Bringing Mozart alive

''It was so nice to go from being on one side of the podium to being on the other side,''Andrew...
''It was so nice to go from being on one side of the podium to being on the other side,''Andrew Grams said of his move from orchestra violinist to conductor.
Mozart's music has been described as divine, but conductor Andrew Grams tells Charmian Smith that, for him, Mozart is about knowing what it means to be alive as a human being.

Andrew Grams says he got into conducting because he was ''young and foolish enough to think I can do it better than others''. Southern ears have the opportunity to judge next week, when he conducts the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra's South Island tour of all-Mozart concerts.

Grams began as a violinist, and maintained a position in the New York Ballet Orchestra while studying conducting.

''It was so nice to go from being on one side of the podium to being on the other side of the podium and get to see what things do work and what things don't work more importantly.

Having the experience of being an orchestra violinist - being an orchestra player, no matter which instrument - really does inform how you work as a conductor,'' he says in a phone interview from Wellington, where he was rehearsing with the orchestra.

This is the American conductor's second series of concerts with the NZSO and he was looking forward to spending three weeks with it, first rehearsing, then on tour.

Usually, he works with an orchestra for only a week, then after the concert jets off to the next one.

For the past decade, since he has been working as a freelance conductor, he has conducted an impressive number of orchestras in North America, Europe and Australia.

He has recently been appointed conductor and musical director of the Elgin Symphony Orchestra in Illinois.

''Going from orchestra to orchestra is eye-opening. It makes you realise the world is a very big place and music is universal. Something that doesn't sit too comfortably with me is not working with the same people constantly.

"While it is an attractive and fun thing to have that sort of variety, when you are stuck in front of an orchestra for the first time or an orchestra you've seen only once in a couple of years, you feel you are starting afresh again.''

Orchestras all over the world have a consistently high level of ability and you can get to the heart of the music quickly, but each has its own specific culture and dynamic, and ways of relating to themselves and the conductor - even within one country orchestras will have wildly different cultures, Grams says.

''You have some that really want detailed integrative rehearsal and some that only want big-picture ideas in rehearsal.

"You have some that just don't like to rehearse at all, and some that like to take a very relaxed attitude and some that want to take a more concentrated attitude. But all orchestras want the performance to go as well as it possibly can.

"That is a constant. Even the ones that don't want to rehearse want to play really well - 'trust us, it'll be there'. It's a bit of a negotiation. I have to respect them and be flexible with them to a point and they have to do the same with me,'' he says.

A small complement of the NZSO is on this South Island tour, while another section of the orchestra is touring a Beethoven concert in the North Island. It enables the orchestra to perform in smaller halls that wouldn't accommodate the full orchestra, according to publicity manager Trudy Shannon.

Mozart's orchestra was smaller than the big romantic orchestras of the late 19th century, so the concert will be intimate, Grams says.

The three pieces are quite different from each other.

The Abduction from the Seraglio: Overture is an energetic, exotic piece incorporating percussion and piccolo, not usual in Mozart, but which is intended to capture the exotic flavour of an empire in Turkey.

''On the other end of the programme we have the great G minor symphony [No 40], which is a later work that has a lot of not just cloudiness but a lot of turmoil, a lot of strife. It's very striking - not just pretty Mozart. It's a very tension-filled Mozart.

''In the middle, the Sinfonia Concertante is a wonderful piece for violin and viola solos that has a bit more of the charming Mozart element to it, but there's still a patina of a slight seriousness about life that we don't usually associate with Mozart,'' he says.

Mozart's ease of composition was envied by other composers, many of whom had to struggle to create masterpieces but the music seemed to flow out of Mozart's pen.

''The thing about Mozart to me - yes, he had this reputation for bad behaviour and crudeness - but much of his music conveys a knowledge and understanding about what it means to be human, to be alive, and the happiness and sorrow that comes with living life - all that comes through in his music.''

Like many other composers, Mozart recycled melodies and motifs, Grams says.

''He wasn't necessarily repetitive, but he was very good at recycling. He could take something from one setting and he could twist and turn it just a little bit so it changes its meaning completely and turn it into a different piece.''

Mozart may not be technically difficult to play, but playing it honestly and making effective communication is not as easy as it would seem, he says.

''Mozart's music is deep, it's rich, it can be profound, it can be light, it can be silly, and in order to make a strong impact with it on the public it takes more effort to play Mozart extremely well than it does just about any other composer.

''Just playing something louder or more hard doesn't necessarily give the same impact with Mozart's music as it does with say Mahler, so you have to find a way to make a strong impact without impacting something,'' he says.

''That's the magic of music. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. It's a big exploration that the players and myself have to go through together to try to find the most effective way of working together on this.''

Catch it
The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Andrew Grams, with Vesa-Matti Leppanen on violin and Julia Joyce on viola will play Mozart's The Abduction from the Seraglio: Overture, Sinfonia Concertante and Symphony No. 40 in G minor in Dunedin on August 21, Oamaru on August 22 and Timaru on August 23.

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