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opinions are only about making the piece a success. and being with the silence of this piece that’s going to
I don’t see a conductor’s role as interpretation. I see become a thing, that’s going to become sound. Sound is
it as realization. It’s your job to make this very vague really interesting, because music doesn’t actually exist.
language that we use to write down music into a piece On the page it’s just a map; it’s not the actual landscape.
that sounds like it’s being thought of in real time—mu- Music happens as time passes into what we call the past.
sic that makes sense to the listener in real time, so that It’s back there in space/time.
even the directions of the notes indicate the directions When I approach a new score, I first deeply ingest
of the story. It should sound like we’re thinking it up, the text, taking a helicopter view of it. How is this text
and it should change us. If it does not do those things, embodied in the music by this composer? What is the
then I feel a responsibility to ask the composer what it is composer saying about the text? There’s no point to set-
they’re trying to get at. ting a text if there isn’t some enhancement. So, who are
they in this piece? Who am I in this piece? At the first
How do you as the conductor interact with a rehearsal of any piece, I usually start either telling or
brand-new score, and how do you work with rehashing the story of how it came to be and what is the
the ensemble for a piece that’s never been per- story we’re telling.
formed before? How much do the singers con- Then there’s the nitty gritty of the notes and the
tribute to the process? rhythms. That’s the workaday stuff. That’s just like rid-
ing the bus to go to your job. For singers who are part
I love getting a new score and sitting down to learn of The Crossing, they prepare substantially before they
it. Second only to hanging out with my husband, it’s my come to the first rehearsal. Other literature pros can per-
favorite thing to do. I love closing the door to my studio form with a very cursory glance and sight reading. You

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