What keeps me going is that kind of mission of broadening the audience of classical music.
That incredible New Year's concert in Vienna.
It was a dream come true, you know, to be asked to do it.
I had time to be very nervous because I didn't want to disappoint when we first started to play, and I could feel the reaction of the audience. People were smiling a lot, and there was such a really positive energy.
You said the famous two letters, AI. Now with AI, I think classical music wins so easily.
It's making music different today than it was like 10, 20 years ago. But every artist, I feel like it's more important now to have a purpose. Conducting is very much about connectivity.
With music, we work so much with our emotions. I think I learn something about myself every time I conduct a piece.
Cheers for the... Okay. Cheers. Cheers for the next 50 years of conducting.
And then we do another podcast like this.
Hello everyone, it's your host Opera Bird, and welcome to Neoclassical Podcast, Conversations on Music. I'm so happy to start this journey, and I'm glad, I'm so excited to be joined today by our first incredible guest, Yannick Nézet-Séguin. How are you, Yannick?
I'm doing fabulous. How are you, Bird?
I'm great. It's so great to see you again. We met the first time in New York like almost a year ago, like September last year, I think.
Absolutely. And now the scenery is very beautiful.
Yeah, it's completely different. But it's so great to have you here.
You had such a year, you know, like you're having such a year. You kicked it off with one of the most successful and celebrated Vienna New Year's concerts of all time. Since then you went to lead Tristan und Isolde and Elektra at the Metropolitan Opera, Mahler Symphony Number Three in Berlin, Scheherazade on tour with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, and so many concerts with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Orchestre Métropolitain. Like, what a year.
You know my calendar very well. Thank you.
But let's get right into it, and I want to start with that incredible New Year's concert in Vienna. What was that experience like for you?
Of course, it was a dream come true, you know, to be asked to do it. But sometimes, maybe something I want to share with you and our guests also, our audience, our friends here, is sometimes, you know, when in classical music we're asked for something, it's two years in advance, three years in advance. In this case, I think it was exactly three years before. And you have time to prepare mentally, but also have time to be very nervous because I didn't want to disappoint. I wanted, and I studied a lot, all the scores and everything. And at some point I was starting to be stressed, and I told myself, Yannick, you're going to have a good time. I had to talk really to kind of self-coach myself to say, I'm going to have a good time. I'm going to smile.
And people need to have a good time. They deserve to have a good time. There's so many things in the world that don't go well. This should be a place where it's all about smiles. And I also told myself, if the orchestra is not as happy as I am, well, so be it. I want to be happy. And what happened is that they were all happy.
Everyone was happy in that. But how did it feel in that exact moment of the concert?
I really wanted to bring joy, but also be so detailed. And then when we first started to play, and I could feel the reaction of the audience, the applause, but also the silence, the smiles, when I turned to take bows, people were smiling a lot. And there was such a really positive energy that I think between each piece it just kept us even more happy, or ebullient, full of energy and joy. And yeah, so it felt like a very unique moment which really surpassed my greatest expectations.
Oh, and in the past New Year's concert, like I can imagine, like after a concert like that, I will be literally like one month in my bed, like what...
Actually, you know, like I would be like, well, well, the next day on January 2nd, I indeed fell sick.
Yes, yes. I was still in Vienna, my hotel room, and I started to have my throat, and I thought, oh no, that's not possible.
But you know, I think, yeah, after a shock like this, so I could not be one month in my bed, but at least, you know, I took a few days to enjoy it and work on the recording as well, because you know it's live, but of course we can still work on the mix, on the balance of things, and so that was beautiful.
But it's crazy because I think like this New Year's concert in Vienna, like it's one of those moments that so many people come together because of classical music, you know, and that shows us every time that classical music continues to speak a universal language and connects us through emotion and goes sometimes beyond words, and especially in this world that is like moving so fast.
Technology is advancing, AI is coming. What do you think classical music offers that nothing else really can? And what does classical music mean to you?
Well, Bird, you said the famous two letters, AI.
It's pretty scary, though. I have to say it.
It is scary. I think, you know, some of it we're going to have to embrace. But I'm loving your question because even before AI became a thing, I remember thinking maybe 10 years ago, even more than this, even when I was a student, what is unique about classical music? And one part that is indeed this length, this contrasting length. Everybody's talking about, oh, the attention span of people is now 30 seconds is even too much, and people want to go to another thing. It might be true, but we're also human beings. We need calm. We need moments of rest. And sometimes people, they go and have yoga sessions, or they go in a retreat, or they want to have a silent moment. And I think classical music and opera can bring that to the audience and more. That's the thing, you know, you can really get away from the real life, but also getting fed in your soul and in your brain. Now with AI, I think classical music wins so easily, specifically because it's the most human of art forms.
Yeah, opera, and I know, you know, let's start with opera because this is your passion, and of course one of my passions. And you know, the human voice that's not amplified, an unamplified voice has like an effect on the human brain, on the human body that nothing else really can. You know, that when we hear a singer live, it's just such a different feeling as an amplified voice.
Exactly. And I love, don't get me wrong, I mean, we love pop singers, and it's just a totally different thing. You know, they use their voice, but it's not for the same purpose. And live instruments and orchestras is the same to me. When you collectively have a hundred people, or 60, or 200 doing that at the same time, putting their souls and efforts to magically come together, it's not only about instruments that come together. It's really persons that speak together, sometimes different phrases, different words, and magically it creates harmony. And I think we need, as humankind, we need this reminder that actually we all share the same planet. We all have our opinions. We all have our age, our experience, the things we like, the things we don't, the things we are against, or the things we work for and we defend. And if you start talking about it, you argue all the time. If you start singing together, start playing together, all of a sudden these differences are actually an enrichment and not...
Exactly. We become one, and I'm really convinced that we need this as humankind, otherwise we forget about it. So, you know, you see the news and you see the TV and you read and you go on whatever platform on the internet, and there's always like the negative about it. You sit down and you participate to this collective art and way of making music, and I hope, this is why I'm doing this, I hope that, and this is what it means to me. And I hope that this is what people get from it, just this kind of renewed hope in humanity.
Oh, but that's really beautifully put. Wow. And what do you think, like, it's making music different today than it was like 10, 20 years ago?
Well, I do believe that this access to technology does influence indeed how we make music. And what I've been observing, because you know I'm old, you know I'm a... I know that I feel young, but at the end of the day, it's been 34 years that I'm in a professional career.
Yeah, because I started at 18, and you know, so I actually observed that programming, and as an artist, especially a conductor, because we're music directors, we can plan what we play, but every artist, I feel like it's more important now to have a purpose, you know, to do a piece, but be realistic about who is going to, who is it going to speak to? What is the kind of audience that's going to listen to it? How can we get them there? There's fewer and fewer music education in schools. So that means also that we have sometimes as orchestras and opera houses and presenters, festivals, to do a bit more of education and teaching. And so the musician, the classical musician, becomes more like a citizen, and I think it's a good thing. It might be a bit more difficult, but in the end it's a good thing because classical music and being a musician, part of this music world, we need to think a bit more. It's not only enough to just play well the violin, just sing well. And I know that some musicians sometimes regret the times where it was just okay. But I don't, I think it's okay to think a bit more about how to...
