It’s always an interesting experience, working with guest conductors. Especially when you’ve had three weeks with your own music director. The orchestral habits encouraged by your music director are in full force, and if your MD is a clear conductor with a concise beat (as Carlos has), then adjusting to someone with a much vaguer beat can be a challenge. In this regard this current classical series week has be especially challenging. Our guest conductor is pleasant enough, but he’s been somewhat reticent to really put his stamp on the pieces that we’re performing, and there are times when it seems like he’s not really actively involved in the moment-to-moment process of leading the works. It may be that he’s just in a growth phase where he’s trying to get from being a micro-manager to being more of a hands-off conductor, but this in-between limbo is kind of a terrifying place to be when you’re playing under him. There have been moments in the Sibelius symphony where you can feel the orchestra’s ensemble sense threatening to break apart, and within the ensemble, particularly among the principal players, the sense of tension is palpable. How much of this is evident past the footlights remains to be seen.
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