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Cultural ambassadors

From San Francisco, a young orchestra brings goodwill
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By Frank Kuznik
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
July 2nd, 2008 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
Everyone who wants to go to Prague, raise your instrument: The band gets pumped for its European tour.
San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra


When: Thursday, July 10, at 8
Where: Obecní dům
Tickets: 195-995 Kč, available through Ticketpro and at the venue

As one of the great classical music centers of Europe, Prague attracts a steady stream of visiting orchestras. One of the most memorable of the past few years has been the San Francisco Symphony, which in its Prague Spring appearances in 2004 and 2007 showed an impressive command of the American repertoire, particularly modern music, and a dazzling facility for Russian fare.
So it’s a treat to have the organization’s junior ensemble, the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, coming to town as part of a six-city European tour that includes stops in Munich and Berlin. In Prague, its performance plays off the senior orchestra’s strengths, with a program that includes John Adams’ Lollapalooza and a suite from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet.
“That’s a coincidence,” says conductor Benjamin Shwartz, who spoke to The Prague Post over the phone from San Francisco International Airport last week as his 104-piece group (and support staff) was preparing to embark. “We didn’t set out to do modern and Russian music. What we try to do is capture the various national styles of the music we play. With Lollapalooza, there’s an American spirit that includes funk and digital music, and the Prokofiev is beautiful ballet music, though extraordinarily tragic.”
For a junior orchestra, the SFSYO has a remarkable touring record that includes stops in Vienna, St. Petersburg, Paris, London and, in 1998, Prague. It’s a bit of a misnomer, though, to say that this orchestra has played here before. It has a mandatory “retirement” age of 21, which means there’s been a complete turnover in its membership. “For most of the players, this will be their first European tour, and in fact for about half of them, this will be their first time out of the country,” says Shwartz, who has been with the orchestra for just two and a half years himself.
Shwartz is a student and advocate of modern music — he studied composition in Germany with the late Karlheinz Stockhausen, whom he describes as “as crazy and brilliant as I had been led to believe” — but says he restrains himself around the kids.
“I’d love to do Xenakis or Ligeti, but one of the big missions of this organization is education, so it’s important to give a well-rounded picture of music,” he says. “There are things to be learned from modern music, but there’s a lot to be learned from old music, too. So we’ll do Stravinsky and Adams, but we also play Mozart, Beethoven and Haydn, which is very important. Those are learning experiences that call for a lot of polish and sophistication.”
Part of his young ensemble’s education this summer is learning what the rigors of life on the road are like for touring musicians, and the experience of playing in some of Europe’s great cities and concert halls, rich with centuries of musical tradition. In return, Shwartz says his group hopes to leave a positive and maybe different impression of America.
“In terms of what we can bring to the German cities and Prague, we view ourselves as cultural ambassadors,” he says. “The United States is thought of as many things in the world today. We want to show people that there are some wonderful things going on in America, some really great cultural, artistic and educational programs.”
That would be a refreshing change, particularly during a summer in which the highlight of American involvement in the Czech Republic is expected to be a visit by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to sign an agreement for a U.S. radar base here. Whatever one’s feelings on that issue, it is part of a military posture and presence that has cost America a lot of goodwill overseas.
Music will be a welcome respite, particularly from a group of enthusiastic and well-trained teenagers. The SFSYO has impressed a lot of listeners in a lot of prestigious venues throughout the world. It will be interesting to see what this group can do in the land of Smetana and Dvořák.

Frank Kuznik can be reached at fkuznik@praguepost.com


Other articles in Night & Day (2/07/2008):

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