Both Podcast and Video
Leah Roseman:
In episode eight, season two of Conversations with Musicians, with Leah Roseman, I was honored to have the opportunity to speak to the inspiring creative force and conductor Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser. We explored many topics including how he built his conducting career, LGBTQ rights, his concert with drag queen Thorgy Thor, his education project with singer Jah'Mila called Reggae Roots, trains, planes, and automobiles, and the value of pursuing personal interests, the lost music of Florence Price, how to avoid tokenism while increasing diversity and amazing advice, not only for conductors, but for everyone about broadening your perspectives, using creativity to relax and safeguarding your mental health. Daniel is currently The San Francisco Symphony Resident Conductor of Engagement and Education, the Artist in Residence, and Community Ambassador at Symphony Nova Scotia and the Barrett Principal Education Conductor and Community aAmbassador of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, as well as the Principal Youth Conductor and Creative Partner at the National Arts Center, Canada. This series is available in podcast forum, wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Leah Roseman:
Hi. Welcome, Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser. You are an incredible conductor, you are Resident Conductor of Community and Engagement with the San Francisco Symphony. Did I get that title right?
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
I'm Resident Conductor of Engagement and Education.
Leah Roseman:
Oh, see, I knew I'd get it wrong. And similar titles with Toronto Symphony, Symphony Nova Scotia, and my very own, National Arts Center Orchestra.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
Yay. Yes. Correct. That's correct.
Leah Roseman:
And some of our listeners are Canadian and they'll be familiar with you or in the States, but many people are in other places and they don't know who you are. And so I really want to talk about, of course, the incredible documentary that was made about you, Disruptor Conductor, and we'll refer to other projects that Canadians hopefully will be familiar with, but we might go into some detail with that stuff, because if people don't have a chance to see it or haven't seen that movie, it might be nice to go into some detail with that.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
Sure, absolutely. I'd love to.
Leah Roseman:
I really admire how you're able to bring our art form to more people in so many different ways and very creative ways. And I think it's really important that we need to get new audiences in to experience the Symphony Orchestra and all the things it can be. And you started in music and education in a school band program, correct?
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
Correct.
Leah Roseman:
With the tuba.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
With the tuba. Yes.
Leah Roseman:
And this made this accessible for your family, right? Because they had a tuba for you. You didn't have to...
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
Absolutely. This is one of the big things. If it had not been for the music education programs that existed in Alberta at the time, in Calgary at the time, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now. Because for the majority of my teenage years, it was a single parent family. And my mom would not have had the money to purchase a tuba, probably maybe not to rent a full size tuba, but I had the instrument to play on. And I had the lessons at the school and I had the opportunity to play with other people at the school. So I received the benefit of the work done by really smart educators that showed up to Vondis Miller, University of Lethbridge. Music educators in Alberta that had a vision that wanted it to be accessible. And then decades later I get to have the benefit of that. And I hope that my work will, in some way, contribute to increased accessibility for young people to become involved, not just in listening to music, but also in performing, learning instruments, incorporating it into their regular lives.
Leah Roseman:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. And I was just thinking... Now I'm jumping ahead of where I wanted to be. You're also known as the host of an amazing show on CBC Radio and what's it called? Center Stage. I have to-
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
Yeah, CBC Center Stage. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. And in one of your episodes, you're talking about amateurs and professionals and how, of course there used to be so many more people just playing music because that was the way to access music. And there was music written for them that was a little easier, which is a really cool idea. And I was thinking about that in terms of accessibility now, because so many of our concerts have been shut down during this pandemic, but I do know a lot of people are taking up instruments they used to play. And there's this wonderful rebirth of that for a lot of people.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
It's been wonderful. And I think a lot of orchestras have tried to take advantage of the fact that people are playing instruments more now in their condos, in their houses and having play along projects, play along with the orchestra, play along with the symphony, and you don't even need that. Something that I do that's a lot of fun is I will take a piece of music on cello, whatever, and just play along, like download off of a website Schubert's third symphony or second symphony, or if it's really fun sight reading stuff that I don't know yet, or like a Haydn 34th symphony, right? Just sight read along with some famous orchestra and have a ball, look at their bowings, and it's just fun. So we have all this access to be able to play music in this way, and I think we should take advantage of it. So yeah, it's been great to see people reconnect with their past selves, their younger selves that quit piano lessons before they should have. Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. I'm curious. So are you playing along with the piano or with your tuba?
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
Oh, cello usually.
Leah Roseman:
Oh, okay. I didn't know.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
Yeah. I studied cello as a second instrument in university, right? I don't play along with tuba because that's my professional instrument, but sometimes I'll play along with... Usually I'll play along with cello, just like for fun to relax, or at a certain point I was part of a cello ensemble or like amateur string quartets, do stuff like that. So for me, that's still fun, playing instruments at an amateur level is still fun in a way that it's not when you're professional because you get so in your head about is this right? I'm not playing as well as I used to. I need to be playing better. This audition is coming up. There are instruments that I play only for me and that I will never ever perform on, because it's for me to enjoy music and not worry about making a mistake in front of the audience or in front of the orchestra. No, I'm just going to play for myself and have fun.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
And I think that's something that is absolutely accessible to anybody who has $10 to buy a recorder. And some people don't have $10 to buy a recorder, right? But I think that we definitely can start and we can have fun with music on our own, as amateurs and that there needs to be a revival of that. And maybe orchestras have a bigger role than we've played in encouraging that, because we are the self-appointed purveyors of perfection, right? And there is a place for that. I believe there's a place for that. There's also a place for whoops, but we're still having fun. And this is a place to explore that. So, I think it's just both in balance. I'm going on now. Sorry. That was an interesting question.
Leah Roseman:
That's super interesting. So in Disruptor Conductor, which is a documentary about you and a lot of your outreach projects, your mom talked about how even when you were very young, like you wanted to conduct. So you did tuba, and then when you did your performance degree in tuba, before you went and did conducting, I know you did education in there too, but were you thinking at that time I want to be a tuba player in an orchestra, or you always really wanted to be a conductor.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
Conductor. It was always conductor.
Leah Roseman:
Okay.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
And I don't know why, but I do know that second year university, I started cello as a second instrument, right? In second year take. This is a funny story. Oh, you're going to love this. Do you know who my first cello teacher was? My very first cello teacher. You know them. Amanda Forsyth-
Leah Roseman:
Really?
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
...was my... Exactly. Amanda Forsyth, former principal of National Arts Center Orchestra, former Pincipal Cellist of the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra was my first cello teacher. So you have to picture the hilarity because I just wanted to become a conductor. So I went to my first lesson, I was like, and I wanted to be a cellist because I always saw string players doing vibrato. And I thought, that looks so cool. Like, I just wanted to vibrate. I wanted to do vibrato. I was like, "This is amazing." So I get to my first lesson. I was just like, "Okay, I want to be a conductor. So I need to learn some things about string instruments." We had a ball, we had so much fun in those lessons because she was used to working with players on these Masters , blah, blah, blah.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
And then I would come in with my C major scale and she would literally sometimes have the teaching beginner's book or be calling her friend who worked with beginners. And we would talk about music and talk about conducting. And we had a good time. We had a good time. She was a really wonderful teacher, even though she didn't usually teach beginners, right? Because we were talking about music as much as about cello, right? It was really great. And I'm lucky actually. I'm lucky because it was really inspiring. And I haven't worked with her... Like, since I've been a conductor, we haven't worked together yet. And one day we will, right? But she knows all my musical faults and it'll be a ball. I look forward to that day.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. For sure. So I'm curious about, I've heard you talk about in other interviews, how you had gone to Manchester, right? To do your Masters. And then you were teaching. You were teaching high school for many years, but you-
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
I taught junior high school.
Leah Roseman:
Okay.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
Junior high. Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). But you had this burning desire to be a conductor all along. And a couple of friends sat you down and said, "You got to go for it. You have to try every opportunity you can." And I'm curious about those opportunities.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
Right. So those are two University of Calgary, they're now U of C professors. And before they were performers in Calgary and with the Calgary Harmonic Orchestra, Gareth Jones and Rod Squance, Dr. Rod Squance. And the main opportunity was the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra conducting symposium with Alexander Micklethwaite. And that was a conducting symposium. What was really interesting, really good about that conducting symposium was that they didn't just have all 10 or 15 of us come in, sit down for three days and dig into the Urtext of Brahms Four and Beethoven Nine and learn the pattern, think about balance blend. No, they sat us down. They said, "You have half an hour in your groups of three to come up with a symphony season for a small orchestra." And the instrumentation is two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, sometimes we'll get a third flute, four horns, two trumpets: Do that. Come up with a whole season, right?
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
Here's how you do an interview. Here's how you think about how... They actually talked about the actual job of conducting, right? They had an agent from New York, from Dispeker Management, Stephen Lugosi come in and talked to us about what actually happens in conducting. So it kind of expanded my mind. And at the end, I got to conduct Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra in the final movement of Brahms Four, which is really important because it's a great movement. I used that audition tape for other auditions. That helped me get an audition with Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, right? I didn't win the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra audition, which was probably, I don't know, a year and a half later, but it got me in front of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, the biggest orchestra I'd ever conducted to that point.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
On the Tuesday morning of that week, I was conducting grade sixes and sevens and grade eight, right? Doing B flat major scale. Wednesday morning, in front of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. So that when I went to do my Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra audition, I was used to being in front of bigger orchestras. On the Tuesday morning of that week, I was conducting grade sixes and sevens and grade eight, right? Doing B flat major scale. Wednesday morning, in front of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. So that when I went to do my Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra audition, I was used to being in front of bigger orchestras. I had gotten some of the nerves, the jitters out and I felt ready and I felt happy. So that Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra conducting symposia was sort of the linchpin that helped me understand a number of things, understand a job, give me the opportunity, give me the footage that I needed to get to the next step.
Leah Roseman:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). I've often thought we need more things like that in our profession.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
I think what we need is... We're very singular focused on playing music perfectly, playing music to the best of our ability, right? Okay. But I do think there's room and space in our nurturing of younger performers to help them from the onset, have a broader and richer understanding of all the elements that are inherent to our profession, and all the riches that are in them that they can bring to the profession and how they don't necessarily have to sacrifice all of themselves to be in this, that they can incorporate other aspects, right? Again, there is a place, there's absolutely and there always will be, and I hope there always will be a place, right? For the musician who is going to spend six hours a day making perfect oboe reads and then spending the other five practicing and then go to audition.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
That is, that is part of what we do. There is also a place for the crazy junior high teacher who does a bunch of auditions and then kind of morphs education and community outreach into conducting. There is a place for, the Gustav Mahler Orchestra Conducting Competition winner, who is just a wunderkind and an incredible conductor and does all the... There's a place for all of us, right? But it's the all of us that needs to be emphasized a little bit more, right? The uniqueness of paths that people can find and have, I think in our preparation, we could show the breadth, right? The breadth of what a musician actually does.
Leah Roseman:
So in the film, you did this incredible show that you ended up touring with Thorgy Thor, the drag queen, and this really unique program that you programmed, if I'm correct about that.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
Yes. Yes, I did program it. I did program it, I'm very pleased to have programmed it, it was a really great blend of substantive entertainment in the fullest sense of a Brooklyn drag queen who has honed her craft in dark bars and bright bars and great audiences and rough audiences and bringing all that expertise of what crafts a show and like. And timing, timing, timing, timing, all these different elements so that an audience has no idea what's coming next. And then blending her expertise on violin and viola and cello, she plays all three, right? Putting those together with me bringing the academic side. And the, oh, you came for Thorgy, but we're also going to give you LGBTQ history, Canadian LGBTQ history, surprises, a dance, knowledge. So what I think is important is for people to come to a concert sometimes and get more than they bargained for, right? And I think with the Thorgy concert, what makes it successful, because we are still touring that concert.
Leah Roseman:
Okay.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
Yeah. We are still touring that concert. I think we have two concerts next year. Yeah. I think we've done a lot of the orchestras in Canada, not all of them, but eventually we'll get there, is that people come for Thorgy and they get so much more, right? And we're always evolving the program because the state of the lives of LGBTQ people are constantly evolving, especially if you live in certain states where for example, in schools, you're no longer allowed to talk about LGBTQ people, right? That's as of last week. You can't mention it, you can't say anything, you'll be fined, right? So as states balance parents' rights with the existence of LGBTQ, as that situation evolves, so will my show. And so will my performances for the LGBTQ community. Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
So I'm just sitting with that. It's amazing because it's something that's very entertaining, but it's so deep and so meaningful to bring that together.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
Yeah. I think in a show like that, at the end of the day, people buy a ticket for a concert and it's trust, maybe it's $25, maybe it's $250 of trust saying like, "I'm expecting you to do something with this trust that I've given you." Right? And I think when they come to a Thorgy concert, they're trusting us to provide a space where they can be themselves and a space... And I don't know that concert halls necessarily been overtly homophobic as much as other spaces, right? Like say like a hockey, what's it called? Where they get a... Hockey dressing room or whatever. Sorry, I'm not going to talk about sports because I won't be able to do it. But they're trusting us to provide a space where they will be accepted, where their music will be celebrated. The culture of LGBTQ and drag especially is okay and it's cool, right?
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
So I think it's important that we have those spaces for different parts of the community, right? That we have those spaces for people who have heard Beethoven Five 10 times and it's their favorite symphony and they want hear it played just absolutely the best we possibly can do it. And people who want to come and hear old classics of modern rock perform with an orchestra, because it sounds really fun and it's cool and they can wear their jeans, fantastic space for that. Space for people that have kids that are on the spectrum and maybe the parents used to love... Maybe they played in band or they played youth orchestra, and now because their kid needs so much attention, they can't because they're worried, "Is my kid going to vocalize to this concert?"
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
No, we have a space for you as well too. Maybe it's only twice a year, maybe it's only two or three times a year that we can provide that space, but we will provide that space. We see you there, right? I don't know that every orchestra's going to... Like, honestly, I don't know that every orchestra is going to be able to provide for every single aspect of the community, right? Because of 8,000 reasons. But at least we can try, at least we can try. We won't be able to be everything to all people, but we should start expanding. So, you asked a specific question and I gave an answer and then I started just talking and now I've gone off. So, I'm sorry.
Leah Roseman:
It's the best kind of conversation, I think.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
I'm sorry.
Leah Roseman:
So what would 12 year old Daniel have thought to see his future self on stage with the drag queen conducting an orchestra and talking about gay rights?
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
12 year old Daniel would've died a thousand deaths and been absolutely shocked and probably appalled. 12 year old Daniel was very conservative and very cautious. I still am pretty conservative and pretty cautious, which I think you can detect actually even in Thorgy show, which seems on the surface to be orchestra and drag quite outlandish, actually it's pretty circumspect in terms of like topics that are addressed and the way that we address, and the way that you approach and the way that you prepare an audience for talking about difficult topics. And Thorgy and I spent a lot of time thinking, okay, we're going to go to this point. How do we sensitively approach this? How do we open up the door? And how do we take the audience back out in a way that is celebratory and leave everybody warm and fuzzy and appreciated? Right?
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
So 12 year old Daniel would've been shocked because 12 year old Daniel wanted to fly 767s for Air Canada. And the older 12 year old Daniel still kind of wants to fly for Air Canada. So it's like, I love commercial aviation, it's a whole other side of me, but I would've been pretty shocked. I would've been pretty shocked. Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
I thought you wanted to design car interiors.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
That too.
Leah Roseman:
Okay.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
Yeah. So planes, trains, and automobiles. I don't know if it's like this. I was listening to Gustavo Gimeno rehearse the TSO today, right? And he's a really, really wonderful conductor. He's a really wonderful conductor. And I love his concerts and I prefer his rehearsals. I like watching rehearsals more than concerts, well, 51%, 49%. Just in a few comments he made, it was really apparent that when he makes a comment, like he talked to the timpanist and he said, "Joe, when you see paintings from this period and you see the timpanist and the way that they're riding horses and their stance, that tells us something about the sound." Where does he have that knowledge from? Like the knowledge base is huge and wide and vast, right? So he'll say something in a rehearsal. It's just the tip of not even the triangle, the tip of the pyramid, right? Of what he knows.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
And Alexander Shelley, I feel is the same in my discussions with him. It's a time to listen and... Just listen to what he says, because he knows a lot about a lot of things. And I have a knowledge base as well too. And I haven't been able to really intersect my planes, trains, and automobiles with orchestra yet, but it is a real passion of mine. I'm extremely critical of car interiors and car design. I'm fiercely opinionated about aircraft liveries and airline branding. These are just nerdy facts, but I will die on certain issues or things I just feel very strongly about. And design is one of them. So, we'll see.
Leah Roseman:
In Season One, I spoke with Jack Everly, who's our Principal Pops conductor. And I started off with saying what a unique career he had as a conductor. And he laughed. And he said, "I think you'll find every conductor has a unique career." And actually came up that he wanted to be a set designer. That was his initial...
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
It's interesting. Because all of these things... I do think it helps. I think it helps in orchestra. I think if you have something else, as a conductor, I think there are conductors and this is actually a quote from Edwin Outwater. He said, "The owl is about one thing. The Fox is about many things." Oh no, the owl knows one thing. The fox knows many things. And I think as a conductor, I'm definitely a fox type of conductor, whereas there are many things. And I think Edwin, who's one of my inspirations and friend and a mentor is also a conductor who's about many things. When you see him as a music director with Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, and just doing the work of a music director as you expect. And then also going to San Francisco and conducting Metallica's S&M concert, which is this huge concert with Symphony Orchestra and Metallica and like video.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
I don't know if it's going to be on Netflix, but it's like that level of thing. And then also curating concerts that have been picked up by... Like featuring New York Times best selling authors and taking their interest and marrying back to orchestra, right? He's about many things. You also have the specialists that do their one thing and there's room for both, but for me it's helpful to have, and I think for the kind of work that I'm doing with community engagement and with engagement, just engagement in general and education, it's helpful to be about many things. For me, that's my path, so.
Leah Roseman:
So the last time I worked with you, we were making a recording and it was really cool, this Reggae Roots thing that's coming out. And it would be wonderful if you talked about that, because now it's all been put together how that's being used.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
Well, the story of how it came to be Kelly Racicot at the National Arts Center Orchestra sent me an email in the summer and said, "Are you available in September to do an education concert with us? Maybe something with hip hop or I don't know, like what ideas do you have?" And I wrote her back and I said, "I'm sorry, I'm not available actually during that time, but if you are going to do something, maybe you could do this? I know this singer in Halifax, she's a really wonderful singer and she could absolutely help you out." And then before Kelly wrote back, I wrote back again and said, "And if you are going to do that concert with her, here's some of the pieces you could do. And here's the arrangers. And I suggest like this order." Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
And then she's like, "Okay, that's too bad you can't do it." I said, "Yeah, no problem." Blah, blah. And then I wrote her back and said, "And if you're going to do those pieces, I actually have two pieces and maybe that..." And then I realized, Daniel, you obviously really want to do this because you keep building this show. So then I said, "You know what? Is there a way we could do this? Maybe I can be involved." And that's how Reggae Roots was born. From Symphony Nova Scotia, we were put in contact with this wonderful artist called Jah'mila. And she performed with us first on family shows doing music of Nina Simone, she's sang two songs. And then we did another concert at the Nova Scotia Black Cultural Center. We did another show at the, I want to check the name.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
We did another show together. So we did two shows and then we decided to have a reggae show with her because she is a reggae singer. So we commissioned some charts and got them done and that went online and she is just a wonderful performer, and I wanted to do more with her. And that's kind of how the show began. I thought, this would be great for kids because we will be performing, in terms of variety, we will be doing shows where they are encountering Bach, Beethoven and Brahms and Mozart. Absolutely. We should do those shows. We should do. That's great music. But there's also for every orchestra, a segment of the population that is pops, right? So we can use an educational series that features pop music to educate kids, like once in their life orchestra also does this. This is also part of what we do.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
And then also, for the Black community, and I won't even say Black community, because one of the places where I learned a lot about reggae was Germany, right? I was working at camps for young people, for German kids that wanted to learn English in Germany. And there were two young people there and I still remember their names. They were so into reggae music. And they were telling me about artists that I didn't even know. They had like, this was 10 years ago, and they had like vinyl of reggae. It's a worldwide thing. Why not? Why not? Let's learn about reggae. Let's have some fun. So the admin of National Art Center, specifically Kelly and Geneviève had a vision for what this could be, right? And what was really great is that I feel like I went to them with a flower, which was the concert, and they turned it into a whole garden.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
And now young people not only Ontario, but all over Canada will be able to see their music authentically married to the orchestra, sorry, they'll be able to see reggae music authentically married to the orchestra in a way that is engaging, we hope and entertaining, and informative, and also ultimately very engaging. We hope that they'll fall in love with reggae. Because you can, I mean, you can watch as a concert, you can learn. It's really great. And Jah'mila is a wonder, she is a powerhouse, singer, so expressive, and a wonderful speaker and an educator, the work that she's done on the pedagogical guide, oh my goodness. So lucky to have her. So, yeah.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. So I heard it's going out to every school in Canada for free.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
Yeah. Which is great. Learn about reggae. I think people will love it. I think people will be very, very happy. And I don't know that a lot of reggae has been done with orchestra before, right? And I think that it's great. It's wonderful to first to learn about Price and Still and Walker and Montgomery and these black composers of today and yesteryear, and also to treat this music, reggae, as its own performance practice, right? As a style of music that deserves, well, it does deserve study, right? We're not going to treat it as music that deserves study. It is music that deserves study. So we're going to study it and learn about it, right? And I'm very proud of that. I'm very proud of that.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
When we did this with Symphony Nova Scotia, an orchestra which punches above its weight, I think in terms of the diversity of offerings that it gives to Nova Scotia. There were Jamaican flags that were hung on the set, right? And for me, it is something I like to talk about when I'm doing speeches and sessions, bring yourself to Workday. I don't have to just be my German, (German)
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
So I can have that part of me, right? That the part of me that is an old German man, and I also have the part of me that is Jamaican and the part of me that is Trinidadian and I'm fortunate enough I have the privilege as a conductor to be able to express that artistically, right? And I hope that the riches that is in front of me as an... Every orchestra player contains multitudes, right? And I think we're approaching a time in the orchestral world where it's not just going to be, sit down to shut up and play, right? But the musicians will be able to bring more of themselves to the job, hopefully in different ways. I mean, I'm thinking even if you, here, like right now, you're a wonderful musician, wonderful violinist in the National Art Center Orchestra and also a gifted and skilled interviewer, right?
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
Yay. There's more. There's more. There's more. And again, this does not mean that everybody has to be doing media stuff, right? This does not mean that if you want to be that baroque performance practice enthusiast, who's like finding the right... Like going to Italy to find the exact rosin that they used in 16... Go and do that. Absolutely, because we need that as well. But it's exciting to think of what can happen when we let go a little bit and allow people to blossom. And I think it'll be evolutionary, maybe not revolutionary, but I think it will be nicely evolutionary. Because I do love orchestra, right? Yeah. Again, you asked the question and I'm just, I'm somewhere. So I'll let you reel me back in.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. Daniel, I have a lot of tangents and I'm trying to choose which one. You mentioned Florence Price, whose music is now being played a lot. And I think out of this weird pandemic time, we've been able to program a lot of music that we should have programmed before in a lot of different contexts. Because we are not so worried about selling tickets, things have been online a lot of the time and for different reasons. And actually in one of your radio programs, you talked about how a lot of her music was hidden in some attic, in some house.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
Yes. Her music was... Basically, there was a person who's going to buy a property and the house was scheduled to be destroyed. And he went into a side room and saw boxes there and saw music, written in a fairly elegant hand. And he looked at it and realized that this could be potentially important. And I can't remember the exact pieces and I did know this, but we found some of her music, right? I mean, can you imagine? She's a wonderful composer. And a lot of these composers could have gone further had they had more opportunity to workshop and to hear and to experiment and to have their pieces perform more often and realize, oh, like the way I voice the horns here doesn't actually work. It can be clear the way that the third... I'll do more of that. But they didn't have the full opportunities to blossom and grow.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
A lot of her music was lost, and now it's being performed with a lot more regularity. Is this tokenism? On the one hand, right? Because now, William Grant Still, we're all doing his music. Price, we're doing her music. Walker, we're doing his music a lot more. And then I think of Julia Perry, her music's been lost, just a few pieces that we have. Errollyn Wallen, wonderful composer, doing more of her work. Jessie Montgomery is experiencing resurgence, right? In the whole notion of tokenism in the industry, right? There are not as many performers of color as there are performers who are not of color. So in a sense, I think it will always appear somewhat tokenistic, right? Just because there's fewer of us. Where I start to get... So I'm like, "Okay, okay, okay. I understand. Okay. Okay." Where I start to get nervous, is when I see orchestras only doing one piece from one composer. When I see the entire industry doing one piece by one composer, right?
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
Do more research, dig deeper, dig much deeper. Trevor Weston has a lot of great music. Jessie Montgomery has a lot of great music. So I think people are aware. Basically my sense speaking with artists and with orchestra admin because I have my fingers in a number of pots, we're aware of this. We're aware of this. So let's see where it goes. I think we've got our foot in the door of actually listening to like diversifying composer offerings. Let's see over the next two years, what our programming across North America looks like. Hopefully we can avoid that tokenism, but I am struck as I look at the lives of Still, Price, Perry and others, the level of chance and missed opportunity that seems to figure in their stories that what if we'd missed those pieces, right?
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
The numbers of missed opportunities that they had to endure, it's discouraging. It's discouraging. So I hope to redress some of that, sometimes I feel that should I have been doing more? Can I be doing more to help composers of color, to help all young composers get their works out there? Because it's really hard. And I'm not just speaking of composers of color, but just, who are the composers right now that aren't being heard that have something valuable to add? Am I just recycling? Or am I doing enough work to find those people and those voices? Yeah. So I do think about that. I do think about that.
Leah Roseman:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). During this pandemic, with concerts being suddenly canceled and things rescheduled all the time, you've had a lot more time for reflection. And I heard you speak in another interview about how at the beginning of the pandemic, anyway, you just kind of leaned on your routine to keep you healthy mentally, which I could really, it really resonated with me because that's the kind of person I am. How has it been for you going on? Now, as we speak, we're in this Omicron wave with like new...
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
Well, what's interesting is that everything went online, right? And then for me, a lot of questions with regards to inclusion and diversity started being asked. And I'm chair of the equity committee at Orchestras Canada. And we have a lot of discussions about equity. So people have asked me to have a lot of discussions. So it's been a lot of thinking about equity and a lot of discussing, a lot of speaking. So that has continued. And then as music started coming back, that didn't stop. So that's been added on to the work of being a conductor, which is a big job. And burnout in the sense of, there're just not being enough of us to talk about this, so the same people keep on being asked, is a real thing. Is a real thing.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
And I've had conversations with people in the Indigenous community who've talked about this, where there's so much happening and they're being asked, asked, asked, asked, asked. It can be difficult at times just to keep up. I have wonder now though, almost coming up on two years after George Floyd, right? But we can shift from talking about diversity, inclusion and equity, to showing it more. Do I really need... And maybe the answer is yes to this, right? But in addition to having somebody come and talk about equity, can we have demonstrations of equity that themselves serve as the discussion? And I'm getting kind of performance arty here, but I think there's a rule in literature that many of us are familiar with, show don't tell, right?
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
And I think now that's important. And we don't want to be... Okay. There's virtue signaling. Okay. But if we are approaching things in an organic route, maybe now we can start to see some fruit in our quest to a represent our communities. And I hope that my speaking about inclusion and representation and diversity can switch from why we should have diversity or how to achieve diversity to the talk that I'd love to give and I don't think I'll be able to give it for a while is, and this is the working title, and this would never actually be the title, but like, okay, we're diverse. Now what?
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
And again, that won't be the title, but okay. So now we have a measure of diversity. We're fairly representative. Okay. So now what are we going to use that towards? What are we going to use that towards? Right? One of my favorite questions to ask is, so what? So what? Right? So it's like, okay, you have these titles, Daniel. So what? So what? What are you doing? What good is that to the community? What good is that to the musicians? What good is that? What does it mean? What is the value in that? Right? Retroactively. Retrospectively. So I think that diversity is not an end in itself. The end is representing and being of service and value to as wide a spectrum of Canadians in the case of National Arts Center Orchestra as possible. So that they can be touched by the gift that we have, right? That's what I think.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. And just back to my question about, in terms of, because you adressed burnout and in terms of taking care of yourself. So when you're on the podium, I imagine you're in flow much of the time, especially during performance.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
Yes.
Leah Roseman:
In fact, you mentioned before about rehearsals. I mean, I think it's interesting as a musician, because when you're practicing, we're analyzing all the time, problem solving. I think it must be the same for conductors. And then when you get to the performance, you have to let go and get into the music and whatever happens, happens, right?
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
Absolutely. Absolutely. The rehearsals are often problem solving on the fly with an audience, and then the performance, it's a very, very different... It's an active problem solving because it's really magical. And people say, "What's it like conducting orchestra?" And I say, "It's exactly what it looks like." It looks like it's amazing and fun and crazy and overwhelming and just powerful. That's exactly what it is. It's on the fly problem solving. It's like, "Okay, well I can hear that we're not quite at the tempo. Okay. What am I going to do? Okay. If I can move the bass drum a little bit." But you're not thinking. You're just reacting and responding. So you're so in the moment. It's amazing. I love it. I love it.
Leah Roseman:
So when you have been able to be on the podium in the last couple years, what did you use to kind of get into that flow state? Like you mentioned, playing the cello for fun. Is there other pursuits you do to...
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
Well, yeah. Cello's more for score. It's more for study and score and for relaxation for me and for fun. To get into that flow state that usually... Let me think. Yeah. So to relieve anxiety, what I do is, it's an educational, I think it's called chunking. So if I get on the podium and I feel like I have to be Leonard Bernstein, that's overwhelming. So what I will do is break things down into chunks, manageable chunks. Okay. What does it connect to you? You stand in front of a bunch of people waving a stick, listening and offering your thoughts on the performance. "Okay. Daniel, you're nervous." "Yes, I'm nervous." "Can you stand up?" "Yes, I can stand up." "Okay. Can you walk to the podium?" "Yes, I can do that." "Can you stand up in front of the orchestra and look..." "I can do that."
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
"Okay. Can you start them?" "Absolutely." "Can you start them and just listen?" "Yeah." "Okay. That's your job." "Okay. Okay." The role the conductor becomes so vaunted and so filled with these ghosts of the past, usually these men who all, but walked on water and retire and could hear a wrong boing and hire and fire at will. And it's like, "Oh, I have to be that." No, we don't want to be that anymore, right? Speaking of mental health. So when I break it down to, I'm a musician among musicians, right? Can I be helpful to them? They can already play this without me, basically. So can I just listen and offer suggestions based on my study and make it better? Okay. Yeah. I can do that, right? So making it manageable. And that's a different thing from getting into the flow. Fortunately for me, I find that getting into the flow in a concert happens pretty naturally because, it's like you said, there's nothing I can do anymore. I just have to go and do it.
Leah Roseman:
This is all super interesting, especially about your nerves, because of course you don't show them. But actually what I'm curious about is when you can't be on the podium because things have been shut down and you're stuck at home. That's what I mean. Like, in terms of coping because all the musicians I know, it's been a really incredibly hard time. We're all coping in different ways.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
Yeah. So how am I coping with being at home off the podium?
Leah Roseman:
Yeah, because I think, honestly, I think a lot of us as performers, we miss that flow state because when it works well, you feel good. You have those feel good chemicals, right? When you're making great music with people.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
I was talking to a musician this morning, and we were talking about how we're all at home, getting into our own heads and being super nitpicky and overthinking everything. How do I get out of that? I've been watching a lot, this is perhaps really nerdy, I've been watching a lot of rehearsals on YouTube, watching orchestra rehearsals and rehearsing along with the conductor, I'm listening to what they're listening for. And that helps me, it's not performing, but that helps me stay in the zone. That's a way of practicing. Getting into that flow state in my own practice, I do find times where have to be disciplined about playing for myself and not playing because I'm studying for an orchestra or not studying a piece of music because I'm going to be performing it with an orchestra, but to let my own soul be fed by the thing that I love, which is music.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
Every morning, I start off with a little bit of piano... This is actually something that's regimented, that I start off with... I start every day musically. Musically and creatively. And that takes precedence. Before anything else, my first efforts of the day go to the composer, go to creative stuff. And that's really been helping me to stay in touch with what I love because otherwise, as you know, it becomes about everything else. So I've been trying to be really disciplined about having my own creative time. First, I'm prioritizing that at the beginning of every single day.
Leah Roseman:
That's wonderful to hear. I'm curious, I talked to a couple of composers in Season One and we talked about improvisation, because for them it was a big part of that. Do you improvise as a matter of your practice?
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
That's interesting. I do improvise, but not... When I played in church, a lot of times what would happen is there'd just be... If you have a religious background, maybe you know many different songs, right? So when I was playing in church bands, playing cello or sometimes a woodwind instrument, very rarely, I'd just be like, "Okay, we're doing Father of Lights." "Okay. What key?" "F major." Okay. Great. Off we go. And you just know the song and just be doing very, very basic, not jazz improv, but just like chord improv, a little melody, a little harmony. I do that. I do that a lot and I sing... Boy, we're going deep here. I do like to sing harmony quite a lot in my car, road trips. So I do that a lot. I find that really, really relaxing, really, really relaxing, but I'm not a jazz improviser like at all. At all. I-
Leah Roseman:
I don't mean jazz. It's funny. Whenever I ask this to people, they say, "Well, I don't do jazz." There's so many different types of improvisation, right?
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
Right. I think this maybe circles back a little bit to what we said before about professional versus amateur, and how it's hard as an adult, I think this is one of the problems with adult music making is as an adult, we value competence. And it's hard for that person who is a professional plumber, who knows that they can go into a house, turn on the tap, listen and know what the problem is and where it is and solve it in 15 minutes and be in and out. To pick up a bassoon and not know where to put their thumb on one of like 57 different buttons on a bassoon, that's really hard. So it's funny, because you ask that question and my professional musician training shines through. "Do you improvise?" And immediately I think, I'm not John Coltrane. "No, I do not improvise and I'm not good at it. I do have a little..."
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
Wow, wow. It's not okay to make mistakes. And I think maybe we need to open up that improvisatory space where in music making, there is a bigger space for improvisation and music making in that amateur space. So in an amateur space, I do do improvisation. Funny, and this is interesting. As my career has progressed, the space that that's taken in my life has become smaller and more confined to privacy because I'm not going to improvise in the space where can be broadcast on YouTube, right? I can't do that anymore. That's okay. That's okay. That's probably how it should be, but... Now you're making me think.
Leah Roseman:
That's too bad. In Season One, I was just, I mean, I've never studied improvisation, but many of my guests, I convinced them to improvise call and response with me as part of their interview. So there was like many bonus episodes in Season One, where I improvised with a whole bunch of guests as a total newbie, never having... Because I felt like I have nothing to lose. I've never really done this, but I was feeling so isolated because we were stuck at... I think we were in like stay-at-home order for ages when I started this podcast. Well, I usually like to end the end of the conversation with, if have a few words of advice for young... It could be aspiring conductors or composers, anybody really in this space.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
Yeah. What would my advice be to young conductors? My advice to young conductors might be different from my advice to other musicians. I would limit my advice to people trying to pursue professional path as a musician, just because it can be so specific. If you are learning to play the clarinet and you want to be a professional clarinetist, right? That journey, apart from very broad strokes... I could only speak to it in broad strokes in terms of routines of practice. One thing that would be the same for everybody is listen to as much as you possibly can. Have as many different orchestras in your ear as you possibly can. Absolutely. That's been helpful. The years that I spent listening to Walter and Klemperer and Furtwängler and pursuing those rabbit holes, pursue your rabbit holes. That's what I would say actually maybe. Pursue your rabbit holes.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
It's either a song or an album by Sufjan Stevens called Enjoy Your Rabbit. I love that title. I don't know what it means, but enjoy your rabbit holes because those little minds can be the things that sustain you later on in your career. Your specific nerdy interests, I believe will be of use and value to the orchestras of the communities that you serve. That would be one thing.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
For conductors, I would say study languages. If I were to give practical advice, I'm just going to scatter shot a bunch of practical advice. Learning languages is important, not just because of the ability to read scores or read books of languages, but just be able to think in a different way and to have a breadth of knowledge that's like not a triangle, but a pyramid. I think that's really important for a conductor. I think as a conductor, it's really important to listen and I mean, listen, capital L, not just listen to music, but listen to people, because ultimately what a conductor needs to be able to do the best is listen.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
Listen to what the orchestra's playing, listen to what your players are saying in committee meetings, listen to what the marketing people are saying, listening to what your community is saying, your community stakeholders, listening to what the board is saying, listening to what the donors are saying, taking all of this in, holding it, ruminating with it, looking at it from different facets, and being able to hold everything that is in orchestra and being an art leader in a community and observe it and being able to have it affect you. And then also having enough of a grounded center of other things, like airline marketing and car design, to be able to put it over here and come back to it. But being able to listen and take things in is ultimately the job of a conductor, being able to listen under pressure and take things in. And you can do that anywhere, at any time, really focusing your listening, whether it's people speaking to you or the composer speaking or the orchestra. So for conductors, it would be listen. Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
Wow. Beautifully expressed. Thank you. Well, I have to thank you for your generosity of time and openness today. It was just an amazing discussion. Thank you so much.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
Thank you so much, Leah. And is there anything else you'd like to... If there's anything else at all.
Leah Roseman:
Oh, Daniel, there's so much we could talk about, but it's okay.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser:
Okay. Okay. It's great-
