A Life Conducted With One Goal

Enrique Arturo Diemecke began conducting in Los Angeles about two decades ago. But he didn’t feel the timing was auspicious.

“To be Mexican at that moment was no good,” Diemecke said at a recent news conference as he kicked off his three-year appointment as music director of the Long Beach Symphony.

“There were many places where if you had just enough of an accent to be distinguished as a Spanish accent, you were [regarded] like, phhtt . So even my accent had to be German so that I could be treated a little better. Now after 20 years, things are changing. We call it ‘the Ricky Martin effect.”’

Diemecke, who is also a composer, has been music director and principal conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico and the Flint, Mich., Symphony since 1990. He will keep both positions during his Long Beach tenure.

He was picked from a field of 200 applicants after a 21/2-year search to find a successor to JoAnn Falletta, who had been music director since 1989.

Five finalists were invited to conduct a concert during the 2000-01 season. Each was evaluated by an audience survey as well as by the 11-member search committee. And the local concert was only the tip of the iceberg.

“The search committee also came to Flint and sent some people to see me in Mexico as well so they could see how I related to the orchestra, the community, the audiences and all of the above,” Diemecke said.

But the local concert was crucial.

“If you don’t have a good communication with the orchestra or they don’t like you, and vice versa, why waste the time?” Diemecke said. “But we had a wonderful rapport immediately, to bring out my idea of music.”

Diemecke was born in Mexico City to a German father (a cellist and conductor who ran his own music academy) and a Spanish-French mother (a pianist and teacher in the family school).

He decided to become a conductor at age 7 when he asked his father about his name.

“‘Enrique is your mother’s father’s name,’ he said, ‘and Arturo because of Toscanini.’ That’s how the whole thing started.”

He was born on July 9 but won’t reveal the year. “I want to keep it a little bit as a mystery.”

Diemecke says it will take time to put his own mark on the Long Beach Symphony.

“I have my style, and little by little you will begin to hear it. My nuances are far more in contrast to that of the majority of the orchestras. A lot of orchestras don’t play pianissimos and the conductors don’t insist they do either. They never play piano either.

“Of course, imagination has to participate as well, but it has to have some basis, and the basis comes from knowing the style of the composers.”

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Diemecke is a strong believer that “you can make any orchestra sound good,” he said. “I believe in having passion in what we are doing to make it special, not just hitting the right notes in the right place and that’s it.”

His plans for Long Beach include recording and touring so that the orchestra gains greater recognition “first in this area, then out of state, then in the whole country, then abroad.

“I can’t say what the time frame will be. Little by little, a very important organization will become a far more important organization.”

He also wants to focus on the local scene.

“Long Beach is diverse, and it has all these constituencies,” he said. “And we have to create our own language, our own identity of ‘Long Beachness.’ Sounds funny, doesn’t it? Let’s call it ‘LB.’

“Little by little you will see it in the programs that we have. They will all have something to do with different types of music times and geography speaking also.”

This season won’t reflect that, however. The programming was created by a committee before Diemecke’s appointment. Rather than try to make wholesale changes, he has altered the final concert “a little bit,” he said, deleting some Respighi and Liszt, and adding some Ravel.

“The season after this will reflect more my choices. You will see a little more Latin American and contemporary music, but not in the sense of ‘no tonality, no rhythm, no harmony.’ I’m looking to be able to have a balanced programming, which presents the new with the traditional.”

For all that, he says he’s looking forward to his first concert in his new role.

“Even if it’s a fantastic concert, that’s only the beginning,” he said. “That minimum is only our starting point.”

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Long Beach Symphony, today, 8 p.m., Terrace Theater, 300 E. Ocean Blvd., Long Beach. $18-$55. (562) 436-3203.