Interview with Music Director Roberto Gemignani

SSO Music Director Roberto Gemignani discusses revisiting classic and popular symphony pieces drawn on myths, legends, and well-known stories such as “Pas de Deux” from The Nutcracker, “Merry-Go-Round” from “Howl’s Moving Castle” and more.

Tell us about your overall vision for the concert. Why were these songs chosen?

When I first started thinking about what I wanted to program this fall, I knew I wanted six pieces that had a good sense of rhythmic propulsion, and I wanted to go with pieces that were more on the popular side because I think that, often in the classical world, we have a little bit too much emphasis on always being super profound all the time. So I wanted to have a concert full of music that was fun and engaging. Music that would get you kind of grooving a little bit, which is what drew me to these pieces.

The first of which we're playing is the overture for Nabucco, which is a bit of an old warhorse of a piece, but for really good reason. It has everything you would want from a romantic opera overture, has all of that drama and, of course, the very famous Bob and Cyril theme in the middle section, which ended up in the music.

It resonates with me and probably resonates with everybody because it's something we can all relate to, which is this feeling of longing for home, especially college students. We all have our own knowingness that we'd like to go back to, and I think that theme is a wonderful job of expressing that feeling.

What about the next three?

I ended up actually realizing after the whole program was more or less that all of the pieces are based in either old myths, legends, stories or fairy tales in some way. You have the Nabucco Overture based on the story of Nebuchadnezzar, and then you have Othello written as incidental music for that play, which is the second piece we’re performing, the “Othello Suite” by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.

We have a bit of a tradition when it comes to Samuel Coleridge-Taylor at this point. [He’s] one of our favorite composers and I have really enjoyed exploring his output. Over the last two years, we've been performing his petite suites in bits and pieces and I wanted to continue in that tradition. So when I heard the Othello Suite, I was just immediately hooked by the really strong character of each individual movement.

This is your first semester as the music director. How have you enjoyed the process of working with the orchestra so far?

I have felt like I have learned so much about being a music director from working with [SSO]. It's been a wonderful experience so far, and I think these pieces of advice are really starting to take on a life of their own, and I’m very excited for the performance when we get the share.

What would you say to people coming to watch the orchestra on Nov. 5?

We have “Symphonic Variations Merry-Go-Round’” from “Howl’s Moving Castle.” I came to that piece because I saw the movie and I was pretty late coming to learn about and watch [the] films. I still haven't seen all of them, but “Howl's Moving Castle” is my first. I saw it about three years ago now, and it was the movie I needed to see at that time in my life. It was just a very moving experience. To me, the suite is perfect because it encapsulates everything the movie is trying to express in a very nice 15 minute package.

The movie is trying to express this idea of the struggle of finding yourself, loving yourself and finding love in a world that contains a lot of darkness. But it's about looking for the beauty within that and appreciating. The animation style of the Ghibli films, it's the food and everything. Everything is drawn to such details, all about appreciating all the little different wonderful, simple things in life. The music in the suite really captures that sense of a childlike wonderment with everything.

We're ending with the concert [with] “The Nutcracker.” There's really not much that can be said about The Nutcracker. It's just an iconic piece of music.

As with all Tchaikovsky, even with his more lighthearted music like “The Nutcracker,” there are still these moments of real pathos and drama and, in the “Pas de Deux,” you really get the sense [that] the characters are saying goodbye to each other at that point, coming to the end of the ballet. It really has this feeling of like ‘This has been a wonderful experience, but it's coming to an end,’ and it has all these mixed feelings of the joy that it happened, the sadness that it's over, the sadness of saying goodbye and not wanting to say goodbye.

This is why I thought it would be a good piece to end the concert on, especially since November 5th…I don’t know if it's too early, but it's leading into the winter season.