By Debbie Gardner
debbieg@thereminder.com
He’s led the orchestras for the operas in Berlin and Paris. Presided over the musical accompaniments to ballets in Verona and Stuttgart. Served as guest conductor of prestigious performances in the cities of Madrid, Beijing and Tokyo.
Since the mid-1990s music has taken Maestro Kevin Rhodes around the world, bringing him to 15 countries and the podiums of 50 orchestras. But for the last 14 of those years this much-sought-after conductor has chosen to call the Pioneer Valley his home base.
Recently, Rhodes talked with PRIME about what drew him to the Valley, and why his work with the Springfield Symphony continues to be important to him.
“The fact of the matter is that my wife and I had been living in Europe for 20 years and we were thinking about moving the place from which you go, and I started looking at positions,” said Rhodes, who has served as musical director of the orchestras in both Springfield and Traverse City, Michigan, since 2001. “Springfield was one [of the potential positions] I did some research with colleagues and friends in the Northeast and found out some fantastic things about the area.”
The geography, Rhodes said, had a certain appeal. But it was the orchestra that tipped the scales.
“I did have lots of places that might have been larger, but the quality of the Springfield orchestra and the spirit in which these great musicians go about their work is as great as anywhere,” Rhodes said. “When I came to interview for the job – which is a long, multi-year process – there were four final candidates who came to town to have a week-long interview and a concert with the orchestra. Certainly from the first moment of the first rehearsal I thought there was great chemistry with [this] orchestra.”
Though Springfield is not a major metropolitan city, Rhodes said it has attracted top-notch talent.
“They cover a lot of miles to play [here],” Rhodes said of the musicians he works with. “One-third come from Manhattan, one third from Boston and the final third come from all over the Northeast.
“I’m really fortunate,” Rhodes continued. “When I came here I had already been working for many years for many of the big [music centers] of Europe – Vienna, Berlin, Dusseldorf – and I was in a special position to really appreciate the [Springfield] orchestra for the amazing thing that they are.”
He said the incredible performance space offered by Springfield’s Symphony Hall was another reason he chose Springfield.
“We have this amazing building in which to play,” Rhodes said. “Oh, my gosh, Manhattan would kill for another concert hall like our Springfield Symphony Hall! If you took our Springfield Symphony Hall and put it in Manhattan it would be booked around the clock!
“It’s such a work of art,” Rhodes continued, “Those engineers and architects, I don’t know if they had proper acousticians back then, but all those fantastic Italian craftsmen that were brought over to create Symphony Hall, it’s just an amazing representative of outstanding work. It’s not to be underappreciated, absolutely.”
And, Rhodes added, audience reactions continue to remind him of just what an extraordinary group of performers the Springfield Symphony Orchestra is.
“I have so often had experiences where it’s that people have heard the Springfield Symphony orchestra for the first time [and] they are so impressed by what they hear,” Rhodes said. “I hear ‘Oh my God, I could never have imagined that something of this incredible quality is here in Springfield, Massachusetts’.”
Tuning up for a great season
Looking toward the 2015-2016 Symphony season, Rhodes said there were “lots of things I’m extraordinarily looking forward to doing, there’s nothing that I’m not looking forward to doing” with the symphony this year.
There are some concerts that stand out for Rhodes, however,
Among his season highlights will be conducting the Feb. 6, 2016 Greig Piano Concerto, featuring Symphony No. 3 by Danish composer Carl Nielsen.
“Most of the musicians have never played it before and it’s an amazing piece,” Rhodes said. “It is something really special on stage when everyone is doing a piece for the first time.”
The Feb. 27, 2016 concert featuring music by Aaron Copland, Joseph Schwanter, Duke Ellington and selections from George Gershwin’s opera, “Porgy and Bess” will be something that offers audiences “a special musical shared dramatic experience,” Rhodes said.
Narrated by actor and director Avery Brooks – best know for his role as Captain Benjamin Sisko on T. V.’s “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” – Rhodes said this evening would “touch on a lot of things; not just great music but an element that we don’t have so often in the concert hall, a theatrical experience of someone speaking text.
“Often they have some politician or university person [as narrator] … having Avery Brooks, that’s going to be extraordinarily meaningful,” Rhodes continued.
And, Rhodes said conducting the season’s final Pops concert of John Williams’ movie scores on April 23, 2016 has very special meaning to him personally.
“As a young kid, it was really his scores for movies that really got me into the orchestra sound, and that led me to become a conductor,” Rhodes said. “Doing ‘Star Wars’ or ‘ET’ …talk about feeling like a kid again. When I get to [conduct] ‘ET’ I feel like I’m 14 or 15 [years old] again.”
Beyond the podium, Rhodes said he was looking forward to the Orchestra’s Second Annual Celebrity Bartending fundraiser, slated for Nov. 4 at the Student Prince/The Fort Café in downtown Springfield.
“There’s absolutely zero pressure to do a performance for me,” Rhodes said. “And, it’s one of the few cases when you can walk up to someone with a bucket and say ‘hey, give me money.’ I don’t know if it was part of the plan [last year] but I grabbed an ice bucket from the bar and went around to the tables and got a buck from each one.
“It was great fun and a great fundraiser as well as a great friend-raiser,” Rhodes added.
Composing a future
Rhodes said the last-minute opportunity for the Springfield Symphony Orchestra to play with hip-hop and R & B artist T-Pain at the New England Patriot’s televised season opening home game on Sept. 10 got him thinking about ways to expand the orchestra’s audience.
“It was a blast,” Rhodes said of the collaboration “Now I find myself thinking, now we should be doing some things with pop artists that are really active in genres that we don’t usually associate with the orchestra and get some unprecedented experiences with younger members of the greater Springfield area.
“I’m really looking for a way to do that,” he added.
He’d also love to see the orchestra get out of Symphony Hall more often.
“I wish we could get on the road more,” Rhodes said. ‘It would be great if we could do some concerts in different parts of the Pioneer Valley, like the Berkshires, and play to a larger audience.”
As for the symphony’s work with schoolchildren, Rhodes said this year’s program would focus on the classical music that “pops up as the background” many of the video games students like to play.
“Musicians are missionaries,” Rhodes said of his dreams for the orchestra. “Every day there is education [and] every day our job becomes a little bit bigger. “I’ve got lots of certain types of projects that I would like [the symphony] to become involved in.”
Springfield may be a small city in comparison to many of the cities where Rhodes has conducted, but size doesn’t limit what he sees as its orchestra’s potential.
“Don’t underestimate the great things that can be found in a small place; I’ve sure found a great thing [here],” Rhodes said.
