Las Vegas Philharmonic auditioning conductors through series of concerts

It's their first full season in The Smith Center's Reynolds Hall.

In addition to a new performing home, however, the members of the Las Vegas Philharmonic also will have a new conductor.

Make that conductors.

Presiding at Saturday's opening-night Masterworks concert: Andrew Grams , the first of nine guest conductors who will lead the orchestra as part of the Philharmonic's quest for a new music director.

Grams likens the search process to "a blind date," or "more like speed dating," he says during a telephone interview last week from the Netherlands, where he was about to conduct the Residentie Orchestra of the Hague.

On Tuesday, Grams - a former assistant conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra - was scheduled to arrive in Las Vegas, giving him only a few days to develop a rapport with its musicians.

But, as he's discovered in a conducting career that's taken him from Chicago to London, Melbourne to Montreal, "I have never come across an orchestra anywhere in the world where I have not known one person," he says.

At Saturday's concert, he'll know at least two: violinist Philippe Quint and cellist Zuill Bailey, former classmates at New York's famed Juilliard School. They, along with pianist Navah Perlman (daughter of violinist Itzhak Perlman), will perform Ludwig van Beethoven's Triple Concerto with the Philharmonic.

Grams describes Beethoven's Triple Concerto (officially the Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Piano in C major, Opus 56) as "sublimely Beethovian," citing the composer's desire to share messages of truth, beauty and honesty through his music. "It's simple, yet it's sublimely expressive."

The concert's other showcase piece, Maurice Ravel's orchestration of Modest Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" (which was composed for the piano), provides definite - and delightful - contrast.

"It's more like a gingerbread house," Grams says, with different speeds and expressions to tickle your fancy. "It's a hall of wonders."

Despite its vibrancy, however, the Beethoven concerto will likely prove more challenging to the Philharmonic, Grams says.

"The ability to make something sound very simple and honest is more difficult with greater numbers of people," he explains. "My job as conductor is to find some way to unify all of these individuals so we're all on the same page."

That's one reason he's looking forward to conducting the Philharmonic - and "looking forward to seeing what sort of rapport" he develops with its musicians.

If it's the right sort of rapport, it could lead to a permanent position with the Philharmonic - and "the luxury of working with the same musicians" rather than traveling "seven or eight months out of the year" as a peripatetic guest conductor.

But Grams has plenty of competition for the Las Vegas Philharmonic post, which opened in June after former music director David Itkin opted not to seek an extension of his contract, which was set to expire next year.

Despite his announced departure, Itkin said he still planned to conduct the Philharmonic's 2012-13 season.

But Philharmonic trustees voted, unanimously, to launch the search for a new music director immediately instead of waiting for another year, says Philharmonic trustee Pat Fink, who's also the orchestra's marketing director.

"This is all about moving ahead and getting somebody" who will serve as "a new face of the Philharmonic," she says. "Our musicians are absolutely thrilled. They're so excited to experience this challenge."

Two consultants - one from California, one from Chicago - helped Philharmonic officials line up a season's worth of guest conductors with incredible resumes, Fink says.

The process resembles the one the Philharmonic used to replace founding conductor Hal Waller when he retired in 2006. During a "Passing the Baton" season, the orchestra auditioned three guest conductors. The board selected Itkin, who won over the audience - and officials - with crisp conducting, his selection of cellist Matt Haimovitz as guest artist and an informative preconcert talk explaining how Serge Prokofiev's Fifth Symphony had made the composer a star.

This season's upcoming guest conductors range from Case Scaglione , the New York Philharmonic's assistant conductor, to Southern Nevada's own Taras Krysa , music director of the Henderson Symphony Orchestra and director of orchestras at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Krysa will conduct live accompaniment of Charlie Chaplin's "City Lights" in November - and in January will preside at the Philharmonic's eight Youth Concerts.

Beyond musical expertise, the Philharmonic's search committee wants to find a conductor who will "raise the level of the Philharmonic" and help "spread the good word" about the orchestra to the Southern Nevada community, Fink says. "Being in The Smith Center puts us in the driver's seat."

While it generally takes a few years to settle on a new music director, Las Vegas Philharmonic trustees hope that one of this season's guest conductors "will be the right fit," she notes.

According to Philharmonic President Jeri Crawford, "This is neither a simple nor speedy process and we have no set end date for this search," Crawford stated in a recent news release. (Crawford was out of town and unavailable to comment for this article.)

"We may find our perfect match this season, or it may take another season," according to Crawford's statement.

In Grams' view, "the typical procedure, the smart procedure, is to go on the first date - and after the first date, you see if you want to have another date," which may lead to "a long-term relationship."

Following each of this season's concerts, the Philharmonic's search committee will do "a minireview," evaluating each conductor.

"It's all about pushing toward the future," Fink says. "We're so over the old news - it's all new news."

Contact reporter Carol Cling at
ccling@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272.