Michael Feinstein is primed for his Pasadena Pops conducting debut

As Michael Feinstein prepared to take on the role of conducting an orchestra for the first time ever, he recalled his first encounter with an orchestra.

“I would have been in elementary school, about 12,” said Feinstein, who will lead the Pasadena Pops at the L.A. Arboretum on Satuday night.

“It was a field trip to the Columbus [Ohio] Symphony, where they exposed kids to music in a major fashion — remember those better days?”

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While memories of the program escaped Feinstein, the symphony’s conductor made a vivid impression.

“It was a man named Evan Whallon, a marvelous conductor, and he struck me as grand and very much in charge. He was a fixture in front of that orchestra for the longest time” (1956-82).

Exposure to the orchestra, however, didn’t prompt Feinstein to consider playing with an orchestra.

“I couldn’t read music,” he said. “In fact, I hardly played the piano because what I learned was self-administered.“

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It didn’t motivate him to learn another instrument, either, since he’d already had a rude awakening earlier in his life.

“We had an old violin my grandfather had bought for my father,” Feinstein said. “And I thought, ‘Gee, maybe I can play the violin as easily the piano,’ but I tried it once and couldn’t.

“I didn’t have the discipline to learn the mechanics of it because I already could make music on the piano and” — a rueful laugh of remembrance and self-knowledge — “it wasn’t my nature to learn something where it would take hours of practice.”

Now, for the past year, Feinstein, 56, has been practicing to learn conducting. So while he may never have learned a stringed instrument, come Saturday he’ll be conducting a whole group of them.

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