With the Baton, a Musician Is Fulfilled

Standing 6 feet 1, with long blond hair, Keri-Lynn Wilson is no ordinary maestra . Indeed, music is as natural as breathing for the 34-year-old, Winnipeg-born conductor who makes her Hollywood Bowl debut this week with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The daughter of a music educator who was also conductor of the Winnipeg Youth Orchestra, she studied flute, piano and violin as a child, playing in orchestras since age 8.

Because she grew up with music (Wilson’s sister is a singer who lives in Italy; her brother spins house tracks as a club DJ in New York), attending Juilliard was an obvious choice for Wilson. There she earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in flute performance, studying under Julius Baker. The musician, who had already begun carving out a solo career in Canada, subsequently made her Carnegie Recital Hall debut as a flutist at age 21. At that point, though, she realized she was no longer feeling “excited about the flute.”

In 1990, at 23, Wilson made her conducting debut with the National Arts Center Orchestra of Ottawa as part of a workshop. She then decided to audition for Juilliard’s master’s program in conducting, opting to perform Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring,” no less.

Wilson was one of two candidates accepted and spent four years learning her craft from Otto-Werner Mueller.

Wilson has been on the fast track ever since: In the summer of 1992 she served as Claudio Abbado’s assistant with the Vienna Philharmonic at the Salzburg Festival; in 1994, she was hired as associate conductor of the Dallas Symphony, where she stayed until 1998, when the lure of Europe and numerous guest-conducting spots proved irresistible.

Among her many gigs, Wilson has conducted the Berlin Philharmonic, “Tosca” with the Vienna Staatsoper and “Aida” with Opera di Roma. Her first recording, “Danzon,” featuring Latin American compositions with the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra of Caracas, was released by Dorian Records in 1998.

Catching up with the conductor by telephone in Sardinia (her home is New York), where she was vacationing with her fiance, Peter Gelb, president of Sony Classical, Wilson, who speaks four languages but retains a trace Canadian accent, was exuberant, chatty and candid about her swift ascendancy in a male-dominated profession.

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Question: One normally doesn’t drop a promising flute career and decide overnight to become a conductor, especially if one is a woman. What happened to make you pick up the baton?

Answer: It wasn’t a choice I had been thinking about. I was watching a master class at Juilliard for conductors and was following a score. One of the students asked me if I was interested in applying and I responded, “No.” Then, that night walking through Central Park, I thought, “Why not?”

It was a moment of reflection [about] what I wanted to do and where I was going. I felt if I continued on this path of flute soloist, that would have been limiting. I was trying to embrace every aspect of music.

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Q: What about being a woman in the conducting equation?

A: I never think about myself as a female conductor; I consider myself a conductor. I was raised in a very open environment and was never aware there would be any taboo about being a female conductor. I even now try to overlook and be above what is said [negatively], in terms of being a woman conductor.

I’ve worked in the most macho of countries--Germany, Austria, Italy, where here it’s the most maestro sort of culture. Ultimately my relationships with the orchestras here have been very good. My duty is to make music and to make them play their best. After about two minutes in rehearsal, they are no longer judging me as a woman. They are judging me as a musician. I feel I’ve become a very integral part of the orchestra. I’m positive. I’m not a dictator [and] I’m flexible, although I’ve certainly prepared what I feel is the closest interpretation of the composer’s work.

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Q: What possessed you to conduct “The Rite of Spring” for your Juilliard audition?

A: I like challenges, [but] it was like someone who’s never driven a car having to drive the Indy 500. It required a lot of preparation, a lot of practice, a lot of courage [and] extreme dedication. I have a video of the audition. It would be interesting to watch when I’m 80, but too grueling at this point.

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Q: You’ve been quoted as saying, “Conductors are a hated species.” Can you elaborate?

A: [She laughs.] I played in an orchestra and I used to hate all conductors. Seriously, I loved [Kurt] Masur; I played under [Leonard] Bernstein as a student at Juilliard and had the opportunity to play under wonderful conductors. [Yet] I was very critical of them, because I’m sympathetic to orchestras--when [a conductor] isn’t clear, or when one is always negative, or when one doesn’t have the right musical ideas. That is the death of music. And extremely frustrating for musicians to play under a [conductor] that doesn’t have the capability of presenting a work of art, which is the score.

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Q: Speaking of Bernstein, your first concert at the Bowl has you conducting “Make Our Garden Grow” from “Candide” and Joshua Bell in Bernstein’s “West Side Story Suite” for violin and orchestra. Have you conducted Bell before and did you program these works, as well as Brahms’ Symphony No. 2, also on the bill?

A: Yes, I chose them. It’s very important when one makes a debut with the orchestra that one is comfortable with the repertory--that I feel passionately about the pieces and also have done them enough times. Joshua and I are good friends and I respect him artistically. We just did a performance in New Haven [Conn.] together.

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Q: What about your second concert--you’re conducting Jeffrey Kahane in Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 4 in addition to Prokofiev’s “Classical” Symphony, as well as his Suite from “Romeo and Juliet.”

A: I haven’t worked with Jeffrey before; I’m looking forward to it. Yes, I chose the Prokofiev.

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Q: Are you worried about the daunting aspects of playing a venue like the Bowl?

A: It’s never ideal playing outdoors. But this is a venue that is wonderful and reaches out to so many thousands of people. It’s very exciting. I always overlook the minuses, and I’ve done a lot of outdoor concerts. It’s never musically what you would aspire to, but you understand that.

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Q: Do you miss the flute?

A: I would hate to open the case today. It’s probably all rusty. The violin and piano I play all the time, simply because the repertory that I enjoy the most--works of Mahler, Brahms, Shostakovich, Bruckner--these composers have not written for the flute. [Conducting] has made me a much more fulfilled musician.

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Q: OK, now for some girl talk: Hair up or down? Heels? Tuxedo, evening gown?

A: [A big laugh.] Looks should have nothing to do with it. I wear my hair in a chignon. I do my own and it always falls out. As for clothes? I wear an elegant Armani-style suit, or some designer who’s done a sophisticated look. Nothing that distracts from the music is my philosophy. It’s a sport we’re doing up there. God forbid I wear a dress. I feel strongly about that. And no heels. You have to be stable. I wear normal, flat black shoes.

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Q: Do you compose or want to compose some day?

A: I don’t. I wish I had the talent [because] every day I look at a score, I live in awe of composers and the ability to transcend time. I feel like a mere mortal in front of these works. I’m a soldier of music, not a creator.

To be a conductor, one has to be a psychologist, a diplomat and also feel very true to oneself, because musicians see through that in a second. I don’t pretend to be anything other than what I am.

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LOS ANGELES PHILHARMONIC, with conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson, Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave., Hollywood. Dates: Tuesday and Thursday, 8 p.m. Prices: $1-$75. Phone: (323) 850-2000.