This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing from iHeart Radio. That's the third movement of Rockmnonov's Symphonic Dances Opus forty five. This is the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by my guest today, Karina Canalakis. The recording is a special preview of an upcoming album, Rock Mononoff the Bells and Symphonic Dances from Pentatone Music, available this June. Karina Canilochus has achieved many firsts as a
conductor in the classical music world. Not only is she a world class conductor and violinist, she's also the first woman to be appointed principal guest conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra and of the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra. Canilacus was also the first woman to conduct the Nobel Prize Concert in Stockholm and the first woman to be named
chief conductor of any Dutch orchestra. As both a violinist and conductor, Canilacus has conducted or performed with major orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Bavarian Radio Symphony and the Munich Philharmonic. She is currently the first female chief conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and a principal guest conductor of the London Philharmonic.
But before all the accolades and prestigious postings across the world, Carmina Canilacus grew up in a family of musicians, crowded into a small New York City apartment.
It's sort of like one giant room with doors in it basically, I mean, just one of those things. Yes, and we just.
It was a studio that.
We literally shared everything. I mean, you know, soundproofing, whatsoever. Yeah, my brother and I shared a room until I went to colleges. It was interesting. Yes, that's what made you the artist, was character building.
Yes, Now your parents played what they both.
Played piano, But my dad became a conductor and was a conductor sort of. He always said he's famous in the Tri State area because he conducted the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the Westchester Symphony, Queen Symphony, so he was he was local. But he has multiple sclerosis from quite a young age, which is why he didn't really do the whole international travel thing.
This illness set in when he was how old.
Oh, a teenager already, and it was sort of on and off, you know, and.
So it does not impact his piano play.
It did eventually. Yeah, so you know, you see baby pictures of me. He's already walking with a cane and then he got a wheelchair and everything. But he did everything from the wheelchair. I mean really, they built a ramp for him up to the podium. He was, you know, washing dishes. Oh yeah, to conduct he was washing dishes at the kitchen sink, you know, with two kids running around, three orchestras, everything from a wheelchair.
So was he still with us?
He is, He's you know there, he's still there.
Right, So when you're in this, was there a piano in that apartment?
No, two pianos?
So two pianos? Yes, four people, two children, two adults.
Yeah, it was a full house. It was a cacophony. I mean really literally every single day there were multiple people practicing at the same time. My mom, her poor piano students, would come over and she'd be giving him a piano lesson. Meanwhile I would be screeching away in the extreme when of my brother in the parents' bedroom. I mean really sitting on the edge of the bed practicing cello. It was It was interesting.
When you were growing up on the Upper West Side, did you go to like a public school for grade school?
I went to Bank Street School, which is a private school because it was walking distance. Well at the time, it's now on one hundred and twelve, so it was a four block walk, which was easy for my dad with the wheelchair and everything right down the street. But then I went to Stuyvesant High School, so that was a public magnet school, and that was great.
Because because of your musicianship.
Well it's actually a math and science school, and you know, you have to test to get in and all that stuff. Why what I do?
Of course, you went to study math and science.
But it's funny because I loved math, but I also, you know, I loved I was very sort of interested in studying in school. I was a little bit of a nerdy kind of teenager. There was a nerdy side of me, and there was a side of me that was very rebellious and out with the boys and kind of so it was an interesting mix of of personality. But I loved the violin, and that took over and
it was actually pretty difficult to be at Stuyvesant. The last couple of years were a struggle because they didn't want to let me out to have practice days and things like that, and I just to go somewhere else. For you you got to go, you know, practice for my weekend recital or whatever. You know. I didn't want to be doing calculus homework. I wanted to be practicing
my violin. And what happened, well, my mom would write me sick notes all the time, Basically she's sick and is some violin lessons exactly?
And that's what happened.
That is literally we played.
How long did that last?
Well, that was the entire you know, junior and senior year went like that. At high school, yeah, because that was the only way. I mean, if you want to get you know, I went to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. It's extremely competitive to get Oh yeah, well, so.
You finished eleven and twelve, you're playing hockey, you're sneaking off to do your lessons, and then what's decided whiles you're rolling through that period of eleventh and twelfth grade and these difficulties, had you made your mind if you're going to go to a Curtis type thing.
Yes, it was a shift. The first year in high school. I still I loved studying French, and I loved math, and I loved everything. But then it became clear to me that I found out about this magical Curtis Institute of Music place, you know, where all these people that I idolized had gone to the school. Right, Oh my gosh, you know, if only I could go there. So I actually I auditioned my junior year. I did not get in. I was in the finals. I did not get in.
They said I was rushing the last movement of Tchaikovsky concert, so I didn't get in. I was devastated. And at that point I said, I'm going to do everything in my power to just practice I don't know, five six hours a day. And I did that for the next year.
I had of where were you that year?
I was? That was that Stuyvesant year where I was, you know, getting the sick notes all the time. And I went to senior year. That was senior year. The audition was like February of my senior year and I got in, and that was I mean, I can't you explain to you the feeling. I couldn't even believe when my parents got the phone call from Gary Graffman, president of the school. We would like to offer Karina spotted Curtis.
I mean it was I came home from school, I got off the subway, I came in the door, and they said, you got into Curtis. You know, it was like my life is made.
Yeah. Now, when you go to a school like that is how many year three or four?
I was there for five years. Actually it's normally four. You can extend. It's sort of a little bit loosey goosey in terms of how long.
You say, so a fifth year there?
Yeah, I did.
And when you when you're standing you the conductor in front of an ensemble anywhere during your career, what percentage of people in that room go on to a master's program? You went on to Juilliard. How many people are getting those advanced degrees in music now who will have a seat, they have a chair somewhere.
I would say that right now, we're in a situation where there are many more people who are amazingly qualified for these top orchestra jobs than there are actual positions, and so it makes getting job in an orchestra anywhere in the world. This is not just an American problem. This is also the case in Europe. It's so unbelievably competitive.
You know, you go behind a screen and play for a committee of nine people, and it's it's really a sort of cold, ruthless situation because you getting, Yeah, you're behind a screen. You either get enough votes or you don't, and that determines whether or not you get a position. And you know, some people are not cut out for that kind of an audition process. They're a little bit more artistic. So my brother, for example, has never played in an orchestra. My brother Nick is a fantastic cellist.
He's at Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center here in New York. He runs Chamber Music Sedona. He's a soloist and a chamber musician. Orchestra was not his thing. So, you know, I think graduates from these conservatories they all do their best, but they're not everyone is cut out to win these auditions for major orchan.
So not many people, would you say, in the classical world now who have a chair somewhere necessarily have a master's degree that to more training beyond.
I would say any people get a job straight out of the so called bachelor's program they do. Many people will audition when they're twenty twenty one. Yeah, yeah, but especially Curtis Juilliard, some of these schools in Europe. Yeah, they'll win a job while they're in their very early twenties and then work their way up from one position to then a better orchestra and a better orchestra.
When you decided you wanted to go to Juilliard, you've been five years already at Curtis your dream? What made you want to go to school more? What would you gain from that?
It was all about the teacher. I think for a lot of violinists, you sort of you fall in love with a certain teacher. You hear about a teacher who you think is going to give you something. Now is we're talking about a teacher. This is very sophisticated music making. At that point, you know how to play the violin already, you've been playing it since you were a little kid.
But there are so many other elements, also psychological elements to playing an instrument and being able to stand on a stage in front of hundreds of people and lay with a beautiful sound without getting nervous without having the nerves affect your physical body. It's the same thing with conducting. When you get up there, you need to be physically relaxed and try to sort of just be in the zone. And that takes You have to have the right teacher. You've got to have some It must be like acting.
Some people bring out the best in you, right. If you're around those people more often, you will become a better violinist or a better conductor. So that was the motivation. I wanted to study at Juilliard with a man named Donald Weilerstein, whose daughter, Alisa Weilerstein is A. Yeah, she's a very close friend of mine and Rapa, they're both really close friends of mine. At that point, I wanted to do violin competitions and whatnot, and I thought, you know,
New York was a New York is New York. There's no place like it on earth. You know, if you're in New York as a young violinist, you have so many opportunities. First of all, you can go out and you can constantly be getting student tickets for Carnegie Hall and the Met and Lincoln Center, chambersag Society and all the things New York Philharmonic. But also, you know Juilliard was.
You know, you get gigs, you know, you can actually start getting professional experience, such as well playing concertmaster in the Haddenfield Symphony in New Jersey, which I did while I was even a student at Curtis. You know, I had chamber music gigs. You know some of them are You know you put your violin case in the kitchen and go play the wedding.
The same thing. Don't turn anything down.
You'll be absolutely not ready. You learn from every single thing you do. Also, the friends you make doing those kinds of gigs you will keep for the rest of your life.
Now, while you are at Juilliard, you get the phone call, I guess you get contacted about the Berlin Academy. What's the proper name of that.
Organization, The Carian Academy of the Berlin Fulharmonic. I was only at Juilliard for four months because then I left and moved to Germany and moved to Berlin. You know, this audition was in the beginning of October. Found out about it through again somebody I had met at chamber music fust a violinist named Simon and Bernardini who plays in the Berlin Philharmonic. And he said to me, there aren't many Americans doing this program, you know, come take
the audition. And I flew over to Berlin, took the audition, won the audition, moved to Berlin in January of two thousand and five, and started playing in the Berlin Philharmonic.
And your family would go see the Berlin when they came to New York. Yes, who was conducting the Berlin Then?
When I was in high school, I went and I saw them with a bottle.
Well, a bottle, yeah, bottom, ye, a bottle with lucerne.
Oh my gosh. If you want to have a really like nerd out fun, look at the different lengths of the same symphony. How long it is?
Yeah, I have I have thirteen Maller ninths in my phone.
So the Chaikovsky six with Bernstein. I'm very into that piece because I just read I just recorded that piece and released it. It's unbelievably. I used to talk about this with Alan Gilbert.
How minutes?
How did he do that? How did he keep the tension?
Mazelle with the phil Harmonic playing the Maller ninth, the dagio, he has five minutes the most brisk one is high. Yeah, Seegar Stram is a good one. But Lauren Mazelle plays it like he crushes every drop. Great thing. That's incredible.
But if it's genuine, then it comes from that conductor's soul and that's just the way that they hear it. Then you know, if it's convincing enough, I think, and you know, you can do anything, but.
You're standing there. I mean, this is your job. Yeah, you're standing there in front of an ensemble. You're gonna conduct something. Let's say you're gonna do the Mallar five. Something people are very common when people know the adagio from the Mallar five, you're gonna you're gonna play that? And do you say yourself, it's my responsibility to play this at a certain pace. Is it my responsibility to play this a certain way and not get succumbed to
the feelings too much? I'm gonna slow the thing so far down.
Sure, that's a really good question. I mean that's a question.
How much is your mood rule?
Well, that's the thing is that you know, I think it's it's dangerous to be indulgent when when it comes to especially slow movements of famous pieces. But even with Beethoven symphonies, you know, there are metronomer markings and there's a whole there's a whole controversy about, you know, like were they accurate or not? What kind of a metronome did he have? Was it broken, was it weird, was it irregular? We don't know, but I do think. I mean,
some of the metronal markings are simply impossible. You cannot play it that fast. And there are all kinds of theories about the Ninth Symphony, the metronal markings in the Ninth Symphony, what that was supposed to mean. But you know, that's part of my job. I have to interpret that. I have to decide how fast or slow this thing is going to go. It's entirely up to me, and that's a huge responsibility. And there have been many performances in my life, especially right now. My main job is
a radio orchestra. So every single thing we do in Amsterdam from the Concerka about is live radio, which is sometimes traumatizing because in the moment of that performance, you're in a certain mood, you feel the audience, the player, there's a certain vibe in the harmst there is there's a chemistry, there's an atmosphere in the live concert hall. Then you listen back on to the microphone and you think, no, why, no, what so it was so slow or it was so fast?
God did I take it? So I just listened to a recording that I did of maller one in Japan this past summer. It was at the Pacific Music Festival, which was founded by Leonard Bernstein right at the end of his life. And it was a fantastic experience because it's a young orchestra. Their auditioned from all over the world between the ages of you know, twenty and thirty,
so young professionals. But the principal wins were all from Berlin Philharmonic and the principal strings were all from Vienna Philharmonic, so we were together, they were. It was a side by side. The philosophy is used from Vienna, Berlin and Vienna. And did they play together, well, not often. It was very interesting, like the sort of the response to the
beat and everything was really fascinating. But the last movement, because it was young people and there was so much excitement saying the last moment was insanely fast and I just listened back to the video. You know, they send you these things and they say, will you approve this for YouTube whatever? When you listen and you think it didn't feel it felt just perfect in the moment. But was that too fast? You know, this is our whole life, you know, was that too fast?
Is that?
Would I take that tempo next time when I do the piece? I'm doing the piece in a few months, Will I take it that fast next time? It depends also on who you have in front of you, the response of the orchestra, the age of the players. You know, there's so many others had too much green tea or something, yeah, green tea. But it was I mean in the moment, I mean the audience went completely berserk. It was. It was so exciting because also, you know, you're rooting for
these young people. This this young horn player doing his first smaller one playing principal horn, sitting next to Sarah Willis from the Berlin Phulhmonic playing second horn. So it was an amazing experience for these young people and you're rooting for them, and when they play, well, it's just everyone was you know, it was a fantastic experience.
Conductor and violinist Carina Canlocus. If you enjoy conversations with classical music conductors at the top of their game, check out my episode with Maestro Rafael Piari.
When I go into an orchestra, especially for the first time, it's all about let's see how the sound of the orchestra reacts to my beat, and let's see what we can do together. Every orchestra has a specificity and there's something that is different and with everybody, and yet it will see how with the chemistry that would happen on the stage, how much it could be.
Ben It's like a dancer party.
You know how fast you can do and how you can go from one place to the other, makeup twirl. Beyond that, it is just all about that kind of trust happening.
To hear more of my conversation with Rafael Piari, go to Here's the Thing dot org. After the break, Cana Locus talks about growing up in a house of musicians with two pianos in a one bedroom apartment. I'm Alec Baldwin and this is Here's the Thing That's Bella bar Talk's Concerto for Orchestra and my guest today, Karina Canelakis conducting the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra. This recording this courtesy
of Pentatone Music. Canilacus's conducting career began in twenty fourteen when she started her first professional conducting job as an assistant conductor for the Dallas Symphony under conductor Yap van Staden. Only a few months into her post, Canilacus would find herself standing in for von Staden as an emergency substitute conductor. When Canilacus led the Dallas Symphony performing Shostakovich's Symphony Number
eight with no rehearsal. Now a seasoned conductor, I was curious what her preparation for a performance looks like.
I mean, definitely, the finding a call place is crucial for me, and I feel like doing nothing for about three hours before the performance. I do a nap, religiously short nap, and then about three hours before showtime, I don't like to talk too much to anybody. I don't like to have too many people around me. I certainly don't listen to any music or look at my phone.
You don't play the piece, you're gonna go, oh my god.
No, Well, it's going on in my mind anyway, like a very loud recording. It's unbelievable. It's literal. I mean, I always have music going on in my head like a loud recording. Right now, it's Jostkovic five, because that's what I'm doing next week. Literally, and I have sometimes multiple the different parts of the piece cancel each other out. I mean that the one sort of goes by like a cloud in the wind, and then the other other part comes through, and I think the brain, you know,
it's working out. How do I feel about this? What the tempo? Again? The tempo? Most important thing a conductor can do is set the tempo sort of the flow of it. Do I want Oh, I'm thinking about this G sharp major chord that comes in the middle of the third movement. Do I want them to do it with vibrato or without vibrato? I just had a text message conversation with my brother about this, because he loves that
chord with vibrato. He thinks it should be warm. I've always done it cold because I think it's false hope, because it goes immediately to C sharp minor. These are the things that are going on in my head. I have my reason, but you know, we sort of go back and forth about it's great to have people in the family you can talk to about music and about interpretive decisions and things. It's amazing your mother played what
My mother's a pianist, an amazing pianist. She was an incredible solo as she played concertos with my dad conducting a lot, and she could.
Go from one piano to the other in the apartment.
She could, well, we had two pianos because she would teach students piano concertos and she would play the orchestra part on the upright and they would play the concerto on the grand piano. So it's an upright next to a grand piano. But you know, just to say before the performance, you know this this it's sort of it's a very very hectic conversation going on in my own brain between me and myself and I and so I need a lot of quiet for that because it's already
feels like a lot of noise in my mind. And by the time I get to the hall, I don't know. I just I just and you know, right before I go on stage, I do have these moments because I think because I was a violinist for so many years. I really was. I was a full time professional violinist until I was thirty. I'm not one of those stories about you know, I knew I wanted to be conductor when I was ten, and I first conducted when I was twenty. You know, I was late to this. I
didn't I really loved playing the violin. I didn't have any ambition to become a professional conductor. And then what happened Rattle, Well, yeah, I was strongly encouraged to do so by multiple people. It was Sion. Rattle was my friend Ellen Gilbert.
It's a bit interesting how people have you know, I mean, I'm dramatizing. It's like someone taps the mother around the shoulder and says, come with me when they go. He really keeps time better than anybody out there for the something. They see some obviously some indicator, and they go, we'd like them to come and take some conducting lessons. So what is it? What do they see in you? What are you doing?
Well? My path to becoming a conductor was not linear, Let's put it that way. It was mainly a windy path because I still missplaying the violin. I loved it so much I could not imagine I couldn't bear the thought of putting the violin aside for any other reason, and certainly not to be standing up without my violin. That was very scary in the beginning. You know, It's like my identity, my voice. Let's say I would be standing there without my voice. What am I going to
do standing there in front of all these people? What physically what am I going to do? But I'm so happy that I was encouraged to do it, and I think, you know, the people who encouraged me, they saw a great interest and passion in score study. For me. That was really the thing that I think where they said, hey, wait a second, you what you're doing. I did conducting courses in my summertime, in the free time, I did conducting master classes. I mean I took conducting classes from
the age of twelve, conducted my high school orchestra. I thought it was easy. I was, I did, oh, yeah, this is this is not you know. I thought playing from yeah, and I thought the violin was much more difficult. But in fact that's not true when you get to the highest level, because what is happening between you and these great, great, great orchestras is so subtle, and so it's such a psychological game that you have to be
deeply seasoned as a musician. And I'm so happy that I waited because all those years of experience as a violinist feed my feeling of confidence on the podium and my feeling that I actually you know, I mean, I've played so much of the repertoire as a violinist in the orchestra before I ever conducted it. So this is a huge, huge thing. And sometimes when I'm preparing to go on stage, I do think to myself. I remember back to seeing, for example, Sapeca Salinin walking on stage
in Chicago. I played under his direction in Chicago, saw him getting ready to go on stage, and I thought, oh my god, I want to do that. I want to be that person. And sometimes I get that feeling right before I go on stage and I think, yeah, I'm doing it.
When do you begin conducting? So you are the.
Chief now I'm chief conductor.
Of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Arquers. You've been doing that for how long?
Since twenty nineteen? So this is my seventh season.
The seventh season. How did that? Who tapped you on the shoulder for that.
Oh, they came and saw me in a few different places. They were sort of hanging around me in a few different cities. The general director came to Iceland, he saw me in Iceland, he saw me Cologne, and then I conducted them. I actually I did one week with them back in twenty eighteens Beethoven's seven and Britain for c interludes. And the final concert was in the concert about you know, you know the red steps and the concert, Well they are these There are these ridiculous red carpeted stairs. The
doors open at the top. You have to walk all the way their conductor all the way down these stairs, through the orchestra, no, through the orkctra, down down, down, and so you know, everyone is kind of waiting to see if the conductor is going to trip on their way down the stairs. So I walked after the performance was over, walked up the red stairs, up up up
into the dressing room, sat down on the sofa. They closed the door and they said, you want to be our chief conductor after one week with the orchestra.
So that you passed the test. You made it downstairs.
It was so real, but that hardly ever exactly. They were like, wow, she really she really knew how to do those stairs.
Yeah, looking good.
I passed the test. But I mean that that's extremely rare in this business. Normally, orchestras are very careful about choosing their next music director. They you know, wait a long time that they needs to be somebody. They've had multiple visits, and you know it needs to be the right person more than just musically. But this was a situation where they'd been looking for a while and the chemistry between us was so electric and so fun and so warm, and it just was so clear that we
had something really unusual. And so they offered me the position, and I think two weeks later I said okay.
And you guest conducted them before.
This was the one and only guest connecting experience that I had with them.
It was really, I mean literally conductor, and they gave you the job.
You literally we were together for five days and they gave me the job, which is a big vote of it's a risk.
Also now the ensemble itself, you can feel when it's going well, and you can feel when there's like it's not as good as you'd like it to be.
Yeah, yeah, you can read it on people's face. It's just the same way as when you're sitting across the table from somebody you know, having a meal or something. You know, you either get along with them. It's like being on a date date. It's like being on a date with eighty people. So you know, but sometimes you think the worst thing as a conductor is if you think it's going great and then the orchestra doesn't invite you back to.
The orchestra, communicate to the maestro if they have complaints. What's the method in the average ensemble.
Oh, I wish there were more communication. I really do, because I think sometimes people are afraid to talk to the conductor. They're afraid to say anything, or they assume that the conductor is sort of a prepackaged, ready to go, inflexible entity that you know, we either like them or we don't, or the way that there's chemistry or there isn't. But actually, you know, the ideal thing with conductors is that we all continue to grow and improve and learn
as we go through our life as a conductor. I mean, I'm forty four, Blomshed is ninety six, so hopefully I have another fifty years ahead of me. I would love to think that I do have another fifty years to keep on doing this, to keep learning, to keep doing concerts, to keep you know, how many times am I going to be able to do mall or five in the next fifty years? A lot? So my mall ar five will be drastically different in thirty years than it is
right now. And I think if orchestras you know, want to have a healthy relationship with a conductor, I think it's you know, it would be great to have a little bit more communication. But it doesn't happen often. I'm not sure why, and it's something that bothers me about the profession. For sure, it was one of the reasons that I was afraid to become a conductor. I mean, I have my friends in Chicago saying to me, don't go to the dark side. You're such a great violinist,
don't you know, don't go to the dark side. Oh no, You're going to become the enemy.
Is there some perception of that?
I think that there is a little bit of well, the conductor becomes the scapegoat for whatever has not gone well or.
Whatever is the conductor I think is suspended in a weird space between the management and.
Very weird, very weird. And also what I find strange about the profession. And this is a positive thing, but I get very attached to people, and I get very attached to musicians and orchestras especially. You know, you're very vulnerable up there. You're looking at each other's eyes, you're breathing together, You're playing very emotional music makes you want to cry, that makes you think about your children and
your parents and people who've passed away. I mean this music, as you know as an audience.
Member, it shattering.
It is it goes extremely deep, maybe deeper than anything else that I can think of, certainly deeper than words or reading a book or you know. I mean, for me, it goes to a completely different level of sort of inter emotion and connecting with other people. And so you have this experience with this group of people and I'm there, let's say for five six days. We might have two to four concerts together, and then I leave and I don't see them for a year.
Now, you are a mother, You have two kids are how old again, four and two? Four and two? So these are fresh fresh children there, fresh out of the oven. And your husband is.
A he My husband is from Germany. He's not a musician. He plays the guitar very well and he knows everything about rock and jazz.
And what does he do for a living.
He is a philosopher of epistemology and artificial intelligence at the University Amsterdam. So he's an idea AI. He's he's written articles on authorship and chatchy.
Where did you meet him? You never take your stuff outside?
Exactly? It's good question. It was luck. It was pure luck. I mean really, we come from two complete different worlds. We met in Luxembourg. I was conducting an opera in Luxembourg and he was briefly working for the concert hall doing digital media. This is before he went in.
Too philosophy his lucky day.
Yeah, he was in between careers and it was true luck.
Now when you travel, is he daddy at home when you're on because you're on the road a lot.
Yes. When they were tiny babies, I took them everywhere with me and we all traveled as a family. And I'm very lucky that I have a spouse who does something that's where he you know, he's the flexible one. He can be remote, Yeah, he can be remote. He you know, his schedule sort of bends around around the traveling. Now my son is starting to go to school. We live in Amsterdam, so they started school of four. I
like it. Yeah, you know, I ride my bike everywhere and in the rain, but you know, it's it's a very charming city. I appreciate life there. I appreciate the convenience to the airport. That's for a conductor very important, right just getting in and out. I can get to Berlin in an hour, London and an hour Stockholm in an our Paris on the train, the high speed train. So it's convenient and it works, and it's a work
in progress. I mean, balancing this lifestyle with little kids is I have a lot of conductor friends who've done it. Alan Gilbert has three kids, so he's been a really amazing friend to talk to about just balancing quality time with them when you're home with then you know, sometimes being away.
Now I'm assuming that you're vast understanding and your wealth of studying all these different musical pieces. I'm assuming you have to have some of you like more than other. When that comes up on the program for the coming year or two and you're going to go out you see there and go ooh, you know one of my favorites.
There are there are well generally, whatever I'm studying in the moment is my favorite thing on earth. Good answer, it really is. It happens because I go in completely in that world and then you justcover you rediscover it and you think, how how did this guy write this? I mean, I say this guy, it's most of the time.
Man.
There are fabulous female composers, but far there are fewer in number. But I think I've never been a composer. I think it's a good exercise, but I don't have that drive or that I don't have like it's.
One when it comes up on the roster to think ooh oh.
Well, I mean speaks to you. I would say, I love opera and I'm doing more and more opera. My absolute I think it's safe to say all time favorite piece pretty much is Tristan and Isolda from by Rick Harvagner. You know, it's is long and expensive to put on a production, so it's it's hard to come by. You know, you don't you don't just get offered every season that
trists On and is Olda. This is a this is a piece that is, it's a big undertaking for any opera house or any you know, theater anywhere in the world. But the music is just it's unlike anything else. And I think that that piece all so changed the face of classical music. For example, last week with the San Francisco Symphony, I did a piece by Sibelius. I love Sibelius. I did lemon kinan for legends from the Kalevala, or
sometimes it's called lemon Kin and Sweet. And this is a big, long, fifty minute work that the most famous movement is the swan of Towinella, which has a big English horn solo that's in that. So that's the one that's often played as a separate piece. But Sibelius had been in Byroid before he wrote all this. He was Wagner, he had wagner itis, He was completely immersed in the
whole Byroid world. It is often extracted as an individual, sort of ten eleven minute long tone poem, but in fact it works so well as part of this sort of larger suite that comes out of various stories from the Kalavala, this Finnish mythological thing. But Sibelius wanted to write an opera because he had had so much Wagner on the brain, and he thought about writing an opera and then realized that actually, in the end he would never be able to do it. Anything like Tristan and
is Olda just wasn't gonna happen. And his thing was sort of tone poems and nature painting. So he stuck with that, and he he never wrote an opera. He ended up just he wrote for voice, beautiful, beautiful, like one otar, this unbelievable, very enchanting piece for soprano or extra. But he didn't write a large scale opera like Wagner.
But Sibelius wrote this incredible music that has his own, you know, the finish landscape and this, you know, I see sort of otherworldly sounds that are unlike any other composer. I love Sibelius's music every time I'm in that world. Four, Oh my god, four is amazing. I can't believe, you know, four, because four is really not not often done. It's quite difficult. Seven, five, I mean, he wrote all these tone poems, Poyola's Daughter
for example. Unbelievable. It's unbelievable music, a little bit minimalistic. I think John Adams for example, who I love John Adams music. I think he you know, he sort of must have been influenced by a little bit these sort of repetitive figures that go, you got to go do go go do, go, go, go go. They go over and over again throughout the piece.
What I pray in terms of my relationship with the film and what I want to try over the next several years too try to extend and strengthen, is to bring the next audience into the space. It's latent learning.
It's really rare. I feel like when I think about you and your whole career as an actor, how dedicated you are to classical music and to the New York Philharmonic. You're on the board, you support in multiple ways. This is huge, and this is rare, and I think that is one of the most important things going forward. I mean, you know, private support is thankfully a tradition in the United States, not so much in Europe. And they need to get on the boat now because you know, there
are major arts funding cuts in a lot of places. Berlin, certainly in the Netherlands, the UK, London has had huge arts funding cuts lately. And I think this idea of private support and of reaching across to other fields outside of this tiny world of classical music. You know, to people like you who are who are in the film industry, who are actors, who are producers. This is crucial, you know, for our survival.
Conductor and violinist Carina Canilucus, if you're enjoying this conversation, tell a friend and they short of follow Here's the thing on the iHeartRadio app, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. When we come back, Canilucus tells the story of emailing her childhood inspiration, Mikhail Borishnikoff, and how it led to meeting him in person at her show. I'm Alec Baldwin and this is here's the thing. This is the New York Philharmonic performing Death and Transfiguration by Regard Strauss,
conducted by Kermina Canalocas. My thanks to the New York Philharmonic for generously providing this archive recording from twenty twenty four. Canelacus began training to be a violinist when she was a child, surrounded by a family of musicians. Having studied at some of the top of music conservatories, I was curious who she looked up to for inspiration when she was first starting out.
You know who I was obsessed with was Barishnikoff, Mikhail Bershnikoff, so much so that I was talking to a friend when I so we met when I conducted the neuro Filmonic in February.
So what did you do?
This was a w C Lamaier program and the Sara Ajo and then you came back stage afterwards and you were so so kind. So that same I think, I think it wasn't the same night you were. There was another night. So I had a friend I was saying, oh, Borishnakoff, la, and she said, you know he lives here in New York. You should just write to him. And I said, no, I could never do that, you know, no, come on, So I wrote an email to Mikhyle Berishnikoff and I said,
you know you're my biggest inspiration of my life. I watched your Nutcracker religiously every year as a child. Very emotional message. His wife Lisa wrote me back three days later and she said, we're coming to a show. They come, They came and I met him. It was unbelievable. Was it was emotional for me because I mean, you know he's standing there and he's an older man now and he has children my age. I mean, it's not the same thing as if I would meet him. And yesterday
he made the Nutcracker video. You know, it was like meeting someone who has lived this whole unbelievable life in the arts and especially New York. And there's the New York connection. I mean, this is my home, this is my hometown. I was born and raised here in the city, and he has made this his home for most of his life. And he's such a sort of an integral part of the New York art scene, and he has his art.
Paul Newman had his cancer camp of many cancer camps around and the Mothership is up in Connecticut. One year we go and there's all these celebrities who are invited to come and do this camp. Arret. They do a show and it's a horrible show. It's the worst show you've ever seen. Newman prided himself the worst thing you've
ever seen in your life. And one time, Parishia Cough comes and he's sitting in a chair out in the woods, like off the stage door, smoking a cigarette and I go to say hi to him, and he gets up and he hugs me, and I'm like, I said, look at him. I'm like, you know, you're not even a human being. You're not true. That would do you too.
Yeah, it's not real.
It's true.
It's so true.
What's the piece you haven't conducted that you'd like to conduct?
I would say the other three Ring Cycle opera. So I've conducted Siegfried, which is the third of the four Ring Cycle operas. I've also conducted the first act of Devalkyra, but I have not yet done Demrong And I would love to do good good to Demongong and and I would love to do an entire fully staged Ring Cycle productions. Well, it's a bit about sixteen hours of music total.
Yeah.
Normally these days opera houses do one per season over four years. However you can have it depends the whole thing. No, rarely merely that would be that would be insanity that What about live.
To picture with films? Do you do that over there? No?
I have not done that. There are people who are really really good at that kind of thing, And I don't think that's necessarily my I.
Don't think it's a string. I don't want to explore it.
If it's a movie that I love that I'm passionate about. Absolutely, Why not it was a film? Oh yeah, sure, I mean that would be amazing. I think, you know, a lot of that music is really incredible, like Miklos Rosha, you know, the those guys who came to California from Germany. Of course, unbelievable music. The score is Spellbound, for example, this is unbelieva. There's even a piano concerto from the spell Bound score which which I have conducted, and it was really really fun.
Now talk about was opera in the windshield throwout or that's something you acquired.
I will say that I have always loved opera since I was a little kid. With my father, we had a VHS tape of Lennoz Dificero the Marriage of Figuo and you know the Carabino when he jumps out the window and he has to hide. I thought it was the greatest thing I'd ever seen in my life. I mean, I was obsessed with the music, the whole thing, the whole thing that people were singing a reality scene from life that they were singing it. I thought it was unbelievable.
But then you know, you become a violinist, you go through this conservatory world and you had to play as one of your classes in school in the opera orchestra without knowing anything about what was going on on stage. Nobody would tell you. So if you didn't go to the library, there was no you know, you couldn't just there was no Wi FI. When I was eighteen, you had to really seek. I didn't do that. I didn't go and find it. You know, you had your life. You had to practice, you had to go to the
next class and do the next thing. It bugged me that I didn't know what was going on in stage, that I didn't have any contact, And so I made a point then of sort of going out of my way to discover, not as a violinist, but as an outsider, as a conductor, to discover this world of opera, which really is is in a way completely separate from the symphonic world in many ways imagine.
Primarily other than there's singers live.
So in so many ways, the whole process, you know, the whole, the storytelling, the whole, the way you have to conduct when you conduct an opera, you first of all, it's not all about you. You know that people make a big fuss over the conductor. You get on stage and everyone's looking at you and James Levon everything you know, But when you're in the pit, you're mostly hidden from view. People see your shoulders in the top of your head. The main focus is on the stage, the singers, and
I love that functional role. I love to be more part sort of part of the part of the team. I love that. I love to be I don't like a lot of fuss over.
Yeah.
No, it's too much attention on the conductor. But it really bugs me, so I like to be that. I also I am constantly saying, what have I done to myself? Yeah, but it's a completely different process. Singers, conductor. You're there
for weeks. You're in one place for weeks. You're in a room with a pianist and the director and you're blocking, and you're especially if it's a new production, you're figuring out, you know, what makes sense and how can this singer sing something in a way that is convincing, bring out
the text, bring out the meaning of the text. While do sometimes doing ridiculous things physically running around I have to wear knee pads half the time and doing all sorts of things on stage that are extra musical things I love. I love to dance as a kid, you know. I like all the different elements of art. You know a little bit more chan the way.
Trying to stay the way you are now till your ninety six.
Don Boomstead, thanks.
My thanks to conductor and violinist Karina Canalakas. I'll leave you with Karina conducting the London Philharmonic performing Tchaikowsky's Symphony Number five. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing is brought to you by iHeart Radio Man.