Twenty-five years is quite a marriage! Between Bruckner, who opens the season, and the European tour which is announced in June, is this a program to celebrate this longevity?
It sure is quite a marriage. It’s a season that celebrates milestones in my history with OM, such as Pathetic by Tchaikovsky, which was my very first concert as artistic director in 2000, and which returns in 2025 before taking off on a wonderful European tour. Beethoven’s nine symphonies are also a milestone in the OM repertoire. We did it in three very concentrated days in 2005-2006, it was an extraordinary event in Montreal, almost unique in the world.
Everything is at stake here is the theme of the season, and the word “game” is not insignificant for you: is music first and foremost a question of pleasure?
It’s a title that has a lot of meanings. The question of the pleasure of playing music is something very beautiful. That doesn’t mean it’s light or inconsequential, but there’s something about the joy of creating, even in works that are darker and seek out very harsh emotions. It is an act that is done with joy. It is also important for programming to reflect the values of an institution and my personal values. I do it in Montreal and Philadelphia and New York. Everything is at stake here, that also means giving space on stages to women and indigenous artists. So that everyone is welcome in classical music and that we can have a dialogue, which is also intergenerational.
In this program, we walk between well-known composers like Bruckner and neglected repertoire like that of Emilie Mayer, who is considered the “feminine Beethoven”. Are all these choices more than ever part of OM’s DNA?
OM has always had it in its DNA, but the crescendo has increased in previous seasons. There is a certain balance that we have achieved between the known and the lesser known. For me, it’s continuity and it’s not a question of fashion. In fact, we have been at the front of the parade, with a lot of commitments to all parts of our society which have traditionally been forgotten and sidelined. And then a lot of people got on board with that. We are very proud to have been ahead, but what is important is that the entire community has changed its way of programming and giving voice to a diversity of points of view, and that this is changing the musical and cultural landscape of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, in the world. Besides, we bring our European tour program for that. There is a commission that we made to the indigenous composer Barbara Assiginaak, of Ravel and Saint-Saëns, which are part of the French-speaking tradition, and the Pathetic by Tchaikovsky. It’s about bringing the classic and the newest together, and that’s what excites me a lot.
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Yannick Nézet-Séguin, moved, after a concert by the Orchester Métropolitain in the United States, on March 5
Is it to achieve this balance that you have paired, for example, works by young composers for each stage of your Beethoven Marathon?
In fact, we asked these young people to react to Beethoven’s pieces, to find out what it said to them today. These works were composed specifically to go with each symphony. I compare it to the Louvre: it’s extraordinary, the buildings that make up the Louvre, but when there was the Pyramid, this modern reaction gave it a new light. It’s the same thing for more contemporary works, which make us rethink Beethoven, whom we thought we knew.
Is it important to have prestigious guests, but also to give space to the conductors of the Academy of Conducting?
The heads of the Academy, this is very important to us. This commitment is not one-off, it is long-term, over time. I think it’s very important, the duration [rire], 25 years old, that proves it! This will be the fourth season, and it’s great to see how much they are developing, with my mentorship and that of the OM musicians. It’s important to present them on stage occasionally, so people can see these talents. Also, we maintain male-female parity in the guest chefs. And we invite prestigious people, and we make discoveries. We have both.
From a project directed by Lorraine Pintal inspired byOrlando by Virginia Woolf Little Princefrom Gilles Vigneault to Christmas concerts, from Bourgie Hall to the Montreal boroughs: OM wants to try things, to diversify, to share the joy of music on many levels?
Yes ! Bridges with other forms of art, with people like Lorraine Pintal, Gilles Vigneault for his mass, The little Prince with the composer Eric Champagne, which we are remaking, they have always been very OM projects, but we are taking them to the next level. This is no longer the exception, it is rather the rule. Each concert becomes an event.
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