Boyce Lancaster talks with Maestro Albert-George Schram, the resident staff conductor of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, about how much easier and joyful it is when the symphony and audience can connect. [audio src="http://wosu.org/audio/classical/2006/SpeaktheAudiencesLanguage2.mp3"]
Highlights From This Interview:
Boyce: "When the audience is drawn to the orchestra, and the orchestra and audience connect, there's a lot of electricity in the auditorium. It has to help you play." Albert-George: "Yes. I think it makes it more meaningful. Every note we play is meant to be shared with the people that listen to it. And it's not always easy." Albert-George: "It's not always about a lot of the music that makes the symphony orchestra sounds best, and that was written for the symphony orchestra; it's not necessarily at all part of the vernacular of our average audiences. And so I think it's incredibly important from where I am coming from to connect, because if we don't, the audiences will be smaller and smaller." Albert-George: "I'm still very much aware that I'm conducting 80 professional artists in their own right, and that together they play music written by great genius, great works of art. That we are, as minstrels of the city, allowed to play, and mandated to play. What a gift that is."