Macal: Guest Conductor’s Life as a Global Traveler

In three years and four months, Zdenek Macal says, beaming, he will be eligible to become an American citizen. And he will do so.

“I love it here,” says the Czech-born Macal, talking about Southern California, where he and his wife of 30 years, Georgina (Ginny), have maintained a West Coast home for seven years. Macal, who holds major conducting posts in Milwaukee, San Antonio and Chicago, has other bases, but he says he expects “to live here (California) forever.”

Macal, speaking with respect about the Pacific Symphony, which he conducts at the New Year’s pops concert at the Orange County Performing Arts Center tonight, predicts that “in the normal course of its growth, Orange County will have its own full-time orchestra.”

He talks about his interest in the cultural life of Southern California. About attending concerts at the Orange County center. About going to downtown Los Angeles to the Museum of Contemporary Art.

But he draws the line at being a candidate for the post of Pacific Symphony music director.

Asked a second time if he has any interest at all in the job, he shakes his head in a clearly negative response.

“My first priority at this time is Milwaukee”--the Milwaukee Symphony, where he is now in the middle of his third season, with a contract for three more.

“I will soon be 53 years old, and it is time for me to conduct more, travel less and visit fewer orchestras. For 25 years, I have gone all over the world. I have been a music director and a guest--though more often a guest. Up until 158, I kept a count of the orchestras I have conducted, but now it is over 160. I have conducted the Berlin Philharmonic in Beethoven, the Orchestre de Paris in Ravel.”

The tall, lean--he used to be a competitive runner--Macal may not consider himself a candidate, but the leaders at Pacific Symphony do. Preston Stedman, chairman of the search committee told The Times on Thursday:

“If a guest is not a professed candidate, we will still look at his skills in working with our orchestra. After all, most established conductors do not seek positions, but nevertheless attract the attention of other orchestras. And this can lead to changes.”

Macal--pronounced Mah-CALL (“Zdenek is harder,” he says, “just say zz-DENN-ik, or call me Denny, like my wife does”)--explains his current philosophy: “At this stage, I can’t waste my energy. I never did play games, but now, less than ever. I should be able to relax and let others worry. But, of course, that’s not my style.”

This week, during a visit to his California home, overlooking the Pacific Ocean from a hilltop in Laguna Niguel, Macal told a similar story, this one about a guest-conducting appearance with the Minnesota Orchestra.

“We went down to Rochester (Minn.), and I could see they wanted to relax. But I wouldn’t have it. This music demands the best we have, every time we come to it. I literally forced them to find the energy. It was a tremendous concert, there was a standing ovation afterward, and people said: ‘This never happened before.’ Well, of course it doesn’t happen when nobody tries.”

The same level of intensity has been noted in Macal’s work in resuscitating the San Antonio Symphony, an orchestra that disbanded over labor and financial strife before reorganization set it on a new path.

“I promised to put two years into helping the new symphony,” Macal says, a certain strain emerging for the first time in this conversation. “It may take a little longer. But Milwaukee is my first priority, and the people in San Antonio know that.”

Does he differentiate between repertories? He mentioned with some pride that he has programmed 20% American music (“of all periods”) without turning off his audiences. But eclecticism seems his rule. Does he usually avoid the pops repertory he will conduct in Orange County this week?

“I don’t avoid it at all. But I see it as a chance for variety. I know that in Europe, a whole program of Johann Strauss is too much, so I feel that here, half a program of Johann Strauss is too much. So, we have a little. But what we have is good. One can have the very best music on pops programs--there is never a need to lower one’s standards.”

Macal acknowledges that the first time he read his name in The Times was in the summer of 1986, when it was reported that he had fled Australia, ostensibly over fears caused by the fluctuating Australian dollar.

From Macal’s point of view, this is what actually happened:

“I had a three-year contract with the Sydney Symphony, and we were very happy with each other. That first season--which turned out to be my only season there--was wonderful. Never before have I been in one place for 10 weeks, working 10 services a week (three hours per service, two services a day). It was magnificent. We got along beautifully.

“But, I did not know the true tax situation, though I had asked my London manager to look into it. Eventually, I found out that the tax rate would be 60%. That, plus the large commission, would leave very little--so little, that we would have been forced to move to a cheaper hotel. I asked out of the contract.

“That didn’t work. I played the difficult artiste. That didn’t work, either--they loved it. Finally, I saw there was nothing to do for it but to leave. So I came home to Laguna Niguel.”