It’s not often someone has to choose between sport and classical music as a career but Peter Oundjian reckons that with his family background, the two actually harmonised pretty well.
“Rapture is a wonderful contemporary piece. Anyone interested in new music is actually very fortunate at the moment because there’s a lot of commissioning going on, but the trick in getting this music into the general repertoire is to get a second and third performance so it can be recognised and become known. That can be the hardest part. Interesting ideas for programming can combine tough pieces that are hard to place in a traditional subscription week alongside things that are much more recognisable.
“The Brahms is actually the least played of his symphonies because it ends with a farewell, a quieter, more reflective mood. But for me it is one of the most exquisite pieces of music ever written.” Large-scale romantic and late romantic repertoire is something he particularly enjoys Mahler, Bruckner, Schumann leading into the 20th century masters such as Shostakovich whose symphony No 7 he has recently recorded with the TSO.
Although he admits to having at least a basic “wishlist” of repertoire to tackle with the RSNO when he takes up the post next year, he reckons that what’s really important in developing concert programming is to have a very open mind about what will excite an audience.
His links with the RSNO go back to 2002 when his Caird Hall debut with the orchestra featured a programme of Britten, Elgar and Rachmaninov and continued last year when he appeared in Scotland with a musical menu that included highly acclaimed performances of Vaughan Williams’ Fourth Symphony and the Brahms Violin Concerto.
“I spent a week with the orchestra on that repertoire which was a wonderful experience. Funnily enough, just last week I was conducting and recording the Vaughan Williams at Carnegie Hall. For me he is a really important voice in 20th century music both through his craft as a composer and from the point of view of the statement he makes about the human condition.
“When I was with the Tokyo String Quartet, we also played at the Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow the year it was opened, when it was absolutely brand new.”
Peter spent 14 years with the quartet as first violinist, playing around 2000 concerts world-wide and recording extensively.
His time with the TSQ won him praise and accolades and it isn’t something, he admits, that he would have willingly given up but for the intervention of an injury to his hand that stopped him being able to play his instrument of choice.
“Obviously that’s a real blow to a musician. But I am a firm believer that doors have to close in life for other opportunities to arrive. I think people can be understandably fearful of change but I had no option. There was nothing I could do about it. It was a kind of strain injury that really only affected my playing rather than any other aspect of life but it meant I literally could not play any more.
“At the same time, I’ve been incredibly fortunate in where that completely unplanned switch has taken me. Conducting has definitely opened other doors. I work every day with terrific players in Toronto, I was in Stockholm this week, conducting that wonderful orchestra, I’ve conducted the Israel Philharmonic, some of the greatest orchestras in the world. And I’m really excited about coming to Scotland!”
Interest in conducting began when he studied the rudiments as a teenager at the prestigious Juillard School in New York. There’s a story told that at the age of 19 he was talent spotted by the formidable Austrian maestro Herbert von Karajan and told he had the hands for the conductor’s job! Be that as it may, he himself credits Andre Previn as his greater supporter “he was a wonderful friend in terms of giving me both guidance and opportunities.”
As well as learning from the giants of the past, he is also extremely keen on capturing the imagination and attention of new audiences.
As a youngster, he first wanted to be a footballer. His father was both a keen sportsman and musician and with a champion skater for a big brother Haig Oundjian, three-times British figure skating champion, a European medallist and Olympic competitor in 1968 and 72 a sister who was the number three female skater in Britain, another brother who qualified as a sailor for the 76 Olympics and another sister who is a very fine pianist, the mix seemed to have a lot to offer.
With such an unusual surname to go on (and having a long memory!), I asked Peter if he was indeed related to Haig. He was delighted to confirm it, commenting, “Haig will be so pleased, he’s sick and tired of being asked if he’s my brother!
“He had a really good career in the sport -the great John Currie was second to him in Britain for a number of years. The music and the sport were just there for us as children, and especially with the skating, the artistic and expressive side meant that they were choosing fabulous music and creating great choreography around it. The music made the movement so memorable for people watching it.
“But that’s so often the case, the soundtrack is what creates the atmosphere and the feel of what you’re seeing. I can now claim that Beethoven has finally won an Oscar at the climax of the film The King’s Speech, it was part of his Seventh Symphony that was used and it created such a fantastic mood. I dread to think how it might have been with some much more banal piece of music!”Peter Oundjian conducts the Royal Scottish National Orchestra at the Caird Hall Dundee, supported by The Courier, on Thursday, April 14 at 7.30pm.With his father’s introduction to a friend of his, the famous violinist Manoug Parikian, young Peter, who was born in Canada but educated in England, found that his love of music began to overtake his other interests although not to the exclusion of all else.
“Manoug was the concert master for the Philharmonia and a wonderful chamber musician who really inspired me to think about taking music more seriously. I went to a normal school rather than a specialist music school like the Menuhin because I still wanted to play soccer and get a good general education alongside studying the violin.
“At the end of school I went to the Royal College of Music in London but only for a year. I was encouraged to go to America at the age of 19, supposedly for a year but I’m still there regularly! There always seemed to be another reason to stay.
“But one of the reasons I’m so excited about the RSNO connection is because it gives me a home base in the UK for the first time since about 1975. My grandfather was a Scot so there is a basic link there but more importantly, it’s the experience of working with the musicians that has drawn me into the Scottish scene.
“When you make music with a group of musicians for five rehearsals and two concerts and the connection is so natural and honest they really ‘get’ your timing and gestures and understand exactly what you are trying to say about the music then the respect is there and the desire to work together again really grows. That was certainly my experience with the RSNO.
“I’m a great admirer of Stephane Deneve who has been such a wonderful music director for the RSNO and I know he feels the same about it.”
Peter has been music director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra since 2004 and will continue that role in parallel with his new Scots connection. He is credited with turning its fortunes around to the extent that it is now one of the leading orchestras in the world with a growing following across the generations. A documentary entitled Five Days In September: The Rebirth Of An Orchestra won numerous awards at international film festivals and was released on DVD. He is now in his 29th year as a visiting professor at the Yale School of Music in the US.Worldwide connectionsA former principal guest conductor with the Detroit and Colorado symphonies, his recent and future guest engagements cover the Chicago, Dallas, Houston and San Francisco symphony orchestras, the Philadelphia, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Aspen Festival Orchestra and the Boston Symphony orchestra at Tanglewood. He also has visiting associations with major orchestras in Europe from the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France to the Philarmonia Orchestra and the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra. He knows at first hand the value of introducing interesting and sympathetic guest musicians into the orchestral recipe.
“With the RSNO, I also want to forge great links with other guest conductors and I really want to hear what the players themselves have to say about that, who they have in mind, as well as the people I know and think would work well with them, established colleagues and new, young conductors. I always work on the basis that the orchestra is there to speak to me about who gets up in front of them. I want to hear their voices on the subject!
“The relationships can become something really special. Stephane came to the Toronto Symphony for the first time as guest conductor six years ago and they loved working with him. He also met and proposed to his wife there so he obviously was very happy in his work!”
April 14’s concert in Dundee is an intriguing mix of contemporary and classic, popular and relatively unknown. The distinguished pianist Stephen Hough will be soloist in Grieg’s Piano Concerto, one of the best-loved works in the repertoire, in juxtaposition to Brahms’ Symphony No 3 and contemporary composer Christopher Rouse’s Rapture.
Delighted to be at the helm for this occasion, Peter thinks that the Caird Hall-based opener to the 2011-12 season is a very clever piece of programming. He believes in offering as much diversity and quality as possible but not hitting people over the head with pieces that might at first appear difficult or unrelenting.
Continued…
A thoroughly affable man who takes his music seriously, he agrees with Stephane Deneve that the presentation of that music need not be too straight-laced. I recall Deneve’s first concert with the RSNO as MD again, at the Caird Hall when he turned and spoke to the audience directly. It was a perfect example of a performer at ease with himself and his music and his verve and enthusiasm communicated itself to everyone in the hall-once the more traditional concert-goers got over the shock of seeing the conductor’s face rather than his back and hearing his voice as well as his musical interpretation!”
With that in mind, Peter Oundjian’s reputation as a cultural leader and innovator goes before him. He has directed festivals including the Caramoor Festival in New York State to Absolutely Mozart for the Philadelphia Orchestra, creating another celebration of the great composer in Toronto and an annual contemporary music festival, New Creations.
He was actively involved in the TSO’s Sound Check project, a music initiative for young people that encouraged them into classical music via concerts, blogs and social events. At one point, 40,000 people were registered for its activities.
“Connecting with the next generation is absolutely crucial. I’ve certainly found that regular concert-goers are delighted to see young people coming into performances and I think it’s up to us to continue to make concert-going much less forbidding. Approach the music seriously but drop the formality and make sure people feel welcomed as part of the experience.
“School concerts, family concerts, internet links we should offer really flavourful things that can introduce people to that sound world.”
He’s also no stranger to the zanier side of music-making. During his years with the Tokyo String Quartet, he and his colleagues appeared on kids’ favourite, Sesame Street, sparring with the notorious Oscar the Grouch it’s on Youtube if you fancy a peek! and thanks to another family connection, he also ended up conducting the oratorio inspired by Monty Python’s Life of Brian, appropriately entitled Not The Messiah (He’s A Very Naughty Boy!), written by Spamalot! Composer John du Prez.
“Eric Idle is my cousin my mother’s sister’s son and we ended up working together with me conducting the first performances of the piece in Toronto about four years ago. It’s a fantastic piece, very funny and entertaining. Eric gives me more credit than I deserve, I think, but we had a ball doing it!”
His own listening habits are equally eclectic. Like most serious musicians, he finds it hard to listen to a lot of the repertoire on which he is working-“I can still listen to a string quartet in the background now as long as it’s not one I know well but I avoid the rest!
“I don’t perform anything other than classical music, but I am intrigued by so many different styles. Great composers like Mahler and Vaughan Williams were interested in folk song and jazz rhythms.
“I was a kid in the 60s when The Beatles were my heroes and in my teens I listened to Pink Floyd, Yes and the great rock bands of that era. These days I can find myself choosing Louis Armstrong, flamenco, Radiohead -and my son has re-introduced me to that great singer-songwriter of the 70s, Nick Drake.
“Keep an open mind!”