JoAnn Falletta’s Baton Lays Siege to Last Male Bastion

If the conductor’s podium is the last “male stronghold” in the realm of music, JoAnn Falletta is storming that privileged bastion single-handedly. Recently appointed as music director of the Long Beach Symphony, Falletta now directs four orchestras and is music adviser to a fifth.

“It’s an unusual year to do so much,” she explained from her hotel room in Tampa, Fla., where she is guest conducting. She is coming to San Diego to conduct a pair of concerts for the San Diego Chamber Orchestra on Jan. 29-30.

“The Long Beach position came up very suddenly last April, so it has called for a very carefully worked-out schedule. It’s a very stimulating year, but in the future I’d like to concentrate on doing just one or two groups.”

Falletta’s commitments include directing the Denver Chamber Orchestra and the San Francisco Bay Area Women’s Philharmonic (she has been there four years), as well as advising the Santa Cruz Symphony. Her relationship with the Queens (N.Y.) Philharmonic will be the first casualty of her pared-down schedule.

“This is my 11th season with them,” explained the Queens native, “and my last. Although it’s my choice, it’s a sad choice because it was one of the first groups I conducted. The Queens Philharmonic performs at Queens College, and our season is just five concerts a year, but it has meant much to me and to the borough. Last week we performed in (Lincoln Center’s) Alice Tully Hall at the invitation of the borough. Representing the borough of Queens in Manhattan, which of course is New York’s cultural hub, was a real honor.”

As music director of the Bay Area Women’s Philharmonic, an orchestra that specializes in works by women composers, Falletta has cultivated a unique repertory, which, considering how little women’s music is known, has surprisingly turned out to her advantage.

“Now I am often asked to do women’s compositions (as a guest conductor) because other conductors are not as well versed in this area. Before I went to the Bay Area Women’s Philharmonic, I had done few pieces by women. I have to learn a lot of new repertory, so I take the strong works and do them elsewhere. Here in Florida, for example, I’ve programmed Ellen Taafe Zwilich’s First Symphony.”

Though Falletta is a crusader for women’s equal opportunity in music-making, there is nothing strident about her manner. She exudes confident optimism, especially when she compares the advances American women have made in music to that of their European counterparts.

“European women look to American women as examples of what can be done. But in America, there is generally a greater acceptance of women in all fields, not just in music. We’re a young country, more open-minded--or maybe it’s just a case of American naivete.”

He knows his Barber. Some historically conscious performers agonize over how Brahms and Beethoven really wanted their music played. When it comes to the Samuel Barber Piano Concerto, John Browning is in no such quandary. He played the world premiere of Barber’s concerto in 1962--on a concert that inaugurated New York’s Lincoln Center--under the composer’s watchful eye.

“Oddly enough, at first I had a hard time understanding how to play the slow movement,” said Browning. “So Sam and I took the piece over to Horowitz--I was petrified, since I had never played for Horowitz before--and even he couldn’t find the right tempo. Sam was not distressed, however. He said, ‘Wait until you play it in the hall with the orchestra. You’ll feel the perfect tempo right away.’ ”

Barber was right about discovering the proper tempo, and history has affirmed the compositional strength of the concerto. In spite of the antipathy most American orchestras have towards 20th-Century music, the Barber Piano Concerto is frequently programmed. Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, Browning will play it with the San Diego Symphony under guest conductor Kazuyoshi Akiyama.

“I think it is the best modern piano concerto since Bartok,” Browning said, “and nothing written since then for piano has equalled it. I think most composers find writing a piano concerto pretty intimidating, with all those Romantic concertos and those giant concertos by Rachmaninoff from the earlier part of this century. The piano is fundamentally a 19th-Century instrument.”

Browning said he would really like the American composer John Corigliano to write a piano concerto, but he is preoccupied writing concertos for less conventional solo instruments, e.g. flute and clarinet.

“I know he was not happy with the way his first Piano Concerto turned out, but I keep hoping he’ll give the piano another shot. We pianists really need new literature to play--we don’t want to be musical museums.”

No Singing in the Rain. Typical January showers canceled last Wednesday’s noon-hour concert by members of San Diego Opera in front of Civic Theatre, but the company’s resident singers are eager to try again Wednesday at noon. Members of the “La Boheme” cast will gather in the plaza to sing opera and musical theater selections accompanied by pianist Michael Parker. Ian Campbell, the company’s general director, will emcee the free concert.

SONOR on the road. UC San Diego’s contemporary music ensemble, SONOR, will perform Arnold Schoenberg’s “Pierrot Lunaire” on Thursday at Los Angeles’ Schoenberg Institute. The next night they return to UCSD’s Mandeville Auditorium to repeat the program for local fans. Along with Schoenberg’s landmark song cycle written to the poetry of French author Albert Giraud, SONOR will play newly commissioned works by Roger Reynolds, Leonard Rosenman and Stephen Mosko. Underwritten by the Schoenberg Institute, these commissions are related to “Pierrot Lunaire” because they use Giraud’s poetry and instrumentation similar to that used by Schoenberg for his “Pierrot Lunaire.”