What Musicians Want from their Conductor--and Why it Matters

All of these comments, and many more like them, have been made to me over my career by well-meaning board members of orchestras. This is not really surprising, because most orchestra board members are not professionals in the orchestra business and have no experience with orchestras other than their own. And some music directors, in their own interest, and as a form of self protection, promote that kind of thinking.

I can tell you without any doubt--after 45 years in this business, and having spent time with more than 150 different American orchestras--that that kind of thinking is way, way off the mark.  

People choose to make a life as performing musicians with one goal--to make the best music that they can make. This is true whether they are playing as soloists, or as chamber musicians, or in an orchestra. What orchestra musicians want is a conductor who displays both technical competence and emotional communication. Not all musicians will agree on whether the conductor is doing that successfully. When I was managing the Chicago Symphony, I once got two letters, after a multi-week residency by a guest conductor, from two experienced musicians. One complained that my engagement of this particular conductor was an insult to the CSO because of the lack of clarity of his beat, the other said "there is no guest conductor I look forward to with keener anticipation than XXX." I photocopied the two letters, whiting out the names, and sent them to the opposite musician with a note from me that said "see how hard it is to get a consensus around here."

You will rarely get unanimity from an orchestra about a music director or a guest conductor. But the truth is that you will almost always get an obvious consensus. And it is not true that support will be earned by being the "easiest on the orchestra." In fact, I know of many cases where orchestra musicians demanded a change precisely because they felt their music director was not demanding enough. Yes, they want "demanding" to be done with professionalism and respect, not rudely or dictatorially. But musicians want to be challenged and stretched. If a majority of any orchestra thinks it is time for a change, in my experience it is virtually always time for a change. And devaluing the opinions of an orchestra will be as strong a morale killer as just about anything.

The whole idea of "employees picking their boss" is evidence of a complete misunderstanding of the relationship between musicians and their conductor. Yes, there is an element of "the boss" about the role. But more importantly there is the role of colleague. A cliché among musicians is that the one instrument in the orchestra that makes no sound is the baton. And there's a reason for this: The conductor's job is to lead, inspire, provoke, stimulate, challenge, and bring about a performance that comes alive to the audience as something more than a recitation of the notes. That requires a relationship based on something more than fear. Fear may have worked in the old days of Reiner, Szell, or Toscanini. But we live in a different time. People's expectations are different, their rights (protected by a union) are different, and that manner simply won't do.  Conductors who base their approach to the job on old-fashioned authority, and nothing more, are in the end bound to fail.

Another remark I have occasionally heard from board members is that "about 10 or 15 percent of our orchestra doesn't like the conductor, another 10 or 15 percent love him, and the remaining 80 or 85 percent don't care, they just want to come in and do their job.  I guarantee you that that is never true. I have never met an orchestra where 80 percent (or even 25 percent) of the members didn't care. The conductor has more power over their professional and musical lives, and the way they make music, than any other person.  To assume that they wouldn't consider him the most important aspect of their professional lives is to misunderstand the nature of musicians.