Following our March 8th unveiling of our Final Four Music Director Candidates, we’ve embarked on a four-week journey to acquaint ourselves with each candidate individually. All were posed with the same three questions. We hope you’ll enjoy reading their replies and gain a deeper insight into their personalities. This fourth and final week, we will focus on Brad Hogarth.
- What do you love most about conducting?
I love the collaboration. The musicians and I both study to come to rehearsal with a vision for the music and the flexibility to adjust. Through the collaborative process, we find the best possible version of the composer’s intent for our concerts. I also love the exercise in trust that conducting necessitates. When you put your arms up to start the concert, you hope that the sounds that come out are the ones that are supposed to be there. But you really don’t know what’s going to happen. When that trust is rewarded by the musicianship of 100+ artists on stage, all with a shared purpose – there is nothing like it!
- What inspired you to pursue a career in conducting?
I didn’t always want to be a conductor; in fact, for many years, I was happy to mostly be an orchestral trumpet player! However, opportunities to conduct kept coming up, and as I grew more comfortable on the podium, I soon realized that this was a direction that might make a lot of sense for me. I love the creative process of putting together programs, studying scores, and working with friends and colleagues. Plus, I have a hard time sitting still for long periods of time, so it’s been nice to be able to stand and move around while still being part of the orchestra!
- Can you share a memorable or unexpected moment you’ve experienced while conducting?
There have been so many! The larger and more ambitious the project, the more can go wrong. One extremely memorable instance was when the Art Haus Collective created a fully staged, multi-disciplinary production of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. Each movement involved a different kind of performer: everything from dancers, large puppets, actors, and even robots! One of the robots broke just before the show, and one of our incredible crew members found and jumped into a costume and proceeded to improvise a replacement for the movement with just 5 minutes of preparation! They were fantastic, and the show went smoothly!