Jonathan Sheffer John Axelrod Anne Manson Nick White Isaiah Jackson Christopher Wilkins

How to Become a Conductor

There are more direct routes to a conducting career than through medical school, but challenges abound. Here are a few tips for that budding Toscanini in you.

Free your inner capitalist: Four years ago, when Jonathan Sheffer '75 couldn't find enough work as a conductor in New York City, he founded the EOS Orchestra. "I guess I've always been a latent entrepreneur," he says with a laugh. The orchestra specializes in less well-known repertoire, primarily of American composers (a recent concert featured Leonard Bernstein's student compositions), and has performed, albeit to a relatively small crowd, at the White House. John Axelrod '88, founder of the three-year-old Orchestra X in Houston, feels he's discovered a new market niche for classical music. The symphony's logo features a lug wrench, and Axelrod wants to appeal to "Gen X" concertgoers by taking a similarly blunt instrument to the traditional concert format. He has encouraged audiences to dance in the aisle, or contribute poetry or personal reflections, and maintains that Orchestra X stages "events," not concerts. "The problem has never been Beethoven," says Axelrod. "The problem is the way that Beethoven is presented."

Ignore stereotypes: "You can count prominent African-American conductors on one hand, and the rest on the other hand," says Isaiah Jackson '66, former conductor at the Royal Ballet, and current music director of the Youngstown (Ohio) Symphony. Though he thinks discrimination exists, Jackson feels the most serious problem for aspiring black music directors is the lack of role models. Women face a similar problem. Anne Manson '83, about to embark on her first season as music director of the Kansas City Symphony, is one of only three female conductors of major American orchestras. She is the first woman to have conducted the all-male Vienna Philharmonic, ignoring the scattered giggles that met her at the podium. The reaction of one member of the ensemble after that first rehearsal? A surprised "She can conduct."

Learn to work under the gun: Jazz pianist Chick Corea played a Mozart concerto with Anne Manson during her successful tryout concert in Kansas City and was shocked to discover that Manson would have only one rehearsal with the orchestra before he arrived. "'That's brutal,' he said, and he's right," she agrees. "It is brutal." Two or three rehearsals is the norm for a typical program, says Samuel Wong, but he feels this is a sign of strength. "American orchestras are very well prepared," he says. "We are just the traveling preachers."

Know your audience: Partly by reaching out to his community's heavily Latino presence, Christopher Wilkins '78, music director of the San Antonio Symphony, has won national awards for his concert programming. His "Music of the Americas" series, for example, includes selections drawn from conjunto, a meeting of the Central European and Mexican traditions that can have mariachi elements set to the beat or instrumentation of a polka. "We've got to begin outreach and move the music to the people," he says.

Develop a taste for airline food: Far-flung guest engagements and the combination of two or more permanent conducting positions are the reality for most. Samuel Wong was until this year music director of both the Honolulu Symphony and the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra; now he travels between Hawaii and New York City to see his wife and two-year-old daughter. Anne Manson's mother often accompanies her around the world to care for Manson's infant son. The award for the longest commute, though, probably goes to Isaiah Jackson: conductor of the Youngstown Symphony and principal guest conductor of the Canberra Symphony Orchestra, in Australia.