Backstage with NJSO Assistant Conductor Gemma New

Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire is a massive piece of music. Its orchestration—five instruments and soprano voice—may not suggest it, but each complex bar of the score creates a density of sound that belies the relative size of the ensemble. So when Gemma New, in the summer before the final year of her master’s program at the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, was tasked with conducting Pierrot Lunaire at the St. Magnus Festival’s Orkney Conducting Course in Scotland, she didn’t just study the score non-stop, fly overseas to lead the work and then return back to Baltimore. She sought out Peabody’s top expert on the piece—a soprano teacher with an extensive history with the work—to help unlock the intricacies of the score, conducted the piece in Scotland, then went back to Baltimore and founded an ensemble of top Peabody musicians to perform Pierrot Lunaire in Maryland.

And it didn’t stop there. The Lunar Ensemble—so named for the lunar themes of the poems that inspired the Schoenberg piece—hasn’t stopped playing together even as its conductor and some musicians have graduated and moved elsewhere. If anything, New and the group—which has commissioned and premiered several works—have become more ambitious, with a “Peabody Pierrot Project” planned for this fall.

We’ll get there later, but that’s the kind of conductor New is. It’s what made her watch conductors intensely while performing as a violinist in several orchestras across New Zealand, soaking up every detail she could. It’s what made her decide to found an orchestra at her high school in her native Wellington. It’s what led, one time, to an encounter with a guest conductor that may have shaped her path to her current post as the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra Assistant Conductor.

“I was a violinist in the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra’s National Youth Orchestra (NYO) for five years, and I’d ask the guest conductors if I could look through scores with them. One time, I very quietly snuck up to a guest conductor and said, ‘Would you mind looking over some scores with me?’ He said, ‘Sure!’—and the next day he had me conduct the entire Firebird ballet! The orchestra loved it, and it was such a great experience.”

New’s inquiry, and her delight at the conductor’s response, mattered because the Wellington native knew she wanted to become a conductor even before her first experience on the podium, when she led her school classmates in performance as a 15 year old.

By the time the NYO guest conductor let her conduct a part of all of the orchestra’s sound checks during its 2008 national tour, New had attended the New Zealand School of Music (both its pre-college program and two years of a college degree) and was working on finishing her degree at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch (where she later completed an honors postgraduate year).

 New leads the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra’s National Youth Orchestra in rehearsal. 

 

Of course, even when one is already amassing conducting experience, it doesn’t hurt to have an established conductor want to help foster the dream. And that NYO guest conductor didn’t just chat over scores and gave an eager student a chance to stand at the podium—his research into top conducting master’s programs helped New make her choice to attend the renowned Peabody Institute.

In one of life’s interesting turns, New’s current job has her chatting with that conductor about scores on a regular basis. “That conductor was actually Jacques Lacombe,” she says.

“He was so supportive right from day one; he supported everything I wanted to do. He told me I needed to go overseas to study, and he did some research and recommended a few schools. I decided after looking that Peabody [in Baltimore] was the right one for me. The teacher is the number one thing you look for in a school, and Gustav Meier has really great credentials; he’s well respected around the world. Also, it was a smaller program, and I wanted to go somewhere where I could really make an impact and have meaningful opportunities.

“So I came over to America and auditioned for Peabody. It was the only place I auditioned for, because I knew it was the one. And it went really well—the audition was great. Both New Zealand and the school gave me the scholarships and awards that made it possible to go.”

* * * *

New’s music education started when she began violin lessons at age 5, and though she later studied piano as well, violin offered a distinct benefit. “I preferred violin because I could play in an orchestra, and that was my favorite thing to do,” she says.

“I was obsessed with orchestras ever since I started playing as a kid. Conducting is really about the orchestra and the relationships between the musicians in it. I’m really keen on the idea of it being a team—the fact that I have so many people around me, and that we’re creating something that is bigger than ourselves. For me, that’s the greatest thing.

“That’s why it’s inspiring—we’re creating this art that you can’t do by yourself. That’s what really attracted me to orchestral music. I was committed as a violinist, and then as a conductor.”

New conducts the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra in an education concert.

At Samuel Marsden Collegiate School in Wellington, which she attended from age 4 to 18, New had ample opportunities to be both. “My school had a really good music department. There were two orchestras there when I got there, and I founded another one—the Marsden Sinfonietta—while I was there.

“Conducting entered the mix quite early. I conducted my first concert when I was 15, and I did quite a bit of conducting in high school. Even before I did that, I was really fascinated by conductors I played under, and I just knew it was the right thing for me.”

Even without formal conducting classes in high school, New found that she learned a great deal through observation while serving as concertmaster. “I think you learn a lot more about conducting by osmosis, that you absorb while watching. I would just stare at these conductors while playing, and I’d look around the orchestra and see how the woodwinds, the brass and everyone else were reacting and playing. You’ve got to feel the music, and that came very naturally to me.”

At Peabody, conducting opportunities abounded. New was assistant conductor of the Peabody Concert Orchestra, and she made contemporary-music recordings with the Peabody Symphony Orchestra. The conservatory had a special conductors’ orchestra, comprised of the school’s top musicians, that the conducting students would lead in a wide range of scores they were studying. She also began serving as cover conductor for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and founded the Lunar Ensemble.

“I’m really proud [of the ensemble],” she says. “All of the musicians are really amazing, so we keep on playing together. And it’s a different dynamic because it’s a smaller ensemble, so you really have to know exactly how to be efficient. And I have very strong, close relationships with the players—they’re all friends, and I really respect them.”

The Lunar Ensemble’s fall project is an ambitious one. To celebrate the 100th anniversary of Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire in October, the ensemble has conceived the Peabody Pierrot Project. Schoenberg’s work includes 21 poems from Albert Giraud’s collection of the same title, but Giraud’s full work comprises 50 poems. In collaboration with the conservatory’s composition department, the Lunar Ensemble has commissioned eight Peabody student composers to set the remaining 29 poems to music. The ensemble presents Schoenberg’s work, and then the new compositions, on a multi-day program both in Baltimore and in Fredonia, New York, in October and November.

* * * *

During her time at Peabody, New would occasionally correspond with Lacombe by email. “He knew I was in the area, and when he [became the NJSO’s music director], they needed someone to check balances in the concert halls when he was changing the orchestral seating around, moving the towers and sections. So I started coming up to New Jersey from Baltimore while I was still working on my master’s degree and [became cover conductor]. I learned all the music and would have covered if the orchestra needed it. I was also covering for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and doing my Lunar Ensemble at the same time.”

She was impressed with the NJSO experience. “The NJSO performs at an extremely high level,” she says. “All the musicians are determined to do great things; they are really supportive of each other, and they are actively trying to make a difference all over New Jersey—both with the Orchestra and outside of it.

“The programming is really creative—the [works on a program] are connected in ways that are enlightening.” New, 25, won the audition to become the NJSO’s assistant conductor at the beginning of the 2011–12 season. She introduced herself to New Jersey audiences at the NJSO’s October “Liszt the Pianist” program by leading the orchestra’s encore—Berlioz’s “Dance of the Sylphs”—and garnering praise from The Star-Ledger.

“[‘Dance of the Sylphs’] was an interesting piece to perform because it’s so quiet, so fragile,” New says. “It’s like a porcelain vase—you have to be careful with it, give it some TLC. So I had to think about how I was going to shape this beautiful piece of music. At that point, I had done some conducting in the [NJSO] rehearsals, so that [relationship] was already there. The audience made it even better. I love conducting. I feel most comfortable once I’m up on that box.”

As assistant conductor, New must be ready to step in at a moment’s notice if a conductor is unable to perform. She needs to know every score just as intricately as the scheduled conductor. She attends every rehearsal, taking copious notes on the music’s balance, ensemble, tempo changes and any other details she sees and hears. Musicians will ask for feedback as well, so she tunes in to each section of the orchestra.

“The repertoire I’ve learned [with the NJSO] this year and last is some serious music,” she says. “Not every orchestra can play these works, but with the NJSO, it seems like there are no limits. They can play anything.”

Her post at the NJSO has given her the opportunity to continue learning from the one-time NYO guest conductor who gave her space to explore conducting. “Jacques’ knowledge runs so deep, and he’s very open. It makes me want to learn more.” And her learning process starts early. “I start learning the music well before rehearsals,” she says. “I approach each score from every angle I possibly can. I’ll analyze it, play it on the piano, look at the history behind it, behind the composer. My favorite bit is to look at the character and the mood of what the music is trying to convey. It’s finding the story so I have a clear idea of how it evolves. There’s so much you can relish and enjoy, so I keep looking, finding the layers.”

New also attends every NJSO concert, which has given her the chance to get acquainted not only with the Orchestra’s venues but also with its patrons. “I really appreciate meeting people in the audience,” she says. “I sit next to a different audience member at every concert, and it’s great—I get to make a new friend every time. Sometimes I’ll see people I’ve sat with before, and they’ll come over so we can catch up.”

She has also introduced the Orchestra at its open rehearsals—“I love getting a chance to talk to people about this great orchestra and this great music. It’s something that’s very exciting to talk about.”

Next up for New are engagements at the Artscape Festival in Baltimore next weekend. On Friday, July 20, the Lunar Ensemble performs. The following day, New conducts a pair of operas by British composer Joanna Lee for the hexaCollective.

Then, she heads overseas for a residency at the 2012 Salzburg Music Festival as one of two conductors selected by the Vienna Philharmonic for the Ansbacher Fellowship. She found out earlier this week that Kurt Masur selected her as one of six conductors who will participate in his master class with the Baltic Youth Philharmonic in Germany. She’ll then go to London to participate in the Donatella Flick Conducting Competition in September.

So rather than a summer break, her Europe-trotting summer will see her working with and learning from some of the top conductors and musicians in the world before she enters a renowned competition. That’s the kind of conductor New is.

Learn more about New and watch her conduct at www.gemmanew.com.