Podium Time

Hello, and welcome to Podium Time. Today we’re welcoming a returning guest on the show, Maestro Gianmaria Griglio, who first appeared on the podcast all the way back on episode 18, "If You Miss a Cue." Today’s discussion is all about technique and rehearsals, and why just knowing the score is not enough to effectively communicate with an orchestra. We dig into how to translate the score into conducting gesture, how effective technique will improve your rehearsals, and when and why you should break beat patterns. We also discuss Gianmaria’s new conducting course "Pass the Baton" on the iClassical Academy and the challenges and benefits of teaching conducting digitally or through a video course.

Between our recording and this release, Gianmaria has been posting a lot of awesome conducting videos on his youtube page breaking down major pieces and showing how to apply the techniques that we discuss in this episode.

You will learn:

• Why knowledge of the score is not enough, and how to reach the next level
• How learning Conducting from an online teacher or course is infinitely better than learning from a textbook
• How your technique changes the way that the orchestra watches you
• How to derive your physical gesture from what’s in the score, and how to create conducting gestures that communicate music to the orchestra rather than only conducting in patterns
• Why pulse and time are more important than the pattern of your beat
• Why sound is the most important thing we do with our hands and the factors that lead players to ignore a conductor
• How Gianmaria selected 170 opera composers for the Opera Odyssey Project and discovered the connections that we never saw before

Learn more about Gianmaria on his website, find instructional conducting videos on his Youtube Page, and check out his course on the iClassical Academy.

Find this and all other episodes at PodiumTimePod.com. Subscribe and download Podium Time on your favorite podcast player and connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at @PodiumTimePod. You can also join our Facebook Group, the Podium Time Inner Circle to ask questions and continue the conversation after every episode. If you’d like to support the podcast monetarily and get bonus content, consider joining our Patreon community at Patreon.com/PodiumTimePod. 

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Hello and welcome to Podium Time! Today we’re talking with Roderick Cox about how you should Think Before you Feel when you start conducting professional orchestras, or really any ensemble at any level. In his words: develop your intellectual interpretation before you develop your emotional interpretation. We tend to feel the music first or follow our favorite recordings, but Roderick teaches us that, especially when you move to professional conducting, you must have a well thought-out reason behind the decisions you make. We also discuss how the urgency that young conductors feel to be successful immediately is actually slowing us down because we focus too much on our image and being public before we’re ready, leaving us unprepared and not putting our best foot forward.

You will Learn:

• The many paths to a career for young conductors, and how today’s paths are vastly different from earlier generations
• Why your next gig will come from symphony admin, not a conductor
• The urgency of young conductors that you should actively avoid, and why you should not put conducting videos online too early
• How to decide in an audition if you should rehearse more with your words or with your hands
• Arguments for and against conducting competitions
• Why you should develop an intellectual interpretation before an emotional interpretation, and how rehearsals change when you’re conducting a high-level orchestra.

Learn more about Roderick at his website http://www.roderickcox.com

Find this and all other episodes at PodiumTimePod.com. Subscribe and download Podium Time on your favorite podcast player and connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at @PodiumTimePod. You can also join our Facebook Group, the Podium Time Inner Circle to ask questions and continue the conversation after every episode. If you’d like to support the podcast monetarily and get bonus content, consider joining our Patreon community at Patreon.com/PodiumTimePod. 

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Today David Hattner walks us through the spectacular world of Historic recordings by some of the greatest conductors of the past and what we can learn by studying their interpretations. We dig into some of the most important recordings of Brahms’ 4th symphony, how and why some conductors were different in rehearsal, live performance, and studio recordings, and look at a side of Bernstein as a conductor that you’ve never seen before. We also discuss how David came from a performance background and learned to practice conducting when he wasn’t conducting, how to teach young musicians and youth orchestras to watch a conductor, and an extra special tip on how to use a metronome correctly.

You Will Learn:

• Why young musicians are often the best to judge of the quality of a new piece of music
• George Szell as a leader, musician, interpreter, and teacher
• The most important recordings of Brahms’ 4th Symphony to reveal the range of possibilities in interpretation
• Learning how to learn from historical recordings by conductors alive at the time of Brahms and Tchaikovsky
• The two veins of interpretation in great conductors of the past
• How to teach young musicians and youth orchestras how to watch a conductor
• Why you should isolate and practice basic patterns and techniques of conducting separate from any music
• Why you should always use a metronome, but by putting it on the off-beats instead of on the beats while you practice
• How to practice and improve when you’re not able to conduct regularly
• The incredible music by Dvořák that you’ve never heard of

Find this and all other episodes at PodiumTimePod.com. Subscribe and download Podium Time on your favorite podcast player and connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at @PodiumTimePod. You can also join our Facebook Group, the Podium Time Inner Circle to ask questions and continue the conversation after every episode. If you’d like to support the podcast monetarily and get bonus content, consider joining our Patreon community at Patreon.com/PodiumTimePod. 

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Today we talk with Markand Thakar, Music Director and Conductor of the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, about creating the transcendent experiences possible in your music making. We discuss how “interpretation” is not an effective word for what we can do as conductors, what Sergiu Celibidache understood about classical music and performance that almost no other conductors understand, and how Markand sought to study, practice, and teach that understanding.

You will learn:

• How to learn “aggressively,” whether by observing rehearsals, listening to recordings, or score study
• The benefits of auditing and not conducting at a workshop
• What Celibidache understood that few others do, and how Markand made that his primary goal to understand and express and teach
• Why we do art and why we do music, and understanding of the transcendent experience for the audience and the performer
• How to practice hearing every sound on the podium
• How what we think is “left to interpretation” is given in the piece and how we can discover it
• Why conducting without a score is not about memorizing the music
• How an understanding of structures and energy can lead us in an understanding of the whole work

Find this and all other episodes at PodiumTimePod.Wordpress.com. Subscribe and download Podium Time on your favorite podcast player and connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at @PodiumTimePod. You can also join our Facebook Group, the Podium Time Inner Circle to ask questions and continue the conversation after every episode. If you’d like to support the podcast monetarily and get bonus content, consider joining our Patreon community at Patreon.com/PodiumTimePod. 

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Today we talk with Phil Aguglia of PaGu Batons about he learned about the baton preferences of hundreds of conductors, how he started making custom batons for JoAnn Falletta of the Buffalo Philharmonic, his custom Baton for the 2020 Oscars celebration, and how differences in material and proportions affect just about every aspect of our batons.

This episode is also available in video on Youtube: https://youtu.be/b8DyJKywgEY

You will learn:

• Why conductors may choose one baton over another
• How to find a baton that’s comfortable
• Why Phil doesn’t use Carbon Fiber to make batons
• The massive effect of weight distribution on gesture, style, and tension
• How each conductors’ job requires a specific tool
• The custom baton the Phil made for the 2020 Oscars

Head over to PaGuBatons.com and use promo code "PodiumTime" for 20% off your first order!

Find this and all other episodes at PodiumTimePod.Wordpress.com. Subscribe and download Podium Time on your favorite podcast player and connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at @PodiumTimePod. You can also join our Facebook Group, the Podium Time Inner Circle to ask questions and continue the conversation after every episode. If you’d like to support the podcast monetarily and get bonus content, consider joining our Patreon community at Patreon.com/PodiumTimePod. 

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If you’re a conductor in quarantine and willing to question the meaning of music and your place in the world, then this is the interview for you! We talk with Christopher Rountree about how and why he realized he wasn’t interested in the standard career path for orchestral conductors, why classical music education is about isolating the work from its context, and how we can elevate the goals of our performance.

You will learn

• The higher goal of musical performance
• How Christopher approaches programming a series of concerts
• New ways of thinking about how pieces interact with each other on a classical program
• About the Fluxus movement in art and how we can question "What is Music?"
• How we've forgotten to appreciate the little things, until now
• How to redirect your rat-race energy during COVID-19 Self-Quarantine
• Conducting is the vehicle, music is the art, now go find the right people.
• Why you should be working with collaborators as often as possible
• What "Education" and "Community Engagement" really mean

Find this and all other episodes at https://PodiumTimePod.com. Subscribe and download Podium Time on your favorite podcast player and connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at @PodiumTimePod. You can also join our Facebook Group, the Podium Time Inner Circle to ask questions and continue the conversation after every episode. If you’d like to support the podcast monetarily and get bonus content, consider joining our Patreon community at Patreon.com/PodiumTimePod for as little as $1 per month.

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Today we talk with JoAnn Falletta about what can set you apart in an audition, how to effectively communicate with an orchestra, and why we need music now more than ever.

You will learn:

• The difference between listening alone and listening to live music
• How JoAnn is spending her time in self-quarantine
• JoAnn's advice for anybody taking auditions
• What you need on the podium when you step into an audition
• How to communicate effectively with an orchestra
• The best new violin concertos

Find this and all other episodes at PodiumTimePod.Wordpress.com. Subscribe and download Podium Time on your favorite podcast player and connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at @PodiumTimePod. You can also join our Facebook Group, the Podium Time Inner Circle to ask questions and continue the conversation after every episode. If you’d like to support the podcast monetarily and get bonus content, consider joining our Patreon community at Patreon.com/PodiumTimePod. 

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Today we talk with Charles Gambetta about how you can raise your awareness of your body as a conscious mover, what conductors actually control on the podium, and how to revolutionize your conducting with Laban movement analysis.

You will learn:

• A comprehensive system for analyzing, observing, and experiencing movement
• How you can raise awareness of your body as your musical instrument
• What Charles did when he realized he was no longer improving as a conductor
• How to be a conscious mover, rather than an instinctive mover.
• Every factor that Charles considers in the first two measures of Brahms 3

Find this and all other episodes at PodiumTimePod.Wordpress.com. Subscribe and download Podium Time on your favorite podcast player and connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at @PodiumTimePod. You can also join our Facebook Group, the Podium Time Inner Circle to ask questions and continue the conversation after every episode. If you’d like to support the podcast monetarily and get bonus content, consider joining our Patreon community at Patreon.com/PodiumTimePod. 

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Today we talk with Kenneth Kiesler about rehearsal technique and priorities, the things that he looks for in an audition candidate, and his workshop on the new critical edition of Appalchian Spring.

You will learn:

• The mistakes in Appalachian Spring that Copland never fixed
• How to fix details in rehearsal without ever addressing the details
• Why young conductors tend to avoid the standard repertoire
• What you can learn from watching a guest conductor work with your orchestra
• What to do when conducting an orchestra that already knows the music

Find this and all other episodes at PodiumTimePod.Wordpress.com. Subscribe and download Podium Time on your favorite podcast player and connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at @PodiumTimePod. You can also join our Facebook Group, the Podium Time Inner Circle to ask questions and continue the conversation after every episode. If you’d like to support the podcast and get bonus content, consider joining our Patreon community at Patreon.com/PodiumTimePod. 

Support the show

Today we’re talking with Apo Hsu, and this interview has been literally years in the making. She was the conductor of our city’s orchestra before we started in music, so we just missed her there by a few years. And then when Luke and and I were at Bard in 2016 we finally set concrete plans to start Podium Time just before spending an incredible week working with Apo at the workshop, so she was one of the first guests we wanted on the podcast. Long story short, that interview finally happened a few months ago and the wait was worth it!

Today you will learn:

• How our bodies can get in the way of our expression
• How we can learn physical expression from Peking Opera
• Why we are actors and how to develop your potential
• How to "Change Face" and express what's actually in the music

Find this and all other episodes at PodiumTimePod.Wordpress.com. Subscribe and download Podium Time on your favorite podcast player and connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at @PodiumTimePod. You can also join our Facebook Group, the Podium Time Inner Circle to ask questions and continue the conversation after every episode. If you’d like to support the podcast and get bonus content, consider joining our Patreon community at Patreon.com/PodiumTimePod. 

Support the show