Conductive material

ALEXANDER Mickelthwate, the new Los Angeles Philharmonic assistant conductor, knows that any assistant’s post can be a steppingstone -- or a graveyard.

“I can tell you three assistant conductors that got stranded and three who actually got somewhere,” the 35-year-old said during a recent post-rehearsal lunch. “People start seeing you as an assistant. How do you go from there?”

Mickelthwate (think “nickel” followed by “thwait”) makes his Hollywood Bowl Philharmonic debut Thursday in a program of Tchaikovsky and Berlioz. But on Wednesday he conducts for Gladys Knight and Chaka Khan at a Bowl jazz concert, and in September he returns for classical and pops concerts.

He hopes that kind of versatility will help him beat those 50-50 odds.

But he’s not the only one betting on him. So is the Philharmonic.

“I think he’s going to be a very important conductor,” said Deborah Borda, president of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Assn. “He has a real presence -- and a meaningful presence.”

Mickelthwate was picked by Philharmonic music director Esa-Pekka Salonen from eight finalists narrowed from 150 applicants. He is the only assistant conductor, but the orchestra also has Joana Carneiro, in a conducting fellow training position.

Mickelthwate made an unexpected debut when he stepped in for Mikko Franck -- on 30 minutes’ notice.

“My staff said he was fantastic,” said Borda, who was on a board of directors retreat at the time. “It was a crazy and insane program to step into: Sibelius’ ‘Karelia’ Overture -- everyone knows the ‘Karelia’ Suite, but the ‘Karelia’ Overture? The Adams Violin Concerto, which is really tricky, and then a big Shostakovich symphony.”

Mickelthwate remembers the concert fondly (he led a repeat the following afternoon). “It was great. The orchestra knew the pieces. I knew the pieces. Performance is telling a spontaneous story. It’s a mix between being really humble and knowing exactly what you want but letting it happen, really trusting.”

The young conductor didn’t always know what he wanted. He came to the profession a little late, even though he was born into a musical family in Frankfurt, Germany, the middle of three sons. As a kid, he wanted to be a stockbroker. “I investigated it for a while. But I always made music on every level, orchestras, chorus, organ, everything.”

The turning point came when he was 17. His music teacher asked him about his future, wondering if he’d ever consider conducting. “It really hit me; that somebody even believed I could do that was just amazing. From then on, everything I did was become a conductor.”

He studied at the Musikhochschule in Karlsruhe, spent two summers at the Eotvoes Institute in Hungary, and in 1996 moved to Baltimore for graduate work at the Peabody Institute.

In the meantime, he met San Diego native Abigail Camp, the woman who would become his wife, during a 1988 trip to a summer camp in the Colorado Rockies.

“There was a talent show the last evening. I played Beethoven’s ‘Pathetique’ Sonata, which was really naive of me because everyone else was tap-dancing or singing some Madonna song. Beethoven’s ‘Pathetique’! She was the only one who came backstage and was totally impressed.”

Which is saying a lot, because Abigail, now a fashion designer, isn’t a fan of classical music.

“My wife hates it; it’s pretty boring to her,” he says. “We were dating, from ’92 on, a long-distance relationship between Germany and New York City, and she said, ‘Well, don’t you want to go to the opera at the Met?’ I said, ‘Just pick something.’ And she didn’t know the titles or anything, but the day I was there she picked Wagner’s ‘Rheingold.’ It was ‘93, before supertitles. It was her first opera ever.

“It was a total nightmare for her. Just sitting there was hell. She had no idea what they were doing there, just standing there. No melodies, etc. This was how we started out. From there, she started to appreciate more what I did.”

The two got married June 28, 1997. Their son, Jack Brooklyn, was born July 26, 2003.

“We hated German names,” he explained. “We couldn’t find any German boy names. We both lived in Brooklyn for a while, so....”

Getting the word out

Meanwhile, he began struggling to make a career. He didn’t know anyone in the city. Letters of praise from Germany weren’t any help. So he got out the Musical America International Directory of the Performing Arts.

“I just literally went through the list of all the orchestras in the city, wrote them, contacted them, went to rehearsals, got my tape out, talked with people,” he said. “I applied to a lot of places.”

He worked as a waiter and ushered at the New York Philharmonic, which gave him a chance to observe other conductors. “I learned a lot,” he said.

Two afternoons a week, he drove to the Bronx to direct an after-school program for a group producing “The Wizard of Oz.”

“One thing that I love about America is that compared to Europe, here what counts is experience. So the after-school program in the Bronx I consciously took to have experience with children, because I knew I would get a youth orchestra, and before they pick you to conduct, they want to know what experience you have.

“And slowly from there, I met some people and built up connections and began getting auditions.”

He worked for the Amato Opera in New York, the Greater Newark Youth Symphony, the New York-based Eos Orchestra and Brooklyn Philharmonic, among other piecemeal stints. What kept him going?

“Oh, it’s like, you can’t do anything else,” he said.

In 2001, he became assistant conductor of the Atlanta Symphony, picked by music director Robert Spano.

“Atlanta was really the first ‘OK, now you’re a professional,’ ” he said. “It was the first big break.”

In Atlanta, he led educational concerts for kids, “run-out” concerts and summertime-in-the-park programs, and covered for the occasional visiting conductor. He made his subscription concert debut in 2002.

A proponent of new music as well as Germanic repertory, he founded a contemporary music group called Bent Frequency. One of their concerts, called “Hysterical Lost Men,” included music by composers who went insane, such as Carlo Gesualdo, the Renaissance composer who killed his wife and her lover, and Robert Schumann, who tried to drown himself in the Rhine River.

“Our program book was an old medical file, which we filled in with descriptions of the disease. It was a highly researched project that was really fun.”

He also started an exchange between the Atlanta Youth Symphony and the Berlin Youth Orchestra.

Mickelthwate’s duties in Los Angeles during a two-year term with an option for a third are similar, including Hollywood Bowl, the Green Umbrella series, family, run-out and subscription concerts. The contract gives him time to guest conduct. Recently, he led the Houston, Ottawa and Indianapolis symphonies. Concerts in Honolulu, Winnipeg and Chicago lie ahead.

People are noticing. He’s been a finalist in recent searches for music directors of the Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic, the Winston-Salem (N.C.) Symphony, the Asheville (N.C.) Symphony and the Omaha Symphony.

“He’s just at the start of his journey,” said Borda. “My advice is for him not to be pigeonholed in a regional orchestra. His talent is big enough and important enough to transcend that.”

Mickelthwate is more cautious.

“I’m working on all those things slowly and building steps, one brick at a time,” he said. “I’ve had good luck with my bosses. Robert Spano and Esa-Pekka are really nice mentors. From a career standpoint: What do I accept and what not? They’re really helpful because they went that way and have the practical experience. I think not every music director is helpful that way.”

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L.A. Philharmonic

Where: Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave., Hollywood

When: 8 p.m. Thursday

Price: $1 to $92

Contact: (213) 480-3232; www.HollywoodBowl.com