E8 S2: Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser
I was really honoured to have this opportunity to sit down and talk with the dynamic conductor, composer, multi-instrumentalist and radio host of CBC's CentreStage, Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser. We explored many interesting and important ideas around creating spaces for diverse audiences, amateur versus professional musicians, LGBTQ rights, his project with the drag queen Thorgy Thor, the lost music of Florence Price, and wonderful advice not only for conductors, but for everyone seeking more balance and meaning in their lives. I’ve added timestamps in the description of the video, linked below along with the podcast.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser: "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. 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. 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.”
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? 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."
Daniel currently holds positions with the San Francisco Symphony, the Toronto Symphony, Symphony Nova Scotia, and the National Arts Centre Canada. His current projects can be found here: Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser Website Reel: On Conducting
