Baton down the hatches

Today’s question is about hiring assistant conductors.

I worry about the role of the assistant conductor. My experience here is this:

Early in my career in San Francisco we had to hire a couple of assistant conductors. Auditions were held, where the candidates got to conduct us; the best one was hired. In each case I felt that the candidate hired did in fact have some obvious talent. One in particular I remember having a wonderful sense of tempo/meter.

Then, after they were hired, they got to sit around a lot and listen and wait for an opportunity to actually conduct. They got to hear and observe us and the conductors, they learned a lot of music (because they have to be prepared to step in at a moment’s notice).

I think that this waiting is a terrible thing. When they actually got up on the podium, it was my sense that several of them deteriorated. They got nervous. The one with great tempo, for example, managed not to be able to maintain the tempo, after a couple of years of waiting.

This changed when the Symphony established the Youth Orchestra, and the Assistant Conductor was put in charge of it. With the YO he was at least able to get up onto a podium and conduct a real orchestra weekly. At this point, I was able to see the conductors show improvement.

A conductor has to conduct.

More recently, in our orchestra, because the job grew to where one person couldn’t really do both jobs (Assistant and Youth Orchestra), they hired two conductors. Unfortunately, I retired before I could assess how this would play out.

So far, though, I haven’t said anything about how to hire an assistant conductor.

What we have done is, a search was made somehow (I was not aware how), and several candidates were given the chance to conduct the San Francisco Symphony. (I liked the candidate who said that conducting us was like driving a Ferrarri.)

Then, those in the know and with power (meaning the Music Director and whomever he chose, but certainly not me) would pow-wow and decide whom to hire.

Frankly, I don’t know any other way of dealing with this. I hope my colleagues on this Forum have better ideas, since I don’t.