Conductor’s Goal: To Get Symphony in Shape

The San Diego Symphony’s new resident conductor grew up hearing music played poorly, and he vowed to do it right if he ever had the chance.

“Growing up in Brazil and seeing the situation made a very strong mark on my personality and my responsibility to music,” Fabio Mechetti said.

The difference between making music here and Brazil is simple: money. In Brazil, the government underwrites the arts. Musicians are paid by the state, and concerts are free.

“All the arts are government-supported, which means no support at all,” Mechetti said, facetiously.

Players’ earnings have declined to a quarter of their value a decade ago, Mechetti estimates. Musicians must play in several orchestras and teach music to support their families. Concerts suffer because the musicians are rarely prepared to play their best, he added.

Mechetti considered an alternative: writing, his second love. He studied journalism for two years, but “the virus of music was strong,” and he transferred to the Juilliard School of Music in New York.

Mechetti has joined the weakened but recovering San Diego Symphony in part because of a call from its executive director, Wesley O. Brustad.

“If anyone could put this orchestra in shape, it is Wes,” Mechetti said.

Brustad, music director Gunther Schuller and Mechetti were part of a team that pulled the Spokane Symphony out of indebtedness a few years ago. While at Spokane, Mechetti received a prestigious National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, which placed him as an assistant conductor with the National Symphony in Washington, D.C., for five years.

The San Diego symphony’s recent financial and labor troubles did not dissuade Mechetti, 30, from taking the post.

“I talked to some players in D.C. who used to play here, and they were very encouraging. They said it is a very fine orchestra (I) would like--a very young orchestra.”

San Diego also played into Mechetti’s personal musical game plan. It offers another chance to hone his conducting skills.

He came not only because of Brustad but because it was “a chance to show what I can do. I think there is a future here. The orchestra is very good. They’re waiting for musical leadership.”

Mechetti will serve as the interim leader until a music director is selected. That may be two to three years, Brustad has said.

Mechetti will display his style Sunday, directing a chamber ensemble in J.S. Bach’s “Brandenburg” concertos. While the rest of the symphony plays “The Nutcracker” for the visiting San Francisco Ballet, a 32-member chamber orchestra, including principals, will perform four of the six “Brandenburgs” at 2 p.m. in Symphony Hall and at 8 p.m. at the East County Performing Arts Center.

His choice of the chamber pieces reflects Mechetti’s attitude toward the orchestra.

“This orchestra hasn’t played Baroque too much,” he said. The “Brandenburgs” will allow him “to get to know the principal players and their musicians, and they can get to know me.”

The more intimate Baroque pieces will “help the orchestra to rediscover the sounds and personality of each section. And because it is a small orchestra--a sense of chamber music--it’s not something I’m imposing on the musicians. We’ll be working together. It’s a nice way for me to get to know them and vice versa.”

Mechetti has rescheduled his Washington duties to allow him to meet them and his San Diego assignments. His wife, Brazilian pianist Aida Ribeiro, has accompanied him here.

Though visiting conductors will be in town for 17 of the 18 weeks of winter concerts, Mechetti will have the chance to put his stamp on the orchestra.

Soft-spoken but direct in his manner, Mechetti will conduct at least 16 performances this winter season, more than any other conductor. These include an array of “cocktail,” “coffee,” “young people’s,” “international” and free concerts.

One of Mechetti’s chief responsibilities is planning, hosting and directing the symphony’s concerts for schoolchildren. In Spokane, his children’s programs won the National Endowment for the Arts award for best educational programming in the United States in 1985. He will conduct six youth concerts this season.

“I hope that we can show (the children) we are not old, nasty musicians playing dead music,” Mechetti said. “It offers their first concert with a symphony orchestra in a pleasant way, and we can teach something.”

Mechetti’s heritage is musical and Italian. He is the son and grandson of conductors. His grandfather, who was a fellow conservatory student with Puccini, emigrated to Brazil after World War I. With few jobs in Italy, he hoped to bring European musical traditions to a new world. Mechetti’s father, however, faced with the realities of making a living in Brazil, urged Mechetti not to study music.

Mechetti is part of a talent drain, caused by the low level of financial support in which many of Brazil’s top musicians have emigrated to other countries. Among those who have left, Mechetti says, are pianists Nelson Freire and Jose Feghali, a Van Cliburn Competition winner, and cellist Antonio Meneses, who won the Tchaikovsky Competition.

Mechetti worked for a period in Brazil, serving as assistant conductor of the Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra and as music director of the Sao Paulo Opera Theatre chorus. But he can no longer realize his career there.

As Mechetti sees it: “If I want to be happy and fulfill all my dreams and use my talents, I have to be here.”