Raise the baton: Inside a pivotal week for new Charlotte Symphony conductor Kwamé Ryan
This is a big weekend for Kwamé Ryan, on top of an already big week.
The weekend, the conductor leads The Charlotte Symphony Orchestra for the first time as its new music director designate, taking the podium for performances in a program that includes Brahms and Tchaikovsky. In December, the symphony named Ryan its next music director — the 12th maestro in its 92-year history, a role he formally starts in October.
And Ryan’s arrival in Charlotte this week came just as the orchestra unveiled plans for an ambitious $50 million capital campaign to finally help solidify its financial future. That effort already has raised $41 million towards that goal, and expects to complete the campaign by the end of the year.
How the Charlotte Symphony quietly raised $41 million to help ensure a stable future
Most of the money will go toward increasing the size of the orchestra’s endowment. That will make the endowment comparable to peer companies around the country as well as help expand the orchestra’s work in the community.
Ryan recently spoke with The Charlotte Observer about returning to the city for the first time as music director designate, and rehearsing with a company of musicians he’ll get to lead for the next several years.
Easing into the repertoire
Though the current season and its repertoire was scheduled long before Ryan’s appointment, one of its upcoming musical selections, Brahms Symphony No. 1, is an example of sonic serendipity.
“Brahms has been one of my favorite composers since I was a kid” growing up on the island of Trinidad, Ryan said. “And his first symphony is my favorite symphony of all.”
Not only is the 19th century German composer tied to the country that the conductor has called home for the last two decades, but it is also the symphony he conducted to secure his last music director post, in France.
When Ryan saw the program list, he was pleasantly surprised.
“I thought, what are the odds that this would be the symphony that would just happen to be on the program for me to make my formal first appearance as the CSO music director?” he said. “It could not be more perfect.”
A smooth transition
And while this is his first concert appearance in Charlotte since assuming his new mantle, there’s no first-day jitters.
“By the time you are standing in front of an orchestra as the music director, it’s been established mutually that there’s chemistry,” said Ryan, who previously has worked as guest conductor with the Charlotte Symphony. “You’re starting halfway down the track, so to speak, because you are sharing some common fundamental approaches to music making with regard to color or to balance, or to rhythm, or whatever the parameter of music is.”
And he emphasized that the professionalism of the orchestra and the talent of its members will allow for a smooth transition.
“The orchestra is an ensemble. It’s an organism that doesn’t only perform with the music director,” Ryan said. “It’s been performing together day in, day out for weeks, months, years.”
Working with colleagues at the CSO
Ryan said he is also looking forward to working with orchestra members and developing a performance “playbook” together over time, from which musical hallmarks will likely emerge.
“(Conducting is) a bit like learning the plays on a sports team. You decide, okay, we’ve got a Brahm’s Symphony. What plays are we going to do? What do the plays look like? And you rehearse those, you practice them until they are second nature for that concert.
“Then over time, as you learn different plays in different pieces, certain things start to become the way we work together,” he said.
As Ryan works to wrap up previous artistic commitments, he will lead the CSO twice more before the close of 2024. This gradual segue into an orchestral leadership role is not uncommon, as classical music artists are often booked years in advance— especially conductors, since they make up a much smaller group.
A natural choice
Ryan was a natural choice for the post, and had been on the CSO’s radar long before COVID on account of his accomplishments international stature in the classical music world, said Mical Hutson, the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra’s VP of Marketing and Audience Development.
“His dedication to innovative programming and inclusivity very much aligns with the CSO’s mission to create meaningful experiences that resonate with diverse audiences,” Hutson added.
Ryan is the orchestra’s 12th music director and the first person of color to hold the top job in the orchestra’s 92-year history.
Who is Kwamé Ryan, the new music director for the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra?
The organization’s commitment to diversity is also visible in its programming and community engagement initiatives. That includes its CSO Roadshow debuting this season, which brings music directly into neighborhoods and tailors each program to the interests of the community in collaboration with its partners.
It also invest in education programs like Project Harmony, which provides free music lessons, instruments and classroom materials to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools students in second through fifth grades from Title 1 schools and high-needs communities.
In fact, the orchestra’s commitment to diversity was lauded in January in the League of American Orchestras’ Guide to Audience Diversification as a model for innovative strategies in fostering inclusivity and expanding audience diversity.
CSO leaders told the guide that over the last two years, their work has led to a growth in the percentage of African American, Hispanic, and Asian ticket buyers, from 11% to 16%.
Creative practices on and off the podium
When asked if Ryan if has any pre-performance rituals (à la Gael García Bernal’s fictional maestro in “Mozart in the Jungle” and his matcha tea preparation) he laughed.
“I wouldn’t call it a ritual, but I do have a routine with regard to when I sleep and wake up to prepare on the day of a concert and when I work out,” Ryan said. “Also, before I go on, I always call the composer to mind and commit to advocating for everything that they put into the work that we’re about to perform in the best way I possibly can.”
Though his concert preparation focuses on alignment of the mind and body (he is a devotee of yoga and Ayurvedic traditional medicine native to India) one thing he tries to avoid is listening to recordings of performance scores.
“I find it really enriching and invigorating to find my own way through a piece and to feel like I arrived at where I end up in terms of a vision for it or an interpretation of it via my own route,” he said, “even if some of the final conclusions are infused with my training, which subsumes a lot of what has been done in the past.
“You can only work with your own taste, your own physicality, your own face, you know, and that’s unique. I will listen to a recording if I know I’m going to do a concerto with a soloist and there’s a recording of that soloist performing that concerto to understand which tempo he or she’s going to take in that movement, or that they hold up here and then move.
But, Ryan added, “if it’s about me performing as a solo conductor with the orchestra, then I try and stay away from recordings as much as I can.”
Finding balance through the old, the new and Beyoncé
That doesn’t mean that Ryan stays away from all music during his off time.
He is particularly fond of Indian classical music played on original Indian instruments like the sitar and the table or the Indian violin (the album “Om Guitar “is also a favorite).
“And if I’m working out, I like listening to pop to be honest. You know, I can really enjoy listening to Beyoncé while I’m working out,” he said. “I love Beyoncé.”
Classical purists might be surprised to learn that 21st century artists like Charlie Pugh, Jason Derulo and others also stay on repeat.
“I like to dance. I like to move and when I’m moving, be it on the yoga mat or when I’m working out, those are the only moments when I’m not thinking about work,” Ryan said. “I sometimes say it’s just as well that conductors don’t have the same pay structure that lawyers have, where every moment that they’re thinking about a case they are working.”
Looking forward to the shows
Ryan’s enthusiasm for his return to Charlotte is palpable.
“This week feels really like a return to something that I’ve already found that I love and enjoy,” Ryan said. “But it doesn’t feel like the first day of school. It feels like I’m having the privilege of returning to something in a new capacity.”
He smiled when being asked again about this weekend’s program.
“The inclusion of “America the Beautiful” performed by Wang Jie represents my love of contemporary music, my belief in the importance of contemporary music, but also my start in an American city with an American orchestra.
“I just think it couldn’t be more perfect.”
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