Utah Symphony to host conductor, violinist

David Lockington tries not to tie up his summer with too many conducting engagements.

As the music director of the Grand Rapids Symphony and frequent guest conductor around the country, he maintains a busy schedule from September through May that keeps him away from home for two weeks out of each month.

"I need balance," he said in a phone interview from Grand Rapids, Mich. "I have a family and I want to spend as much time with them as I can. And I use the summer to prepare for the new season."

One week this summer, he'll be conducting the Grand Rapids Symphony, after which he'll come to Utah for his debut with the Utah Symphony at the Deer Valley Music Festival.

However, Lockington won't just be conducting one concert, he'll be doing three — with three different programs, starting with Wednesday's chamber music concert in St. Mary's Church in Park City.

"I'm really looking forward to coming," he said. "And what's more fitting than having chamber music in a church?"

Wednesday's program will open with Handel's Concerto Grosso in B minor, op. 6, no. 12.

"Handel was the Andrew Lloyd Webber of his day," Lockington joked. "He was quite the entrepreneur," with an uncanny sense of what would appeal to his audiences and how to sell it to them.

What appeals to Lockington in the B minor concerto is the richness of the music.

"It's dramatic, but it's interspersed with lyricism, and the characteristic string writing is so zephyr-like," he said.

Also on the program is Mozart's Symphony No. 31 in D major, K. 297 ("Paris") and Schumann's Symphony No. 4 in D minor, op. 120.

"Schumann's Fourth is the most often played of his symphonies," Lockington said. "It's from a time when he just got married to Clara and about to write a lot of chamber music. It's really from a nice time in his life."

On the other end of the spectrum will be Saturday's open-air concert in the Snowpark Outdoor Amphitheater, featuring electric harpist/vocalist/story teller Deborah Henson-Conant in a large set of her own works. This concert will conclude with Tchaikovsky's ever popular and ever present "1812 Overture."

"Deborah is a rather remarkable performer," Lockington said. "And nobody plays harp the way she does. She is fantastic."