Oregon Music News

Oregon Symphony’s resident conductor Gregory Vajda will be leaving Portland after his seventh season with the orchestra. Vajda has been praised by music director, Carlos, Kalmar, for his excellent work as the orchestra’s number two man on the podium. Of course, Vajda has ambitions to have his own orchestra and has auditioned for a number of conducting positions. Two years ago, the Hungarian-born conductor took over the podium of the Music in the Mountains series near Sacramento, California, and earlier this year became the Music Director of the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra in Huntsville, Alabama.

In the meantime, Vajda has been in Portland to conduct several Oregon Symphony concerts, which will include the Comfort and Joy concert on Thursday (December 22^nd) with the Pacific Youth Choir. Vajda returns to do a classical series concert in early February to conduct the orchestra with guest violinist Stefan Jackiw. During that same month, the Oregon Symphony will also hold its donor appreciation concert in honor of Vajda, and towards the end of the month, he will conduct a kids concert.

In addition to his conducting, Vajda continues to write music. So, I caught up with him after a rehearsal and asked a few questions at a nearby Japanese restaurant.

So for the next few months, you will be in Alabama and California, but will keep your apartment in Portland?

Vajda: My base of operations will remain in Portland until at least the end of this season. I’m obligated as the cover conductor. My work with the Huntsville Symphony is a 10 week a season contract, and my job as Artistic Director and Conductor of  Music in the Mountains is another 10 weeks.

So next season, will you primarily travel between Alabama and California?

Vajda: Not quite, because I have been working with the Hungarian Radio Symphony on a regular basis since September 2011. This season I will do four projects with them. The fun fact is that my father was the principal bassoonist of that group for 28 years. So, I know that orchestra well. I also have some guest conducting appearances lined up with the Edmonton Symphony and the Seattle Symphony. I’ll be doing two separate concert programs with the latter in May.

What was one of your best experiences while conducting here?

Vajda: The first that comes to mind is that through the Oregon Symphony I got to work with Bela Fleck and his amazing band. He is writing a banjo concerto right now for the Nashville Symphony. He does a video of every project he works on. So I’m in his video about this “concerto-project”. We talked for two hours about concertos in general, orchestration, and Bartok. I’m hoping to do this new piece of his in Huntsville soon.

I recall that one time Carlos Kalmar had the flu, and you had to step in to conduct all of the concerts that were scheduled for that series.

Vajda: That was Kurt Weill’s Seven Deadly Sins. That was a fun program!

You don’t mind stepping into the hot seat!

Vajda: I don’t mind at all. Last year, I filled in with the Los Angeles Philharmonic on short notice to direct a concert of music by Peter Eötvös. I also stepped in with the Vienna Philharmonic in an all Bartók program in Salzburg a couple of years back. That sort of thing comes with the territory.

You never seem to panic.

Vajda: There’s no time to panic! You just have to do it.

But you may never have heard or seen the Weill piece before.

Vajda: Well, when I was an assistant conductor with the Milwaukie Symphony, I covered a concert with that piece on the program. It was a long time ago, but when I started to rehearse it with the Oregon Symphony, things started to come back. I did have a recollection. It’s amazing what one’s brain is capable of.

What is the size of the Huntsville Symphony?

Vajda: The orchestra has 15 core members who have a yearly salary and play all of the services, including classics and pops concerts. This orchestra has a rule that if you win the blind audition, you have the job, but you don’t have to live in the area. So outside of the 15 core members and some, most of the orchestra doesn’t live in the Huntsville area. They fly in from all over the place. Last month we just had an audition for violin, and the person who won the position lives in San Jose, California.

The mobility of the members in this orchestra is a good thing, because it allows us to draw from a larger pool of talent. Also, for programs that require a larger orchestra, I can increase the number of people we need, or I can decrease it pretty easily.  In our last concert of the season, we’ll do Richard Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra, so I’ll have a large orchestra for that concert.

So you are now planning your concerts for next year?

Vajda: Right. We are getting all of that squared away. For example at Music in the Mountains we’ve got all of our spring and summer concerts planned – except for two soloists for the Verdi Requiem – we are all set.

Do you still have time to compose?

Vajda: Yes. I just finished a piece for the Canadian pianist Katherine Chi. She lives in Boston. She will release a double CD soon. It will contain music that was written 100 years apart. Let’s say 1810 to 1812, then 1910 to 1912, and then 2010 to 2012. My piece will represent the year 2012.  She commissioned it in the fall, and I finished it about three weeks ago.

How long is the piece?

Vajda: It’s about six or seven minutes long with two movements. It’s a little bit like the Enigma Variations because it’s a very personal and also an enigmatic piece. It has a little song at the end for example that my two sons made up – a slightly jazzy, foxtrot-like tune. After I wrote the piece, I played it for them on the computer, and they loved it. They think it is very cool to be the subject of a musical composition.

What is going on with your Magic Mountain opera?

Vajda: There’s a DVD and a booklet now – Credit Suisse sponsored it – and we are trying to get some of the German opera companies interested in it. It got a good review in the Opernglas magazine.

What is your next project?

Vajda: I’m starting to work on an opera soon based on Ferenc Molnár’s play Liliom. That play was turned into a very popular musical called Carousel by Rogers and Hammerstein. I’ve got the rights – for three years – to write an opera on this story. The musical and the movie are loosely based on the original play by Molnár. Apparently, Puccini and Gershwin both considered it for an opera subject.  András Almási-Tóth, a friend of mine who wrote me the libretto of Barbie Blue suggested the play to me.  He works with young singers at the Academy of Music in Budapest, and he wants a new opera that would be written directly for them. It is indeed a great story for young singers, kind of like La Bohéme.

Also because I have conducted Peter Eötvös’s chamber opera Radames many times, I’ve been asked by the Schott Publishing Company to help prepare a new edition of this work. It’s a multi-lingual piece, and I am doing the new English adaptation.

Do you see Eötvös every year?

Vajda: Yes, whenever I’m in Budapest I usually visit him. He’s writing a violin concerto for Midori right now.

It is interesting to see how your career progresses. If you become more well-known for your compositions, will you keep conducting?

Vajda: Composing alone wouldn’t satisfy me. I like being on stage. Composing is a lonely task. If I don’t get to participate in what I write it’s not that interesting for me.  It doesn’t mean that I always have to conduct my own pieces, but it’s more fun for me if I get to be on the podium.