Youth Orchestra Leader Is No Second Fiddle

Pacific Symphony assistant conductor Mark Mandarano loves music and his job. So he strives to make sure the two are always working in tandem.

One way he does it while leading the orchestra’s series of family concerts at the Orange County Performing Arts Center or its training programs for young musicians is to keep big-picture issues above the detail work that’s also part of his mission.

“What I try to bring to the educational side is that although we dwell on technical things and address ourselves to being physically capable,” he said, “we have to realize that all that we’re doing comes from the composer’s inspiration.

“So we have to feel what the composer is trying to get across,” Mandarano, 34, said, speaking in fast, fluent paragraphs earlier this week as he prepared to step up to the podium Saturday morning to open the 1999-2000 family-concert series in Costa Mesa. “To do that, we have to know more about his world, his life, his own outlook. I try to bring as much of that as I can to my youth orchestra and to the institute orchestra.”

The assistant conductor’s various duties, which also include pinch-hitting for music director Carl St.Clair if need be, can stretch a body thin.

As Mandarano sees it, “In this job, there’s a little something for everybody.”

Mandarano was born in New Rochelle, N.Y., the youngest of three children, and began his musical studies on trumpet when he was 8.

Originally, he planned to major in math or science, but music always played a part in his life. In college, he composed and began conducting groups, but the sense of self-importance some conductors had made him wary of the profession.

“On recordings, all the conductors had their names above the composers,” he said. “I didn’t like that at all. The composer writes the music. The orchestra plays the music. What does a conductor do?

“Then, eventually, when I got to graduate school, I discovered how much depth there was to conducting and what a calling it was,” he said. “I loved it all the more. I realized that maybe I did have to devote myself to this to do it.”

Eminent composer Karel Husa was the first person to give him conducting lessons. “I didn’t know how good I had it,” Mandarano said. “I appreciate it now even more. It was wonderful, unforgettable. We’re still in touch.”

He received a bachelor’s degree in music theory from Cornell University, a master’s degree in conducting from the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University and a diploma with honors from the Fontainebleau Conservatory in France.

After finishing those studies, he worked in and around New York for about 10 years, guest conducting and serving as assistant conductor for several orchestras.

“New York is a revolving door,” he said. “I had my fill running from one organization to another. I wasn’t finding a lot of long-term inspiration.

“Here, there is an excellent orchestra, with a huge amount of programs, and a much more unified vision.”

Mandarano was appointed assistant conductor for one year, beginning last August, but such appointments have almost invariably turned into three-year stints.

“That’s what [orchestra officials] expect,” he said. “We always talk of everything in terms of three years.”

Mandarano found that under his predecessors, the Pacific Youth Orchestra had grown to about 120 people, but through graduations and his recommending that younger musicians move to younger orchestras, he has pared it down to what he feels is a a more manageable number, about 70.

“The more people you have, the more difficult it is to get correct intonation and to unify phrasing,” he said. “I wanted to get the numbers down to make people more responsible, to give them more responsibility. Now, often, they’re the only person playing that part. I find it’s worked very well.”

He also works on expanding young musicians’ attention span and ability to concentrate.

“Every five minutes you add, the harder it gets,” he said. “It goes up exponentially. Part of concentration is all the necessary technical and awareness issues, being sensitive to other people playing at the same time . . . .

“When I talk about awareness and performing on this level, I mean they have to know what role any measure they’re playing has in the overall scheme of the music--whether they’re accompanying or playing the melody.

“They have to know when they play the piano that comes after a triple forte [in Schubert’s Ninth Symphony] that it’s so different from the piano that starts the piece. They love learning things like that. They want to know.”

As St.Clair’s understudy, Mandarano doesn’t mind playing second banana. He knows that his individuality would not be extinguished.

“Conducting is a very mysterious way of communicating,” he said. “Whether you like it or not, whether musicians like it or not, even if I tried to get exactly what Carl did even seconds afterward, it would be different somehow. That’s inevitable.”

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Pacific Symphony assistant conductor Mark Mandarano will open the orchestra’s new season of family concerts with a “Dancing Dinosaurs” program on Saturday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. 10 and 11:30 a.m. $11 children. $13, adults. (714) 755-5799.