This week, the San Antonio Philharmonic opens their third season, and their first with new music director Jeffrey Kahane on the podium. The opening concert Friday night at First Baptist Church also serves as a homecoming for guest soloist Nancy Zhou, a former YOSA student who’s now a rising star in the classical world.
It’s an exciting time for the orchestra, which also recently announced plans to move into permanent residence at the Scottish Rite building in a few years, following major upgrades there to meet ADA compliance and other electrical, plumbing, and fire code issues.
The orchestra will perform concerts this season at both First Baptist Church, its temporary home, as well as the Majestic Theatre, which hosted the San Antonio Symphony in the 1990s and early 2000s until the opening of the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts in 2014. That relationship with the Tobin ended in 2022 when the San Antonio Symphony was dissolved by its management following a labor dispute with the musicians’ union.
Earlier this summer, internal strife among the San Antonio Philharmonic’s board members threatened to overshadow the upcoming season with Kahane at the helm. But Kahane says, “I've been doing this now for well over three decades in three very different cities, and things happen. There are disagreements. Sometimes they're more intense than others, but I think I can assure the audience that the minute that you walk into the hall and hear the orchestra play the first few notes, that it will be clear that we're on the right path and that things are going to be fine.”
Below, read our extended interview with Jeffrey Kahane, where he shares his vision for the orchestra’s service to the community, hopes for the classical music world, and enthusiasm for exploring new, diverse repertoire with the musicians of the San Antonio Philharmonic.
[Interview transcript has been lightly edited for clarity. To hear the full audio, use the player below.]
Nathan Cone: What led you to want to come to San Antonio and be a part of this organization, the San Antonio Philharmonic?
Jeffrey Kahane: It was more than 30 years ago that I first began conducting. (The first part of my career was exclusively as a pianist.) One of the very first important conducting engagements I had was with the San Antonio Symphony. I want to say it was around 1992, ’93, I'm not sure exactly. And I have been back at various intervals since that time. I've always had a soft spot in my heart for the orchestra. I was supposed to come during the pandemic to help out, and then a number of concerts were canceled. And finally, I learned that the orchestra had had folded. I was in touch with some of my colleagues in the orchestra, and when the new orchestra was reborn, I was invited to come the first season. I wasn't able to do that because of my schedule, and then… a year ago, this month, I came and opened the season. And I was very deeply
No one should be left out of the experience of orchestral music, because it's too great and wonderful and powerful of a gift to be primarily targeted at one category of person.Jeffrey Kahane
moved first of all by the tenacity and professionalism and commitment of the musicians, which I always knew was there. But it was very inspiring to see their desire to continue to serve the community, which they have done for so long, and so beautifully. And a series of conversations took place… that developed into a really quite powerful interchange about what an orchestra ought to be and do, which has been a deep concern of mine ever since I first started conducting. I've often said that an orchestra should be an instrument of community, and I use the word instrument in both the musical sense, but also in the sense of a tool for building community. And through those conversations, it became clear to me that this was going to be a huge challenge for anyone who would take over the orchestra, but it was a challenge that I felt I was qualified to meet, and more importantly, that I really felt like this is something I want to do. I have a great love for the Spanish language and Latino culture. I grew up speaking Spanish, so I feel a very deep connection to that world. So it was a lot of different things that led me to want to do this, but I'm very grateful and honored to be part of it.
You mentioned the orchestra as an instrument of the community. What are some of the activities that an orchestra can do in order to be that instrument of the community, as compared to the traditional symphony orchestra of just playing the concerts.
I think many, if not most, orchestras around the country and even internationally recognize the need for the conception of what an orchestra is and does to evolve, and many orchestras have taken wonderful steps to do that, reaching out into underserved parts of communities, providing music, education and so on and so forth. And this orchestra was already doing that before, but I think that commitment has deepened. And I think what is particularly important to me about this, and I know I can speak for my colleague, Roberto Treviño [ed. CEO of the San Antonio Philharmonic], is that there is a real passion for the idea that this orchestra belongs to everybody in the community, that no one should be left out of the experience of orchestral music because it's too great and wonderful and powerful of a gift to be primarily targeted at one category of person.
And so what are the things that you can do in order to illustrate that the orchestra can be for everybody in the community? Because I think you're right that some categories of citizens, whether by economic class or any other means, may say, “You know what? That's for the rich people to go to the orchestra and just enjoy that stuff.”
That's precisely that what we don't want, is for people to have the idea that this is music for people who have means. And we're going to be doing lots and lots of different things to demonstrate that. Free concerts in certain places, outdoors, and so on and so forth. And also making tickets available to people who might not be able to afford them, finding ways of making the orchestra accessible to those people who don't have a lot of disposable income. I'm going to be doing a solo recital as a benefit for the orchestra in April as part of a project devoted to the music of Bach, playing the Goldberg Variations of Bach. And that's a concert that will be either… it will either be completely free of charge, or it will be pay what you can. And this is a model that I believe in very much. [That] economic model doesn't work to support a symphony orchestra, the musicians have to be paid, and they have to be paid an appropriate living wage, to the extent that's possible, but we're just deeply committed to the idea of making this a universal experience as much as possible.
The idea of Pay What You Wish is very familiar to us here at public radio!
I know it is! [laughs] I grew up listening to KPFK and KUSC in Los Angeles, so...
How about repertoire, what the orchestra plays? How should an orchestra reflect its community in the pieces that it plays? Is that something you've been thinking about as well?
Absolutely, and it's very clearly represented. Our opening program of the season begins with a work by Gabriela Ortiz, who is not only pretty much widely regarded as one of the two or three most important living Mexican composers, but she's one of the most important composers in the world, period, and we're opening the first concert with a work of hers. We're doing various other pieces that represent traditionally underserved communities. I have a great commitment to making sure that the repertoire, in addition to, of course, all the core, canonical repertoire that people love and want to hear and should hear, that there's music that represents the music of our time and music that represents the part of San Antonio's culture that is rooted in Mexico and in Latin America.
Also, you're officing on the west side of town.
Avenida de Guadalupe, yeah. And that was a very powerful statement by the organization. When Roberto Treviño told me that, there was something in me that just went, “Okay, this is for real.” This is not lip service. Our offices are on this wonderful stretch of Avenida Guadalupe, right across from this famous statue of the Virgen by Jesse Treviño. But the fact that our presence, our physical presence, is there, says volumes. It speaks volumes about what our intentions are, and what we want to be.
In working with the the board and the staff at the Philharmonic, how long of a range plan are y'all thinking about in terms of, well, what we're going to be doing three years from now, five years from now. What's in your vision?
Well, we finished planning this season a few months ago, which is rather miraculous. Normally a season is planned at least a year, often 18 months or even two years in advance. And we had, basically four or five months to put an entire season together. And I'm very proud that we were able to do that. And it is, if I dare say so, it's a very beautiful and fascinating season. I'm now very much looking to plan the following season. I have all kinds of ideas, and there are so many projects in the works that I would love to talk about, but can't, because you just don't do that at this point! But we're very much looking at next season, a year from now and beyond. And of course, I have ideas, you know, for three to four to five years out, that I would love to see realized.
Well, let me mention, of course, the first concert coming up. I think Nancy Zhou is coming back to play, our hometown hero. Tell me a little bit about the first concert coming up.
Well, we're thrilled to welcome back Nancy Zhou. She is an absolutely astounding violinist. She happens to teach at my alma mater, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and I have not worked with her or met her, but I do know her playing from having heard it, and she's playing the beloved Violin Concerto of Brahms, arguably one of the two or three greatest concertos ever written for the instrument. And that performance is being framed by a work of Gabriela Ortiz called “Kauyumari,” which is inspired by a ritual of the Huichol people. It has to do with a kind of spiritual journey that they take every year to make contact with their ancestors. And the second half is music of Benjamin Britten, starting with the Four Sea Interludes from "Peter Grimes," which is one of my very favorite works in all of music. And then I decided to do something that normally it's not often heard on a regular subscription program, which is that we're ending with Britten's “Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra,” which is also known as “Variations and Fugue on a theme of Henry Purcell.” And that piece was designed specifically for children, in a way, but it is one of those things, like some of the greatest, kids movies are also conceived with adults in mind. And it's an extraordinary masterpiece in which, in the space of 14 or 15 minutes, Britten manages to give every single instrument in the orchestra a chance to shine; he takes the orchestra completely apart, and then puts it all back together. So that's our first program.
And for those of us who are Wes Anderson fans, [that piece] got a second life…
“Moonrise Kingdom!” Absolutely.
Brilliant, I love it. Now, you may or may not be able to talk about this, but I know it's probably something that is on folks’ minds… that there's this kind of squabble that bubbled up between a few folks within the organization, something about the board and personnel. I know we're talking about the artistic aspects of the organization, but is there anything that you might say to the public that says, “You know what, there's nothing to worry about.” Is that being ironed out?
I think it is, and this is something… you know, orchestras are complex organisms that are made up of all kinds of constituencies, including the public and the staff and the board of directors and the musicians themselves. And conflicts happen. I've been doing this now for well over three decades in three very different cities, and things happen. There are disagreements. Sometimes they're more intense than others, but yes, I think I can assure the audience that the minute that you walk into the hall and hear the orchestra play the first few notes that it will be clear that we're on the right path and that things are going to be fine.
Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you'd like to mention?
We have reached something like 47,000 kids with our young people's concerts, and that's something that I look forward very much to being a part of. You may be aware that in many orchestras, the music director doesn't often get involved in young people's concerts. That's usually farmed out to an assistant conductor. And this is something with my orchestra in Los Angeles. We had hundreds probably over the 20 years I was music director of the LA Chamber Orchestra of children's concerts, whatever you want to family concerts, young people's concerts, and I probably conducted at least 90% of those, and that's something I hope will continue. We're definitely taking the orchestra out into the community, into the schools. One of the most powerful things that has happened, I wasn't there for this, because my tenure had not officially started… the orchestra went to Uvalde and played a concert for the families, and that was from everything that I understand, a profoundly moving experience. And we're going to continue in a relationship with the people of Uvalde to bring them music.
Pie in the sky question to end here with... If you could snap your magic fingers and change one thing about that artistic ecology of our region that maybe I was referring to before we turned on the microphones, and perhaps about the classical world writ large, if you had a magic wand and could change something, what would that be?
I do have a magic wand, it's called a baton! I wave it and amazing sounds come out! [laughs] No, I thank you for asking that. I grew up loving all kinds of music. My first love was classical music, but later on, after studying the piano as a kid, I picked up the guitar, I became interested in in playing folk music and blues and rock and roll and jazz and so on. And my hope is that people will realize that classical music is just another kind of music. It has its own, very special magic. It is a universe of its own. But one of the things I've always passionately believed in and tried to promulgate in my programming is the idea that any boundaries between different kinds of music are artificial, just as boundaries between people are really artificial. If so, my hope is that this orchestra, the Philharmonic, will truly become something that everybody feels that they are a part of. That everybody has a stake in it. Everybody can get something out of it. Not everybody is going to love hearing, you know, I don't know, Brahms or Britten or whatever, but I want to make sure that everybody can find something in what we do that will speak to them, and that will make them feel that this is an essential part of the cultural fabric of San Antonio.
