conducting positions with two other orchestras: Houston and Huntsville, Ala. He speaks four languages -- Spanish, English, French and Italian plus some German. He plays tennis, he has a taste for literature, he likes fine port wines.

It was only last June, after a lengthy selection process and several turns as guest conductor, that Prieto was named music director of the LPO for a tenure that begins in the fall. It was a Friday night in April that he took the stage for the Ravel concert, his first time in New Orleans since he landed the job.

The emotion that filled the auditorium that April night had something to do with his allegiance.

"The easy thing for him to do after the hurricane would have been to ask us to tear up the contract," says Stephen Hales, longtime board member of the LPO.

And who would have blamed him?

"You can imagine, when I took this job, that a hurricane was not part of the package," Prieto says. "But it's a challenge. I've taken it as a personal challenge -- a big one. It's an opportunity to do something that's bigger than music.

"We'll have some difficult moments. But I think we'll have some great moments, too. I told the orchestra I will always be a factor for optimism. And I will. I will not be a negative factor. That's a promise."

. . . . . . .

In the immediate aftermath of Katrina, optimism was a crucial ingredient in the fate of the LPO.

The musicians were scattered across the country and ultimately performed with 61 different orchestras. The audience was gone, too. And the Orpheum Theater, the orchestra's residence for 24 years, was grievously damaged. Floodwater rose to the level of the stage, drowning all the chairs on the first floor plus all the equipment in the basement, including music stands and xylophones and a treasured set of German drums that look now like they came off the Titanic.

But the orchestra's leadership took the position early on that members needed to know there was still a musical home for them in New Orleans.

"My number one priority was to ensure the musicians believed the organization would be here for them," says Hugh Long, president of the board of trustees.

Considering that New Orleans has had classical music performances almost since its founding in the 18th century, the issue seemed to be a consequential one.

"We could not imagine this city without an orchestra," says Babs Mollere, managing director. "So we started from day one after the hurricane to say we will solve any problem to keep this orchestra intact. And we just started doing it on a day-to-day basis. Along the way we have garnered support, both monetary and emotional, from people throughout the United States who said you just cannot lose this orchestra."

As the only orchestra in the country owned and operated by its players, the LPO has always gotten more than its share of media attention and well-wishing from musicians around the country. At the same time, it has gotten less than its share of money.

"These musicians are heroes," Prieto says. "They have a salary of $17,000-something. They do very much for very little."

After 11 years under the steady hand of Maestro Klauspeter Seibel, the LPO had achieved a solid position among the orchestras of mid-size American cities, emerging as a mature ensemble with a sound and style of its own.

Orchestras, according to musicians, have personalities. "Feisty" is the way Jim Atwood, timpanist and president of the LPO, describes its personality. But five years from now, he says, Prieto is likely to have made his mark on it.

"We might be playing with a little more abandon," he says. "He wants us to take risks. Not to settle for safe. He encourages that."

Before the storm, the LPO seemed on the verge of moving up a notch in the musical world. It remains to be seen whether that is still the case.

"Carlos wants to go to the next level with this orchestra -- both for the musicians and because he's at that stage in his own career," Mollere says. "And without any doubt, the eyes of the performing arts world are on New Orleans in a very different way.

"So it's a fabulous alignment. He has a wonderful opportunity, as does this orchestra, to really strut its stuff here. I think he's up to the challenge."

. . . . . . .

It is a glorious spring morning and the refined halls of Christ Church Cathedral on St. Charles Avenue are reverberating with the raucous sounds of Maurice Ravel. The April concert is just two days away and the entire orchestra is squeezed into a way-too-small room just off the Bishop's Garden where Prieto is leading them in rehearsal.

Dressed in a blue guayabera shirt, he is working hard and sweating some, stopping occasionally to consult the score, to break into song or to offer direction.

"OK, we need to have this very clear: bum da da bum, bum da da bum."

"Can I hear just the strings now?"

"I'm talking about percussion here. Let's try to play this as percussively as possible."

Nearly everyone who describes Prieto's conducting style uses the same three words: exuberant, enthusiastic, effusive. On the other hand, they say he is steady and focused and dependable.

"He's a perfect blend of left-brain and right-brain," says trumpeter Michael Bucalo. "Conductors tend to be weighted on one side or the other: analytical to the point of being obscure and boring or passionate to the point of being a little nuts.

"He's neither boring nor nuts."

For most of the musicians, it is a happy combination.

"He knows just what he wants to hear, how he wants to hear it," says Greg Miller, trombonist and LPO operations manager, speaking of Prieto's left-brain logical side. "He runs a tight rehearsal. There's no fumbling around -- trying it this way or that way. I like that direct approach. Let's have legato here, let's have this phrasing there. When he finishes, you have a clear idea of what he wants.

"And he will perform the music the same way he rehearsed it. That doesn't always happen (with other conductors)."

Atwood, on the other hand, admires Prieto for his right-brain ways.

"Conductors' personalities on the podium sort of run the gamut -- just like human beings," he says. "There are reserved and intellectual conductors and there are happy and jovial conductors.

"In Carlos' case, he is an impassioned conductor. That's a wonderful thing to see. Very inspiring for the musicians."

"He continually impresses me," flutist Patti Adams says. "In a very respectful manner, he will insist on having his way. You find yourself playing it the way he wants with a smile on your face. That's an astonishing talent: He's demanding but he makes you feel happy about it."

Bucalo points out that "maestro," the term of address traditionally used for conductors, means "teacher," not "master."

"He never condescends," Bucalo says. "He never browbeats anyone when things don't go the way he wants. He's always encouraging. He insists it be right, but he's never punitive."

Prieto assesses his strengths and weaknesses in his own way. One of his drawbacks, he says, is that he looks younger than he is. His major asset, he feels, is his commitment to the enterprise.

"I'm passionate, I feel strongly about the music, I have a message," he says. "The music goes through me and has something to say. Music is first; it's not me before the music."

He finds inspiration for his commitment in an unpredictable place.

"I take a lesson from Mick Jagger," he says. "Did you see the Super Bowl? He was the best thing in the Super Bowl.

"The lesson is, here's a guy who does what he does with complete and absolute commitment. He sits there singing 'Satisfaction.' How many times do you think he's done that song? But every single time, it needs to feel to that person in the audience like the first and only time.

"I do over 100 concerts a year. But I do not allow myself to think for even one second that this is my 93rd concert. Because if you are buying a ticket, you don't want to go to the 93rd.

"Every concert has to feel like the one and only."

. . . . . . .

Prieto took a curious route to the conductor's podium: He got an undergraduate degree in engineering from Princeton University and a master's of business administration from Harvard.

"I cannot tell you why," he says, laughing at himself. "At that age, I wasn't very mature."

It was not a choice that came out of the blue. Prieto's father, besides being a cellist and a best-selling author, is also an engineer and the Prieto family, French and Spanish in origin, has long been engaged in manufacturing. After schooling, Prieto took a job in the sugar industry in Mexico. It didn't last long.

"I began to understand that this wasn't making me happy," he says. "It was a defining moment for me. A very big crisis. I changed course completely."

At age 27, he was getting a late start in the music business. But despite the fact that he never went to a formal conservatory, his entire upbringing, he says, was pretty much akin to one.

"I have known all the important orchestral repertoire for as long as I remember," he says. "I started learning scores from age 7 or 8. I don't remember ever not knowing all the Beethoven symphonies, all of Tchaikovsky's, all the major repertoire from memory.

"I have always been obsessed with music," he says. "Obsessed.

"I remember my father would put on a record and I would learn it listen to it until I felt that I knew it. It is a very big advantage. When you learn something when you are little, you really have it inside you."

These days, he says, the music he hears most is from "Barney," thanks to his 2-year-old daughter. But as a teenager, Prieto took an interest in rock 'n' roll -- The Who, the Rolling Stones, Dire Straits. He was never interested in heavy metal, he says. He is engaged by the blues and by rap, although he doesn't follow their development. He has always, he says, loved jazz, and he has been known to stop by Snug Harbor after a concert.

"Oh yes, yes, jazz always -- since early childhood," he says.

. . . . . . .

On Aug. 29 last year, Prieto was in Seoul, South Korea, watching with horror as the scene unfolded in New Orleans.

"It was tough, very tough," he says. "I watched TV all the time."

He had been smitten with the city since his first trip here, with his wife, three years ago.

"It was love at first sight," he says. "Few American cities have so much personality. San Francisco does, New York does, of course Boston does. But there are so many cities that don't have this essential thing about them.

"New Orleans has this thing that cannot be described with words. It has to do with history and tradition and the enjoyment of life. It's real. It's the real thing."

So early on, when the news out of New Orleans seemed dicey -- especially the news about the LPO -- Prieto was stunned.

"It was a scary moment," he says. "It's scary for an orchestra not to have a home, not to know what the audience is, not to know whether people will support you."

It wasn't long, though, before the world -- at least the musical world -- responded.

First the Baton Rouge Symphony donated office space. Next the president of the Nashville (Tenn.) Symphony offered his concert hall for the LPO's opening night in October -- and got his corporate sponsors to fly in LPO musicians from all over the country. A few weeks later, the New York Philharmonic played a benefit concert with the New Orleans orchestra at Lincoln Center with big-name soloists and five conductors, including Prieto. In February, the orchestra in San Luis Obispo, Calif., held another LPO benefit performance.

Altogether, the benefit concerts brought in about $500,000.

"There was a huge kindness-of-strangers here," says board president Long.

The kindness wasn't always in the form of money. Early on, in addition, the president of the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., phoned Mollere.

"Michael Kaiser called right after the storm," she says, "and he told me I probably didn't know it but I might be in need of his services. That has developed into a relationship where he is with us for the foreseeable future, to help us go through the rebuilding process. He's been here twice, he's helped us raise money and he's been instrumental in helping us plan for recovery.

"There's only two degrees of separation in the music community. So when the catastrophe occurred, there was an outpouring of interest, concern and dollars that was amazing," she says.

In the meantime, celebrated artists the world over donated their services to the LPO and a variety of generous grants came rolling in -- from the Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Wallace Foundation, the Bloomberg Foundation, the Knight Foundation.

"A lot of people rallied around this orchestra," Prieto says. "And we need more."

But the most touching responses were from the unlikeliest sources.

There was a little boy in the Midwest who sent his family's Christmas money. There was a school group in Albuquerque, N.M., that raised $6,500 with their school band. And there were the music students who put on a spaghetti dinner in Johnson City, Tenn., and raised $280.

"The fact of the matter is that cultural life is the heart of this city," says Sharon Litwin, LPO's administrative vice president. "People do not come to New Orleans to look at state-of-the-art automobile factories. We don't have any.

"They come to New Orleans to see the architecture, to eat the wonderful food, to see the artists, to hear music -- of all forms. And it has been so since the very beginning of time.

"At one point in this city, there were many orchestras playing at the same time. Now we have only one. And we'd better keep it."

. . . . . . .

Last year, Michael Bucalo was president of the LPO. This year, he's selling cars at Jim Brandt Chevrolet on Veterans Memorial Boulevard.

Although there have been no official resignations from the orchestra, several people, like Bucalo, have had to sit it out for a season and take jobs elsewhere in order to deal with their wiped-out houses and get their finances in order. Others have not yet returned to New Orleans. And still others are keeping one foot in the city and one elsewhere. As a result, the orchestra's membership is not quite up to its usual strength, although next season it promises to be.

Audiences, meanwhile, have been strong enough to fill the somewhat smaller venues that have been used for the spring season. But attendance at classical music concerts is declining across the country and every marketing ploy in the book has not reversed the trend.

"I think the solution is to go out on the streets with a stun gun and a net," says Atwood, laughing in desperation.

In truth, Atwood thinks Prieto might be just the man to bring audiences into the theater.

"Carlos has an unself-conscious love of the music," he says. "His enthusiasm is infectious. You can see he is in the joy of the moment when he's conducting. And he's going for it. He goes for full-throttle, over-the-top music-making."

Prieto is not entirely copacetic with some of the marketing tactics used by American orchestras.

"You can fall into the awful trap of making concerts user-friendly," he says. "It's one thing to make music more accessible but it's another thing to make it something that it isn't."

Music is not entertainment, he explains.

"To me, it's more profound than entertainment. We can't compete with a rock star or a movie or a shopping mall," he says. "You wouldn't go to a Tennessee Williams play for entertainment. It's an experience that moves you and makes you search into the big question marks in your life.

"That's what music is. You can't go to a concert with a Tchaikovsky symphony and expect to have a nice relaxing time. We want to move you. The message is as deep as it gets. And as essential as it gets."

What turns off potential concert-goers, he thinks, is their notion that they have to be educated to appreciate classical music. Or that they'll clap at the wrong time. Or that they have to get dressed up.

"That's bull," Prieto says. "I could pick someone off the street to come to a concert and that person would enjoy it. Anybody can enjoy a concert. Anybody, anybody.

"Just bring yourself, bring your openness. And what to wear? The answer is: something. Just wear something."

[Lance]

Congratulations - and blessings - to the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra for coming back when it all seemed so unlikely. Sounds like they have a good man at the helm ... energetic, bright, young, and full of promise.