For a soloist, working with a conductor for the primary time is sort of a blind date — one which takes place in entrance of round 100 folks. Usually, you might have a fast, non-public assembly to go over any particular ideas concerning the music. However you then transfer to the stage the place the orchestra musicians are ready, and you are taking the piece from the highest for the primary time. That’s while you discover out you probably have musical chemistry. Similar to a primary date, it may possibly all go terribly flawed, for any variety of causes. However after I had my first rehearsal with Thomas Wilkins and the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra final yr, it was clear that we have been a match.
Thom and I simply bought one another, and we had a lot enjoyable throughout these days in Indianapolis. I feel that’s as a result of we’re each deeply dedicated to discovering the enjoyment in music. We’ve got a fluid strategy, a wholesome disregard for boundaries of style, and we hold our ears and minds open to new understandings. That is instinctive, but additionally intentional — half and parcel of our widespread objective of opening the doorways to music, widening its attain and connecting folks.
Thom has an eclectic, multi-faceted life in music. Sooner or later he’s working with Earth, Wind & Hearth on the Hollywood Bowl, the place he has been principal conductor since 2014, the following with classical soloists on the Boston Symphony Orchestra or Virginia Symphony, the place he holds resident positions. He loves the fixed pivoting, the artistic journey that this profession affords. In any case, as he says in our dialog, “music is simply music.”
He’s additionally a loyal trainer and mentor as chair of orchestral conducting on the prestigious Jacobs Faculty of Music at Indiana College. For him, a part of instructing is studying out of your college students, and a part of mentoring is taking cues from the following era, exhibiting respect for what’s to return, acknowledging our shortcomings, realizing that we don’t have all of the solutions. What if everybody ready of management lived by these phrases? I feel the world could be a a lot better place.
