The arrival of Clemens Schuldt was a facelift for the Orchestre symphonique de Québec (OSQ) and the musical life of the national capital. As it begins its second season on September 18 at the Grand Théâtre, with Bruce Liu as soloist in the 3e Piano Concerto Prokofiev, the German conductor takes stock with The Duty on the balance sheet of its 1D season and its ambitions.
At the inaugural concert of Clemens Schuldt’s term as music director, the speakers kept repeating to the audience: “Above all, come back and see us during the season.” The statistics concerning classical music attendance for the 2022-2023 season were enough to traumatize many institutions and, no doubt, the Orchestre symphonique de Québec (OSQ) as well.
What happened in the end? “With 1,600 to 1,700 seats to fill at the Grand Théâtre, we don’t have 1,500 subscribers, of course. So each time, we had to convince the audience with an idea, a soloist, a program,” Clemens Schuldt tells us. “What I saw over the course of the first season was a room that filled up and became younger and younger,” he rejoices. Tangible concrete results when the new program was published: “We recorded a record ticket sales in pre-season for 2024-2025, on new subscriptions and individual tickets. By mid-May 2024, we had reached the sales level of September 2023!”
The guy Clemens
“It’s a breath of fresh air that I didn’t imagine. You can’t say that ‘everyone knows me’, but the ‘new face’ aspect seems to be working well,” says Clemens Schuldt happily.
Jovial, enthusiastic, curious, the French-speaking Clemens Schuldt even looked into the profile of his new clientele. “There are people who are expanding their subscription, going from three concerts to seven. There are people who, after the pandemic, are now coming back. And there is what delights me the most: these people I meet at the local café and who approach me and say: “This is my first time at the concert, the violinist Hadelich was impressive”, or “Nirvana with orchestra, that’s cool to do that.” Believe me, I’m not making these anecdotes up, it’s a coach rock football fan who was sitting across from me at the cafe this morning. These encounters make me think we’re going to have new listeners.”
Among the “Schuldtian” ideas, the “jeans concert” where everyone will wear jeans, on stage and in the audience! “Finally, the idea is: “Come dressed as you want, without the slightest constraint.” When I say this to young people, they tell me: “Thank you, I never know what to do.” At this concert, we will play a contemporary percussion concerto, the Bolero and the continuation of West Side Story ; 60 minutes without a break with an after-concert composed only of percussion music. We want to surprise and bring people to the concert. ” “There are also gala concerts, of course, but I want to broaden the spectrum,” continues the conductor.
This whole approach is finely premeditated: “What works is the proximity, the idea that the guy Clemens is not complicated, that we can approach him and share music with our friends at his concerts.”
Watching the guy operate, everyone quickly understood that he was steering the boat to safety. “The orchestra is very ambitious with me; there are many musicians, young ones, certainly, but also older ones who are rediscovering themselves and coming to see me asking: “Clemens, what sound do you want there?”; “How should we play that?” In addition, the rehearsal is over and they are continuing! I am lucky to have an orchestra with such curiosity and healthy pride. And the administration plays the game and puts my ideas forward; it is the packaging complete for a “new wind”, as they say in Germany.
Stay after the concert
During his first season, Clemens Schuldt was surprised by the warmth of the Quebec crowd. “These standing ovations, for us Europeans, are not commonplace. I eventually understood that it was a bit of a habit, but it always warms the heart.”
All this goes beyond the usual: “In our post-concert surveys, I read so much enthusiasm, human warmth, recognition from the public. It’s really more than I expected. Our enthusiasm as musicians to make music is transmitted to the audience. It touches me a lot.”
The conductor is also surprised by the open-mindedness of the audience. “I found my first season rather audacious. I included contemporary music, I tried innovations in the format of the concerts, we brought together well-known and lesser-known repertoires and it seems that all of this struck a chord.”
But, more than anything, the post-concert sessions really worked. “It was a real bomb. The idea of allowing the audience to stay after the concert and to welcome the soloist at the bar who plays with me a different repertoire, classical, folk or pop, created joy and gave the audience the opportunity to bond with us, the musicians.”
While at first glance the 2024-2025 season reads like an extension of 2023-2024, Clemens Schuldt insists that there are even more creative formats with concerts structured around a theme. “We have a concert of American music, but one that makes connections with Bach, like a bridge between continents. It will be a concert where I play on the string-brass duality. I didn’t make such oppositions in the 1D season. There is also a flamenco evening, where a flamenco singer, Maria Toledo, will sing traditional melodies that we will mix with Scheherazade Rimsky-Korsakov because the tradition of Persian music is linked to Andalusian music and the way of improvising, the melismatic art, is identical.”
Clemens Schuldt also highlights the presence of the first composer in residence, Katia Makdissi-Warren, a soloist in residence, Jean-Guihen Queyras, and a three-week Beethoven Festival in April 2025.
Horizon 2027
The new conductor is actively engaged in shaping the face of the OSQ of the future, with several positions to be renewed within the orchestra: “We have found four musicians and are looking for four more.” Among the four positions to be filled, in addition to a horn player, there are two key positions: that of principal violin and that of leader of the second violins. “These are important musicians who will influence our face and our sound. That excites me, but we have to take our time.”
Speaking of time, there is no question of recordings yet, and the conductor uses a sports metaphor. “I feel like I’m at training camp. We are developing in many directions, we are discovering a lot of repertoire together and I hope that certain key positions are filled that will give us our new foundation before recording. I have lots of ideas. We will talk again in a year or two and you will have an answer.”
Clemens Schuldt, who we may see at the Opéra de Québec before he records, since talks are underway with the artistic director, Jean-François Lapointe, and are only stumbling over the question of the conductor’s schedule and his work-life balance, had a lot of positive feedback from the meeting between OSQ and the NAC Orchestra for the project of the 5e Symphony by Jacques Hétu, recently.
“I imagine itinerant and reciprocal exchanges between the NAC, OSM, TSO and OSQ. For the moment, I find that it is too limited; I still feel that we are too much in a metropolitan bubble. As for the meeting of two orchestras, with the NAC, at least, everything calls for a new experience of this type. The question of the repertoire obviously arises. It would have to be a Quebec repertoire. Perhaps we should make a commission. My horizon is our jubilee in 2027-2028: the 125th anniversary of the OSQ. We should get together and play a composer of our time.”