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December 1st, 2008

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A love affair with Czech culture

Canadian conductor Kerry Stratton finds joy in melancholy

By Frank Kuznik
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
June 27th, 2007 issue

VLADIMÍR WEISS/THE PRAGUE POST

A Czech music devotee, Stratton will tour Canada this fall with the Czech Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra. enlarge

Last week the Foreign Affairs Ministry handed out its annual Gratias Agit awards, given to individuals and organizations that help promote Czech interests and culture around the world.

The Stratton file

Kerry Stratton
Born: Oct. 24, 1952, Belleville, Ontario, Canada
Education: McGill University, Montreal; Vienna Conservatory
Current positions: Conductor and music director, Toronto Philharmonia Orchestra; music director, Huntsville Festival of the Arts
Family: Wife Elizabeth; children Connor, 5, and Sarajane, 3
For more information, check www.kerrystratton.com and www.grandsalonorchestra.com

This year’s honorees included film director Miloš Forman, Mexican music teacher Edna Gomez Ruiz, American philanthropist Charles Merrill — and Kerry Stratton, a Canadian conductor who promotes Czech music in his programs and has worked with Czech orchestras such as the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Czech Philharmonic.

COURTESY PHOTO

Stratton was thrilled to receive the Gratias Agit, presented by Foreign Affairs Minister Karel Schwarzenberg. enlarge

This isn’t the first such award for Stratton, who in 2000 received the Masaryk Award for services to Czech and Slovak culture from the Czechoslovak Association of Canada. Stratton has recorded with the Slovak Radio Orchestra, and has been at the podium with other orchestras in Budapest, Vilnius, Zagreb, Vienna and St. Petersburg.

The Prague Post caught up with Stratton at the Hotel Aria, where he was staying with his wife, Elizabeth. A charming and energetic man with silver-gray hair and warm brown eyes, Stratton, 54, is that rare combination of affability and erudition. He can throw off bons mots from sources ranging from Winston Churchill to George Szell and cite a remarkable breadth of musical knowledge, all in the easygoing, down-to-earth manner of a neighbor chatting over the backyard fence.

But more than anything, Stratton was thrilled to be back in his favorite European country for a few days of unexpected accolades.

The Prague Post: How did you learn that you had won a Gratias Agit Award?

Kerry Stratton: A letter came to the Toronto Philharmonia office last month. I hadn’t been in to clear my mail in about a week, and our executive director called me and said, ‘I opened your mail, and there’s something significant here.’

TPP: What was your reaction?

KS: I have to say, I was pretty much over the moon. I’ve had a long-term love affair with this country, and to have it reciprocated is every lover’s dream. When I looked at the award winners and realized the company I’m in, I wondered if there had been some grievous error. But it’s too late for them to take it back now!

TPP: You’ve conducted orchestras all over the world. What’s it like working with Czech orchestras?

KS: The Czechs are some of the most effortlessly musical people I’ve ever encountered. To conduct Dvořák with the Czech Philharmonic is more telepathy than technique — if you think it, they play it. I’ve never seen that anywhere else quite to that extent.

TPP: Your interest in Czech culture also extends to other areas, like literature. What is it that you find so fascinating?

KS: From the very beginning, I’ve been smitten with the peculiar Czech melancholy. It just resonates for me personally. Of course, it’s not all melancholy, because the Czechs are exuberant, too. You won’t find a quarter-turned bottle of champagne with no fizz in this country.

TPP: And musically?

KS: Dvořák has been one of the touchstones of my musical life. I think it was Brahms who said, ‘I should like to have as a principal theme ideas that occur to Dvořák only in passing.’ And it’s true, his transition themes are better than most people’s principal themes.

TPP: Any other favorite Czech composers?

KS: Well, there’s no concert quite like doing all of Smetana’s Má vlast —that’s a great program, a really great program. Janáček had a voice all his own, and I love The Cunning Little Vixen. That’s another one of the touchstones of my musical life. I had a chance to do the suite from the opera with the Janáček Philarhmonic; that was a delight.

TPP: It’s remarkable how different Czech composers and orchestras can sound under different conductors.

KS: Not many people realize that when you’re listening to an orchestra, you’re in fact listening to the conductor. Leonard Bernstein put it perfectly: He said that there are conductors who can make a village band sound like the Vienna Philharmonic, and those who can make the Vienna Philharmonic sound like a village band. It does matter who’s up there.

TPP: Have you been able to do much Czech music abroad?

KS: I’ve done a fair bit of the Czech canon in Canada, and I’m always looking to expand the concert repertoire. I did Dvořák’s The Golden Spinning Wheel, which allows that basic, entry-level appreciation of a story that’s well-represented in the score. It conveys information quickly to the audience and allows me to bring them along in the piece, which I enjoy doing.

I did Smetana’s Richard III with a German orchestra in Kassel, and they were quite taken with it. We also did Dvořák’s sixth symphony, which they had never played before.

TPP: Why is it that certain pieces of music get played over and over, while others are rarely performed?

KS: There’s this Top 40 mentality, and I don’t know where it came from. There was no conclave that decided, we’ll only play Dvořák [symphonies] seven, eight and nine, and let the others go. Which would be nonsense, because there are all these other wonderful scores to look at, stunning stuff.

But, having said that, I should add that scores are like wine. There’s wine that travels well, like chianti, which goes almost everywhere in the world with no problem. But other wine you have to drink on its native soil — it won’t tolerate crossing the border.

For example, The Bartered Bride is performed in North America because it travels well. But we were here a few years ago and heard Hubička, which does not. The same for Dalibor. Those are distinctly Czech sensibilities.

TPP: How do you deal with the challenge of constantly conducting different orchestras in different cities?

KS: I think particularly with the Czech and Slovak orchestras, the commonalities outweigh the differences. But that first rehearsal is crucial. As one of my teachers said to me, if you ever get up in front of the Vienna Philharmonic — which, alas, I have yet to do — I guarantee you, they’ll be watching to see if you know anything. The conductor is really on the spot.

TPP: You also bring orchestras to Canada on a regular basis. In fact, you’re taking the Czech Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra on a Canadian tour this fall. What do you hope to accomplish?

KS: I grew up in a small town where we had something called community concerts, which I believe were run out of New York. Once a year, some really extraordinary musicians would come to town — one time I heard the Prague Chamber Orchestra, when it was almost impossible for any group from here to tour. And those concerts had a tremendous influence on me.

Now, when I go to smaller communities, I remember why I got into this in the first place. I keep thinking — and, as maudlin as it sounds, I really mean this — somewhere in those audiences is another 14-year-old boy or girl who can’t believe what they’re hearing. That’s my payback. That’s how I’m giving back, because I think it’s so important.

TPP: You’re doing an interesting side project: The Grand Salon Orchestra, which plays dance hall and big-band music from the ’20s and ’30s. How did that come about?

KS: I went to the original Paramount Theater in Oakland, California, and got access to its huge library, which has racks and racks of these marvelous theater orchestrations. Imagine pulling down original scores by the Gershwins or Glenn Miller. I wanted to bring that music back to life.

The reaction has been incredible. I did a seven-concert tour with Grand Salon, and I’ve never seen anything like it. People would leave humming this stuff — which is one of your objectives, surely; you want music to transport people and leave them better than when they arrived.

TPP: You seem to be having a lot of fun with that music yourself.

KS: I am having the most phenomenal fun. It’s almost embarrassing.

TPP: It sounds like a conductor’s guilty pleasure.

KS: It is my guilty pleasure! I unabashedly confess that what I would really love to do is play an Art Deco dance hall.

TPP: So you don’t make a distinction between that and serious music?

KS: Not at all! If you treat some of these popular composers with respect, and their melodies with the elegance they deserve, you’ll find they came up with melodic lines as good as anything [English composer Frederick] Delius ever penned. I defy you to find a tune in Delius that’s as good as Summertime.

TPP: What else will you be doing on this trip?

KS: My wife and I were married in the Czech Republic, at Křivoklát Castle, and we’re hoping to get back there. We’re also obliged to find presents for our children. And we have some restaurants we want to get back to, because they’re talismans from when we were first married.

TPP: Any must-sees in Prague?

KS: I must see a very crispy duck on a plate. And some good dark Czech beer.

Frank Kuznik can be reached at fkuznik@praguepost.com

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