‘Better than the dream’: New World Symphony artistic director reflects on debut season
Stéphane Denève is still living the dream.
He has an ideal job for a man truly in love with music. Not only is he a world renowned conductor and the music director of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, but since September, he is also the artistic director of Miami’s prestigious New World Symphony, the second in the orchestral academy’s history.
“My dream came true,” he said. “The reality is even better than the dream.”
He sat down for a recent video interview beaming with excitement for this weekend. He had just gotten back from rehearsing with the New World fellows, a cohort of music school graduates, mostly in their mid-20s, who come to the symphony to hone their skills in a three-year program before jetting off to orchestras and ensembles around the world.
They’re cooking up something big: a world premiere of a commissioned work by Guillaume Connesson, one of the most widely performed French composers.
Saturday and Sunday mark the last two concerts of Denève’s first season as artistic director after New World’s co-founder and first artistic director Michael Tilson Thomas announced he would step down from the role because of health concerns.
As Denève prepared for this weekend’s grand finale, he reflected on the work he and the fellows have done in the last year and his goals for the future.
“I’m now at the helm of this fabulous, musical cruise boat,” Denève said. “We can go very far, and we can visit many destinations. It’s a fabulous ship.”
Spring at the symphony
Miami doesn’t typically experience all four seasons. It’s usually varying degrees of sort of hot, hot and very hot.
Denève plans to change that by taking audiences on a musical journey through the seasons that has never been heard before.
The program for the concerts this weekend begins with two works by Academy Award-winning composer John Williams, the man behind the music of “Jaws,” “Star Wars,” “E.T.,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and the “Harry Potter” series. But don’t expect to hear his Hollywood hits at the symphony.
The first piece, conducted by New World fellow Molly Turner, is “Just Down West Street...on the left.” Williams wrote the five-minute work in 2015 for the 75th anniversary of the Tanglewood Music Center in western Massachusetts. The name is a set of directions; If you ask the locals how to get to Tanglewood, they’d say “just down West Street, on the left.” Denève compared the lively piece to a shot of “triple espresso.”
The program takes a more somber turn with “Concerto No. 1 for Violin and Orchestra,” which will be performed with award-winning violinist James Ehnes. Williams wrote the work in 1974 while mourning the sudden death of his wife, Barbara.
Then comes the highly-anticipated world premiere of Connesson’s “Les trois saisons (The three seasons).“ Denève is overjoyed with it.
“We have a potential master work premiering this weekend,” Denève said. “You never know, of course, when a piece is new.”
“Les trois saisons” was written as a prelude to Igor Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring,” the 1913 classic which happens to be the final performance of the program.
Connesson’s piece was inspired by the Greek myth of Demeter, the goddess of harvest who lost her daughter Persephone to the underworld of Hades. In order to save the world’s harvests, Zeus convinced Hades to allow Persephone to return to her mother for most of the year and return to the underworld in the winter.
Over about 13 minutes of music, “Les trois saisons” starts energetically in summer, when Demeter is frantically searching for her daughter. Her sadness overcomes her in the fall, which leads into the dreary calm of winter. Connesson’s piece ends with a bassoon solo, the same way Stravinsky’s piece begins.
The two Frenchmen have been friends for over 20 years, Denève said, laughing as he scrolled through old photos of Connosson on his phone.
In 1999, the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington D.C. asked Denève to conduct a piece by a living French composer. He wanted to perform something new, and stumbled upon a phenomenal piece of work by a young composer named Connosson, who he had never heard of before. A publisher connected the two, who have been friends ever since. The performance in 2001 was Denève’s symphonic debut in the United States.
When asked if he feels a large sense of responsibility to premiere his friend’s work, Denève leaned into the camera and raised his eyebrows. Yes, yes he does.
“I feel like a mother wanting to give birth,” he said. “I feel very responsible for the delivery.”
It’s not easy for an orchestra to learn and perform a work that no one has ever heard before, Denève said, but the fellows rose to the occasion. They’ve had a strong season and are quick to learn new, challenging material, he said.
“That’s something that touches me a lot. From September to now, it’s amazing how the orchestra grew,” he said. “And of course, [there’s] spring again. We’ll have a summer, and then we’ll start with a third of new people.”
‘Forever young’
A celebration of spring is a fitting end for a symphony season that began with an ode to the sea. The upcoming concert’s program, which is almost entirely of works by living composers, reflects Denève’s mission at New World, too.
“I’m very happy with the journey we’ve had this year,” Denève said.
New World’s season began in September with an experimental, atmospheric visual component projected inside the concert hall as the orchestra performed Claude Debussy’s “La mer.”
Thinking back on the season, Denève rattled off some key moments that stood out to him. He remembers fondly the symphony’s passionate and touching performance of “Romeo + Juliet.” There was the time he conducted Mozart’s Grand Partita with New World alumni. During Black History Month, the symphony resurrected the work of pioneering jazz pianist Mary Lou Williams.
Another standout was a unique concert that paired the work of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Jennifer Higdon with The Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” Princess Leia’s theme from “Star Wars” and Dolly Parton’s “The Grass is Blue.”
“Already in his first year, he didn’t make it a cookie cutter season,” said Dominique Bégin, a third-year New World violin fellow. “We played some very interesting pieces, some unusual programs. He’s very open to experimentation, and he’s a great fit for New World because of this.”
This weekend is bittersweet for 27-year-old Bégin, as Sunday is his last concert as a fellow. Originally from Québec City, Bégin will return to Canada for a job with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra.
Denève continues in Tilson Thomas’ legacy, Bégin said. Not only is Denève open to trying new things, he remains meticulous in achieving the sound and musical excellence he is looking for, Bégin said. And he’s a lot of fun to work with, too. Bégin recalled the time Denève tried conducting the fellows while wearing a virtual reality headset just to experiment.
“He wants to share music with as many people as possible and make our art known,” Bégin said.
Denève hopes to bring the joy of music to even more people next season, which he’s already planning. He mentioned a future project that commemorates the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. Musicians have an important role to play in bringing people together in a positive way, he said.
When asked about the lessons he’s learned in his first year, Denève reflected on the conversations he’s had with the symphony’s young fellows. Every day, he said, he learns something new about their generation’s interests, hopes and concerns. That’s something he is grateful for.
“It’s an orchestra forever new, and it gives me an opportunity to be forever young,” he said.
New World Symphony season finale
When: May 11 at 8 p.m.; May 12 at 2 p.m.
Where: New World Center, 500 17th St., Miami Beach
Info: Tickets available to purchase online at https://www.nws.edu/events-tickets/concerts/2023-2024/season-finale-deneve-and-ehnes/#/tickets
This story was produced with financial support from individuals and Berkowitz Contemporary Arts in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners, as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The Miami Herald maintains full editorial control of this work.
