She’s carried the BPO to new heights and rallied the community around its orchestra. She is beloved by audiences, musicians and her peers around the world. JoAnn Falletta reflects on 10 years as Buffalo’s classical music guru, goddess and good
Falletta’s crescendo
Messiah,” they say, cinched it. In December 1997, a guest conductor named JoAnn Falletta, competing for the job of music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, came to town and conducted a performance of Handel’s masterpiece that, six months later, still had people reeling.
“Everyone was just swooning,” then-BPO president Joseph E. Goodell told The News on May 6, 1998. That was the day it was announced that Falletta had the job, that she would succeed the orchestra’s departing music director, Maximiano Valdes.
Now, suddenly, it’s 10 years later.
“I can’t believe it. How does this happen?” Falletta says.
Her 10th season, now under way, begins under happy stars.
Falletta is the longest-tenured music director in the BPO’s history. (Josef Krips, with nine years, is the runner-up.) Her years here have been marked by success.
The greatest milestone was the orchestra’s return, in 2004, to Carnegie Hall. It could be seen as a symbol for all the other achievements. Recordings and broadcasts have resumed. For three years now, the BPO has boasted a balanced budget. The orchestra is on the verge of securing a $30 million endowment, ensuring its stability.
So stunning has been the resurgence that Symphony, the magazine of the American Symphony Orchestra league, featured the BPO in its July/August issue as a model for other orchestras.
“Artistic vision, strong leadership and community commitment are all part of what’s pulling the once-troubled Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra to new heights,” ran the headline.
Born in New Jersey, Falletta still spends much of her time in Norfolk, Va., where she is music director of the Virginia Symphony. Buffalo, though, has embraced her. And she has embraced the city back. She has inspired the community to rally behind the BPO, so the orchestra not only survives, but prospers.
“She’s so natural for the position of music director,” says BPO historian Edward Yadzinski. “She has been so successful with the orchestra, which has a tradition of fighting for its life. I’m delighted we still have her.”
‘That’s a Buffalo thing’
Angelo M. Fatta, the outgoing head of the BPO’s board of directors, laughs as he recalls his first impressions of Falletta.
“When she was here for her trial concert, I said to myself there’s no way – she’s too young; she looks like a kid,” he recalls. “And then obviously the search committee was much wiser than I was, because they chose her.”
Fatta, a Buffalo native, was quickly won over.
“As my wife Carolyn and I got to
know her, we got much friendlier. We liked to think of ourselves as a place JoAnn could come and have a nice Italian dinner and not have to talk business.”
Falletta says she felt at home here immediately.
“Before I came here, I had lived in Long Beach for 10 years. And spectacular as it was weather-wise, I never felt like a California girl,” she reflects. “I always felt like a New York girl stuck in California. I appreciated how beautiful it was, but it never felt like home.”
Buffalo was different. “Sometimes I feel I’ve lived in Buffalo all my life,” Falletta says.
“I knew so little about the city,” she adds. “I knew a lot about the orchestra’s history, the glorious legacy of music directors it had, but I knew so little about the city. Discovering it was wonderful. The ethnic nature of it brought back my background, my childhood.
“I remember one little thing. I wasn’t home, and the mailman came to deliver a package. Instead of leaving it right in front of the door, he made a special trip to take it to the BPO office. [Husband] Robert [Alemany] and I marveled at this. That he knew I worked there, that I lived where I lived –that’s a Buffalo thing.”
Sounding like a true Buffalonian, she tells another story:
“I remember going to Quaker Bonnet, my favorite place, trying to run in there on a Sunday right before my concert to buy Buffalo Chips for my brother-in-law. I run over there, and there’s a sign, ‘Closed for the BPO Concert.’ And I thought, this is the most heartwarming, wonderful thing. The place is closed down because the concerts are too important to miss.”
A good fit
Like any conductor’s tenure, Falletta’s has not been without controversy.
The BPO got some bad publicity in 2007, when oboist J. Bud Roach sued the orchestra, alleging that he was fired because of homophobia. The lawsuit, which was settled out of court, was covered by the national entertainment media.
Falletta’s programming has occasionally raised eyebrows. Daron Hagen’s opera “Shining Brow,” based on the life of Frank Lloyd Wright, tried many listeners’ patience when the BPO tackled it in 2006. Going out on a limb more recently for new music, the BPO is beginning an association with UB’s June in Buffalo festival.
“I try to be careful about the amount of new music, where it fits in to programs,” Falletta says. She is grateful to the audience for accepting it. “People are open-minded,” she says. “They might not automatically like it, but they’ll give it a chance.”
Her natural grace has done wonders to keep the musicians and the public on her side. With her down-to- earth manner, she is seen as a better fit for Buffalo than predecessors like Michael Tilson Thomas, known to be aloof, or Valdes, who was seldom seen around town.
“She does not come from the old European school of maestros who walk on water,” Fatta says. “She is a really open, warm human being. She has a way of meeting you for the first time and walking away thinking you’re her best friend.”
Yadzinski points out that Falletta is comfortable sharing the spotlight with former BPO music directors. “With JoAnn, the emeritus climate has been addressed a bit,” the historian says. “Max [Valdes] is coming back this season. [Lukas] Foss –she got him to come here, a few years ago. I think she’s very aware of our heritage.”
At the same time, Falletta has hired a host of vibrant, younger musicians –some of them very high profile, including Concertmaster Michael Ludwig and Principal Cellist Roman Mekinulov.
Musicians in the BPO get the sense that she regards them as her peers. “From my point of view, she’s very approachable,” says violist Janz Castelo.
Castelo, who was 25 when Falletta hired him in 2001, moved to Buffalo from Boston and was delighted by his new job. “In some orchestras, you have a maestro you don’t even talk to. JoAnn is on a first-name basis with everyone,” he says.
He put his boss’ people skills to the ultimate test when he invited her to play guitar as a guest artist with a new chamber orchestra he had founded, the Buffalo Chamber Players. Falletta not only agreed and cleared her calendar for rehearsals, but she bowed to Castelo’s artistic wishes.
“I was in a situation, as opposed to JoAnn saying, ‘I’m going to take more time here’ –I was the one saying, ‘I think I want to slow down here,’ things like that,” Castelo marvels. “It was almost a role reversal.”
Castelo sent a card thanking Falletta. Falletta replied with a card thanking him. He laughs: “I’ve often thought if I kept sending a thank-you to a thank-you, who would give up first?”
‘Together in the dark’
The community’s pride in Falletta surfaced last fall, when the major media announced that Marin Alsop, who had just been appointed head of the Baltimore Symphony, was the first woman ever to lead a major orchestra. Buffalonians rallied in protest. So great was the flap that it was reported on in the New Yorker.
It was clear from that adventure that Buffalonians felt a connection with the music director that is not only professional, but personal. That could be because Falletta emphasizes the communicative power of music. She makes listeners feel they have a stake in the orchestra.
At the 2001-02 opening gala, the nation was still reeling from the shock of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. The orchestra, on that occasion, performed a moving excerpt from Elgar’s “Enigma” Variations.
“That was physically a healing force,” Falletta reflects. “We needed that. Maybe we needed to be in the same place, hearing it together. Sitting together in the dark, listening to music. There’s something powerful about that.”
She also recalls the two sold-out performances of Mozart’s Requiem dedicated to the memory of BPO trombonist Scott Parkinson, who died unexpectedly at 27. “That was the first piece he had performed with us,” Falletta says. “Now we had lost this young person, who was very beloved, in such a tragic, quick way. That was a moving moment for all of us.”
The age-diverse audience that turned out for the Mozart spotlighted another knack Falletta has. Her warmth and creative programming help make the orchestra appeal to a wide crowd.
That’s good news, as the BPO looks to the future. A natural question, as Falletta marks her first 10 years here, is: What about the next 10 years?
The age-old question
Asking that question, some observers point with concern to the age of the audience. Aren’t there a lot of gray heads?
Yadzinski answers that one with a quick quip: The question itself is age-old.
“The first time I heard it was the first time I played with the orchestra,” he said. Now retired, Yadzinski joined the BPO in 1963.
Still, the BPO is trying to appeal to all ages. “I am amazed at the diversity of audience we have here,” says BPO Executive Director Dan Hart. “We have great partnerships with Canisius, Fredonia –and UB, we’re trying to develop. We’re constantly trying to find ways to bring the student population in.”
A special point of pride is its ongoing string of recordings on the Naxos label. (Just out: the world premiere of “Mr. Tambourine Man,” distinguished composer John Corigliano’s tribute to Bob Dylan.)
The orchestra also records on its own Beau Fleuve label and is broadcast nationally on NPR’s “Performance Today.” “From the Top,” a youth-oriented radio show led by pianist Christopher O’Riley, taped a live performance with the BPO in summer 2007, and will be returning next spring for another show.
Talking proud
These advances, all new during Falletta’s watch, beg a new question. Falletta’s contract has been extended through the 2011-12 season. Do her plans after that involve staying in Buffalo?
“It seems so far in the future!” is Falletta’s sunny but diplomatic reply. “All I can say is that I have been very happy here and look forward to great music in the next few years.”
So beloved is Falletta in Buffalo that people don’t like to utter this last question aloud: What would happen if she left?
“I can tell you,” Yadzinski says. “We’ll have about 300 applicants – bright young applicants and some of the best seasoned professionals – going for the job. It’s quite a history we have here. There’s a reason for that –a great orchestra, a great community, a fantastic concert hall.
“Any aspiring maestro would look very keenly at Buffalo, with an eye toward becoming music director here.”
If the last 10 years are any indication, the BPO will be here for generations of aspiring maestros. Falletta is quick to pass on the credit for that to Buffalo itself.
“First and foremost in Buffalo is that the BPO matters to people,” she says. “People love the orchestra. They’re proud of it. It hasn’t been easy to hang on to it, hasn’t been easy to take care of it. But it’s worthwhile.”
Her words suggest that, like the Buffalo Bills, the Buffalo Philharmonic requires teamwork. And Falletta, as she celebrates her 10th season, is happy she found it. “I came in at a time when the orchestra was beginning to fray. It was our last chance for greatness,” she says. “We had to make it work. Everyone came together to make that happen.”
