{"id":5884,"date":"2011-02-27T00:12:24","date_gmt":"2011-02-27T08:12:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/?p=5884"},"modified":"2011-02-27T00:12:24","modified_gmt":"2011-02-27T08:12:24","slug":"michael-francis-makes-strong-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2011\/02\/27\/michael-francis-makes-strong-debut\/","title":{"rendered":"michael francis makes strong debut"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Michael Francis - Photo: Chris Christodoulou<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We played our first of three concerts in Portland with our emergency replacement conductor, the British conductor Michael Francis, last night, and in spite of the good amount of buzz that his nascent career has gotten up to this point, he was still impressive.<\/p>\n

Rather than give a blow-by-blow account of the concert, I’d rather give a basic view of why the musicians that I’ve talked with are really enjoying working with Maestro Francis.<\/p>\n

First, he has spent a good amount of time playing in a major orchestra (he played the double bass in the London Symphony Orchestra), and this has given him invaluable insight into how an orchestra works, and what makes orchestras both happy and unhappy. He also, as a player who has spent their playing career in the very back of the string section, understands how important it is for musicians to know what they’re playing with and against, musically, and also how to communicate valuable information that players in the back need to know in order to feel connected to what’s going on elsewhere in the orchestra.<\/p>\n

There’s also the softness to his approach with his beat that is paradoxical – he’s able to give a pulse, but at the same time indicate the larger musical line, which in a piece like the Schubert Fifth Symphony, enables music at all tempos to flow – especially problematic 6\/8 slow movements. He is also able to do just the right gesture to pull or push the tempo in a very subtle way, without excessive theatrics.<\/p>\n

He also has a delightful podium demeanor during rehearsals – very relaxed, but intent upon what he wishes to achieve. You can also sense, especially in performance, Francis adjusting the trajectory of the musical line based upon what the orchestra is giving back to him at the moment.<\/p>\n

Also impressive: he arrived knowing the names of everyone in the orchestra, from memory. Yes, really. It took me at least two seasons to know everyone’s name in the orchestra (not that that says much, I am a violist, after all).<\/p>\n

Those are just preliminary thoughts, I may weigh in with more as the run goes on. But I can say that I’m enjoying working with Michael Francis very much.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We played our first of three concerts in Portland with our emergency replacement conductor, the British conductor Michael Francis, last night, and in spite of the good amount of buzz that his nascent career has gotten up to this point, he was still impressive. Rather than give a blow-by-blow account of the concert, I’d rather […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[299,2],"tags":[2556,2551,3668],"class_list":["post-5884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conducting","category-the-orchestra-world","tag-debut","tag-michael-francis","tag-oregon-symphony"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-1wU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6042,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2011\/03\/23\/michael-francis-returns-to-oregon-symphony\/","url_meta":{"origin":5884,"position":0},"title":"michael francis returns to oregon symphony!","author":"Charles Noble","date":"March 23, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 Our upcoming guest conductor Gunter Herbig has cancelled his engagement with the Oregon Symphony, and the orchestra's loss quickly became its gain when young British conductor Michael Francis, who electrified both the orchestra and audiences last month, was engaged to replace Maestro Herbig. The concert, entitled \"A Pair of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "conducting"","block_context":{"text":"conducting","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/conducting\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/MichaelFrancis-credit-chris-christodoulou-400x265.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5862,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2011\/02\/23\/last-minute-substitute-for-oregon-symphony-concerts\/","url_meta":{"origin":5884,"position":1},"title":"last minute substitute for oregon symphony concerts","author":"Charles Noble","date":"February 23, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Just got this news from the Oregon Symphony press office: Guest conductor Alondra de la Parra has been forced to withdraw\u00a0from the Oregon Symphony\u2019s \u201cThomas Lauderdale Plays Grieg\u201d Classical series\u00a0concerts Feb. 26-28 for personal reasons. Young British conductor Michael Francis \u2013\u00a0who is quickly earning a reputation as the man to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "conducting"","block_context":{"text":"conducting","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/conducting\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/09\/AlondradelaParra1web-e1265005004666.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6966,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2011\/10\/08\/guests-and-replacements\/","url_meta":{"origin":5884,"position":2},"title":"guests and replacements","author":"Charles Noble","date":"October 8, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"It seems that we're continuing our run, here at the Oregon Symphony, of last-minute replacements. Last season, we had two visits from conductor Michael Francis, who replaced Gunther Herbig and Alondra de la Parra last year when they were forced to withdraw from their engagements here. Ironically, our last-minute replacement\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "conducting"","block_context":{"text":"conducting","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/conducting\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/NatashaParemski_1_orig_credit_Andrea_Joynt-e1318119395526.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5890,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2011\/03\/01\/the-thomas-lauderdale-effect\/","url_meta":{"origin":5884,"position":3},"title":"the thomas lauderdale effect","author":"Charles Noble","date":"March 1, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"We had our last iteration of this past weekend's classical series concerts, but we took it on the road to Salem, Oregon. Normally, a trip to\u00a0Salem can be like the last mile of a forced march. Everyone's tired, most likely we had a rehearsal the same morning, and we are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "conducting"","block_context":{"text":"conducting","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/conducting\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/5490738581_d870d381f8_b-400x285.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7199,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2011\/12\/31\/my-top-musical-experiences-of-2011\/","url_meta":{"origin":5884,"position":4},"title":"my top musical experiences of 2011","author":"Charles Noble","date":"December 31, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm sure that I will have forgotten something obvious, and except for item #1, the list is roughly in reverse chronological order. Send in your favorites from 2011 in the comments section below. The Oregon Symphony's Carnegie Hall debut. It would be hard to top this one. I'd been to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5872,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2011\/02\/24\/the-real-deal\/","url_meta":{"origin":5884,"position":5},"title":"the real deal","author":"Charles Noble","date":"February 24, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"You never know what you're going to get when a new guest conductor arrives. It's especially true when your scheduled guest has cancelled and the management is casting about frantically trying to get an adequate replacement on board in time for the first rehearsal. In the case of Michael Francis,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "conducting"","block_context":{"text":"conducting","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/conducting\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/francis-flick-16-credit-chris-christodoulou-400x265.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5884\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}