American conductor Andrew Litton is all set for his India debut

The Hindu

6 days ago

American conductor Andrew Litton loves to joke about how many think he is British. Perhaps, because, at 23, he became the youngest recipient of the BBC/ Rupert Foundation International Conductors Competition in London. 'I also spent my early career with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in the U.K. My name sounds British too and people put a 'Sir' before my name,' he says.
The 66-year-old, New York-based Andrew has also conducted orchestras in the US, Norway and Italy. After four decades in the field, he makes his India debut with two shows for the Symphony Orchestra of India (SOI), this year's Autumn Season at Mumbai's Jamshed Bhabha Theatre. The August 12 programme will comprise Richard Wagner's 'Prelude and Lieberstod from Tristan Und Isolde' and Gustav Mahler's 'Symphony No 5', while the 17 August programme will have Maurice Ravel's famous Bolero, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's 'Piano Concerto No 1' with Russian-Swiss soloist Konstantin Scherbakov, and Igor Stravinsky's 'Suite from The Firebird, 1945 Version'.
His other two shows this season — on August 22 and 26 — will feature British conductor Martyn Brabbins, whose repertoire includes Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Dmitri Shostakovich, Edward Elgar, Tchaikovsky and Sergei Prokofiev.
Though Andrew started off as a pianist, he was drawn to conducting. He recalls, 'I was about 10 or 11 when I attended these presentations by Leonard Bernstein. The first one didn't make any sense to me as Bernstein used a lot of technical terms. But later, I attended another of his presentations. I saw him jump up-and-down in his usual manner and I was fascinated by some of the things he said. Till that day, I wanted to become a fireman, the kind one sees in movies from the 1960s. Suddenly, I wanted to become a conductor.'
Having done his Masters of Music in piano and conducting, and then winning the BBC award, he became an assistant conductor at the Teatro Alla Scala in Milan and later at the National Symphony Orchestra, Washington under noted cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich. He also played the piano with the Russian ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev. 'Till then, I was learning to follow sound. This taught me to follow sight as I had to synchronise with the dancer's moves.'
Many conducting assignments followed, and at 44, he received the Yale University's Sanford Medal, which is awarded to celebrated concert artistes. He even has a discography of 144 CDs, including a large number of concert recordings. 'I am basically involved in the performing arts. So I'd always prefer to play in front of a thousand people, rather than sit in a studio where there is no audience,' he says.
Andrew says that even before the organisers (the National Centre For The Performing Arts) contacted his manager for the Mumbai shows, he had heard about the SOI. 'When they told me they wanted to do Mahler's No 5, I immediately agreed. It's a symphony I have conducted for 30 years, yet each time it offers a fresh challenge,' he adds.
According to Andrew , the five movements capture various moods like sorrow, struggle, joy and love. He points out, 'Mahler wrote the famous fourth movement (Adagietto) as a love ode to his wife, Alma Schindler, whom he met when he was going through a rough phase. Unfortunately, that piece, like Elgar's 'Nimrod', is often misinterpreted and played at funerals.'
Like any orchestra he's conducting for the first time, Andrew's focus with the SOI is to 'observe them play, listen to them, see what to add or change and produce the best music possible together.' It's also his first time with pianist Scherbakov. He says, 'I'm looking to make good friends with another musician. Though I've conducted Tchaikovsky's piano concertos often, I usually leave it up to the soloist to interpret the piano portions. I will oversee the orchestra but the approach will be different from a symphony.'
Of the other pieces, he says, Stravinsky's The Firebird, though written in 1910, is best heard in its 1945 version, which he will play. He explains, 'The composer was best known to keep revising his pieces, and in this version, he had cut off almost 20 minutes, making it more accessible for the audience and playable for any orchestra.'
The conductor feels opening any concert with Ravel's Bolero is a 'bizarre thing', but it works well because everyone in the audience knows the tune. He says, 'It can actually be more challenging than the more complex pieces because every musician has to maintain the tempo and ensure that it doesn't suddenly get loud. What's worrisome is that if one makes the slightest mistake in Bolero, the audience will point it out.'
Though Andrew admits he isn't familiar with Indian music, he remembers being inspired after attending sitar maestro Ravi Shankar's show years ago. 'Besides the concerts, there are a couple of things I want to do on this visit. One is to meet someone who can explain to me how Indian music functions. Two, I'd like to taste as much Indian cuisine as possible, things we don't get back in New York,' he concludes, with a laugh.