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Ed Reichel: Lockhart's lackluster leadership stilted symphony

I respect Mr. Reichel's sincere and comprehensive coverage of classical music in Utah. However, the gap between his arguments and evidence regarding Lockhart's leadership is rather large. Artistry is open to some interpretation.

As a subscriber to most Utah Symphony concerts since his tenure began, I believe that Lockhart's supreme virtue is his flexibility--he offered consistently good performances and interpretations rather than stunning highs and lows. This goes for pops as well as classical concerts.

Mr. Reichel appears to believe that Lockhart conducted Mahler largely as some sort of marketing stunt, rather than out of truly sincere interest in his works. His Mahler 3, 6, 7, and Songs of a Wayfarer were exceptional by any standards. Mahler's sound world is so large that no conductor, not even Bernstein, Kubelik, Tennstedt, and Abravanel, has performed them all with equal insight.

What about Lockhart's and the orchestra's interpretations of Carmina Burana, Peer Gynt, Brahms' German Requiem, and Bernstein's Mass? Outstanding. What about Ralph Vaughan Williams's symphonies 1, 2, 5, 8, Job, Kurt Weill's Symphony No. 2, and Shostakovich's Symphony No.1. Superb.

Lockhart was neither great nor unexceptionable.

What was Maestro Lockhart's legacy with the Utah Symphony?

I don't believe he left much of a legacy. I found his conducting flamboyant and lacking depth. He might have grown into a decent symphony conductor if his heart hadn't been with the Boston Pops. For the first time in a long while, I'm truly excited about this season.

The quality of symphony players hired under Lockhart's tenure constitutes a legacy, even if not all of them may stay forever.

Under Joseph Silverstein, the music director before Lockhart, the Utah Symphony reached a high level of technical accomplishment. Given that Silverstein was a world class violinist, this was to be expected, especially from the orchestra's string section.

While Keith Lockhart is not even close to being a world class pianist, he and the orchestra chose outstanding players for vacant positions. Maybe any music director would have helped choose players of this caliber. Nevertheless, this is a legacy Lockhart helped create. A legacy is always a collaborative one in some way.

Among many, singled out with no preference, these players include violinists Yuki MacQueen and David Langr, violists Brant Bayless and Julie Edwards, clarinetists Tad Calcara and Lee Livengood, bassists Corbin Johnston and Thomas Zera, bassoonists Lori Wike and Leon Chodos, horn player James Wilson, pianist Jason Hardink, trombonist James Nova (just departed), and trumpet player Jeff Luke.

A check of Mr. Reichel's reviews of Lockhart's conducting of individual pieces reveals roughly 120 positive and about 25 harshly negative--a strange ratio for lackluster leadership.

Mahler was a great composer, but why is a symphony's performance of his cycle automatically a candidate for a legacy. Every major orchestra in the US and Europe does Mahler nowadays. Lockhart and the orchestra made a great start at something much more uncommon in the US: a Ralph Vaughan Williams symphony cycle, and one that was performed and interpreted superbly.

While the Deer Valley Music Festival, begun in 2005, is still a work in progress, it can also be considered part of Lockhart's legacy--even if Anne Ewers was the key player. This extension of performances in the community is potentially a far more important legacy than one supposedly unsuccessful tour of Europe. Nowadays those tours are mostly costly vanity ones anyways. I enjoy our symphony performing at a world class level for us, not the Viennese.

What about that unsuccessful Lockhart Utah Symphony CD (it cost hundreds of thousands to put out)? Well, in today's music market almost all new orchestral classical music CDs barely sell more than a few thousand copies at best. The Utah symphony should consider releasing one live CD per year, perhaps on its own label, or Naxos for better marketing.

I agree with Mr. Reichel that whoever is chosen in the next few years to lead the Utah Symphony and Opera as music director should be an orchestral builder. Joseph Silverstein was a builder, and perhaps Lockhart was not, but Lockhart did provide stability (an eleven-year tenure as music director isn't bad). Only Varujan Kojian as music director for three seasons in the early 1980s can be considered a flop, and Abravanel's legacy speaks for itself.

Lockhart is a reasonably good musician whose conducting has improved overall. Granted, he was not the best musician among the candidates in 1998, but choosing a music director always involves juggling many variables that are not easy for all to discern and agree upon.

Some people apparently can't get over the fact that Lockhart was double dipping with the Boston Pops and therefore was supposedly either more committed to Boston, or just merely a flamboyant pops conductor dabbling in the "legitimate" orchestral repertoire.

Let's look at what some of our current prospective candidates may bring along with their artistry.

Thierry Fischer would be triple dipping--he has positions with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and the Nagoya (Japan) Philharmonic. Claus Peter Flor just began a tenure as music director of the Malaysian Philharmonic.

Jeffrey Kahane is still music director of the Colorado Symphony. Hugh Wolff was only last year appointed Director of Orchestras at the New England Conservatory of Music. Emmanuel Villaume was just appointed Chief Conductor of the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra. Larry Rachleff heads the Rhode Island Philharmonic and is at Rice University. The decision will be difficult, and not please everyone.

I never really identified with Lockhart's rather legato conducting style, but in most cases he let the orchestra and the music speak plainly for itself. I always felt Pavel Kogan was by far the flashier conductor, who tended to impose himself on the music more as his tenure as guest conductor became longer. But I still enjoyed his interpretations.

I do recall that some years ago Mr. Reichel reviewed a guest conductor's work at the Utah Symphony. His name: Alan Gilbert.

I wasn't at that concert with maestro Gilbert, which included Bruckner's symphony number 6. In reviewing Gilbert's work in the Deseret News on April 8, 2000, Mr. Reichel said Gilbert showed "immaturity and lack of musicality and talent." Perhaps Gilbert just had a bad day, or took the criticism to heart. Some readers wrote in and disgreed with Mr. Reichel. I guess it's all in the eye of the beholder in the end. Gilbert is now the new music director of the New York Philharmonic.

As Mr. Reichel suggests, more than one of this season's guest conductors could help build the Utah Symphony's reputation in the community and beyond.

Selecting Keith Lockhart as the Utah Symphony's music director in 1998 definitely boosted attendance at the Utah Symphony. However, Mr. Reichel has a point--selections driven by marketing or grand ideas of increasing attendance seem to fizzle in the end. In that sense Lockhart was arguably a less risky choice initially, but perhaps not the best in the long term.

We need a music director who is committed to the orchestra and the community, and is open to contributing to a recorded legacy rather than dreams of tours to Europe.

Maybe the symphony should take a closer look at those music director candidates who currently have no other major commitments. These include Matthias Bamert, Andrew Grams, Gilbert Varga, and Arild Remmereit.

Mr. Remmereit's conducting style was unique, but the results weren't spectacular. Matthias Bamert has tremendous experience with both classical and modern composers, plus a continuing recording contract with Chandos records. Gilbert Varga looks promising based on videos.

My current favorite is Andrew Grams. He's young, American, has a degree from Julliard, assisted at the Cleveland Orchestra, but otherwise is just an excellent violinist with a hypnotic conducting style that gets

Lockhart lacked the essential tools required of a competent conductor. He ha problems with balancing the forces of the orchestra and commonly the orchestra overwhelmed the soloist.

He could not keep the strings together, producing a mushy sound--a non-existent problem for most guest conductors.

His Beethoven interpretations were in general very bad, especially with the tempi. His conducting was inconsistent during a performance of almost any of the 19th century standards.

The Symphony Board was forced into an unwise selection with respect to Lockhart and we, the audience , were sentenced to 11 years or generally incompetent music.

The new search committee was more competent and their choice is a solid one--one that the orchestra and the public deserve.