Julian Kuerti following his ‘individual path’
COLIN EATOCK
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
Published
In February, conductor Julian Kuerti was back in his hometown of Toronto for a concert. At 34, he’s still a “young” conductor – but on stage at Koerner Hall, standing before the Royal Conservatory Orchestra, there was confidence in his bearing and experience in his hands.
The biggest challenge on the program was Stravinsky’s Petrushka Suite, a work that demands strong leadership from the podium. Kuerti’s gestures were precise and clear – an open-handed invitation to the contrabassoon, an abrupt karate chop in the air for the violins – as he steered his orchestra through the score’s tricky changes in tempo and dynamics.
“Every conductor has an individual path,” Kuerti points out. “First, you have to somehow convince a bunch of people to sit in front of you while you hack your way through something. Then you have to somehow gain enough confidence and credibility to make a step up to the next ensemble, and a piece that’s more complex than what you’ve just done.”
Further complicating things, in Kuerti’s case, is the fact that he was a late starter. The son of the Canadian pianist Anton Kuerti (and there’s a striking family resemblance), Julian comes from an intensely musical family – but this wasn’t necessarily a stepping-stone to a musical career.
“When I was growing up in Toronto,” he recalls, “my parents dissuaded me from music. They said don’t be a musician unless it’s the only thing you can do.” Heeding this advice, he completed a degree in engineering science. But music was always part of his life. “I had scores to Beethoven symphonies open on top of my physics textbook, when I was supposed to be studying for my exams.”
A tour to Brazil as a violinist in a world-music band called Kahana, followed by a season with the New-York based Jupiter Symphony Orchestra, convinced him that music was his calling. When Kuerti returned to Toronto, he decided to reboot his career and get serious about conducting. Already 24, he felt he had lost a lot of time.
He spent the next five years studying music in Berlin, followed by a stint as assistant conductor of the Budapest Festival Orchestra. Returning to North America, he scored a big opportunity when he was appointed assistant conductor to the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 2007, working closely with renowned maestro James Levine for three years.
Levine has been in the news lately for ongoing health problems that recently forced him to quit the BSO and reduce his workload at the Metropolitan Opera. But Levine’s frequent cancellations opened up a world of opportunity for Kuerti. On several occasions, the 34-year-old stepped in to conduct the Boston Symphony, earning glowing reviews for his efforts. “Kuerti rose to the occasion and pulled off a triumphant concert,” declared The Boston Globe. “This was easily his finest hour.”
Kuerti can’t say enough good things about his time with the BSO. As he tells it, what he learned from Levine extended beyond mechanical techniques to the realm of psychology. “He’d rarely tell people, ‘No, it’s not right’ – he’d use language and musical gesture to get at something from the positive side. He would depend on the orchestra and trust them.”
Since September, Kuerti has been a free agent. He’s signed up with a prestigious New York manager, and has a full slate of guest-conducting engagements for a year. Over the next 12 months, he faces a trial by fire, leading orchestras in Atlanta; Phoenix; Cincinnati, Ohio; Milwaukee, Wis.; Halifax; Ottawa; Victoria; Kitchener, Ont.; Edmonton and Montreal – many for the first time.
Fortunately, he has his survival strategy all worked out. “One of the things I make sure of when I’m putting together a program,” he explains, “is that one piece is something I’ve done before. If every week is an entirely new program, it’s maddening. It’ll burn you out, and you’ll half-bake everything.”
Guest conducting is all well and good – but what Kuerti really wants is an orchestra to call his own. “As a guest conductor,” he points out, “you have the chance to change things on the surface: You can change a sound, or ask for a different tempo. But you never get as close to what you really want as you do with an orchestra you work with all the time, that knows your body language well.”
The ambitious conductor may soon get his wish: He hints that he’s currently involved in a few music-director searches. Are any of these orchestras in Canada? “Maybe,” is his coy answer to that question.
In the meantime, he’ll spend the next year living out of a suitcase and racking up air miles.
Special to The Globe and Mail