Maestro Jonathan McPhee back with CPO The Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra got to know maestro Jonathan McPhee (pictured left) more than a year ago when Cape Town City Ballet invited him to conduct Don Quixote. He and the orchestra so enjoyed working together that he was immediately invited back. He will conduct two concerts in the Summer Symphonies at the City Hall on 24 and 31 October 2024, says PETA STEWART:

Jonathan McPhee, perhaps best known as a ballet conductor, is equally at home on the concert stage and in the opera pit.

“I fell into it by conducting ballet by accident, and I was very fortunate to have worked with true geniuses in the art form and understand and enjoy working in the ballet pit – as long as you have wonderful musicians there. I consider the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra to be in that category – when I conducted them in Don Quixote, I could feel their understanding, their communication with each other and above all their joy in recreating the written page and giving those ink dots new life and meaning. I loved working with the orchestra because they were fully committed to telling the story and engaging the audience,” he says.

But back to ballet. “I could tell you volumes about the role of a ballet conductor, the historical prejudices, things I have learned from those who had their first big breaks in the ballet world – and who omit it from their CVs because of the ‘stigma’. I learned early that to build a first class ballet orchestra, I had to do a lot more than a normal symphony music director. I did all the financial budgets, managed the personnel, soloists and music staff, worked with the committees and the union, and was part of the leadership team for the ballet company as well with development and marketing. I had to turn down lots of guest opportunities because I just didn’t have time. I stepped away from my ballet music directorship in 2017 and now I can do more of the fun stuff!”

Fun but also challenging

Coming to Cape Town must be amongst the fun stuff! However, the programmes he has chosen are serious, challenging and designed to appeal not only to the audiences but to the musicians as well.

In the first concert, on 24 October with Ben Schoeman as soloist in the Saint-Saéns Piano Concerto No 4, he has programmed Ravel Tombeau de Couperin and Bizet Symphony No 1, as well as the world premiere of John Simon’s Fugal Fantasia for strings, harp and tam tam,  to mark the 80th birthday of Simon. In the second concert, on 31 October, with soloist Hyeyoon Park and the Shostakovich Violin Concerto No 1 he has programmed the Helios overture by Nielsen and the Symphonic Study, Falstaff, by Elgar.

He says a programme has to have a logic, a mix of familiar as well as unfamiliar, and it needs to cohesively tell a story.

“How that mix is balanced depends a lot on your audience and audiences are VERY different the world over. The Elgar is truly a masterpiece, but it came very late in Elgar’s career – after the audiences had moved on to other styles of music. As a result, it was largely ignored, has been ‘forgotten’ and is rarely performed today. I was so impressed by their personality that I knew this would be perfect. Falstaff is theatre on the symphony stage.”

McPhee knows exactly when he wanted to be a conductor.

“I was seven. I saw a christmas concert performed by some college orchestra at my school in Connecticut. I sat there enthralled. I immediately understood the conductor was thinking the music and the whole orchestra was playing what he was thinking. It was the communication aspect that inspired me. After that it was a matter of figuring what I needed to learn to get there, what the tool kit was, (the piano, the oboe and English horn) and how to achieve it. I grew up in the military where the arts are not a big thing, but we were stationed at the right places at the right time for me to connect with the community and opportunities to help me grow and learn what it was to be a musician,” says McPhee.

Calculated risks

Curiosity is a big factor in his personality and that’s what has helped him evolve.

“I’m not afraid to take calculated risks or admit when I do not know something. How else does one continue to grow? I believe the power of music on the human soul is transformative. I have a wide range of interests and believe there is something to be learned from others always.”

McPhee also arranges and composes.

“It’s always been a part of me. I’ve arranged things for choreographers my whole life, now operas, and so on. I compose music of my own when I have time. My bottom line as an arranger is to make works accessible to orchestras and audiences with arrangements that have integrity, so they get to experience music they might not otherwise get to do.  Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and his complete ballet score to The Firebird, Mahler Symphony No. 3, and Wagner’s Ring Cycle all fall into that category.”

He leaves us to return to Lexington for symphony and educational concerts, christmas in Brussels, performances with Atlanta Ballet and Sarasota Ballet in Florida, skiing, and continuing to edit and finish engraving his Wagner – Essential Ring, which is an adaptation of the Ring Cycle from 18 hours down to six.

You can read more about McPhee here https://jonathanmcphee.com/

And about his Ring here  https://jonathanmcphee.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/The-Essential-Ring-Page-for-current-website.pdf

What: Jonathan McPhee and the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra | Summer Symphonies

Where and when: Cape Town City Hall on 24 and 31 October 2024

Tickets: Artscape Dial-A-Seat 021 421 7695 or Webtickets

WS