Musician and conductor James S. Kahane is nearing the tip of his first season as Music Director of the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra. He additionally holds the place of Principal Conductor with the Helsinki Chamber Orchestra, and Orchestre de Chambre de la Drôme in Die, France.
Naturally, he spends a bit of his time lately travelling, together with criss-crossing the Atlantic. LvT caught up with him after a current Hamilton live performance to speak.
James S. Kahane
Kahane started formal music research at age 14 on the Conservatoire à rayonnement communal du 13e arrondissement de Paris in his native France. By about t17, although, his consideration had shifted to conducting.
On the age of 19, Kahane was admitted to the conducting class on the fabled Sibelius Academy the place he studied from 2015 till 2021. One in every of Europe’s largest music academies, the Sibelius Academy was established in 1882, and has change into famend for turning out an extended checklist of former college students who are actually among the many world’s distinguished musicians. Notably lately, that features many acclaimed conductors comparable to Esa-Pekka Salonen, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Klaus Mäkelä, and Santtu-Matias Rouvali, amongst many others.
Along with his coaching in Finland, James pursued his research by invitation on the Menuhin Competition in Gstaad, in Bernard Haitink’s conducting masterclass on the Lucerne Music Competition, and the Tanglewood Music Competition. Throughout this time there, Kahane studied with Atso Almila, Sakari Oramo, and Hannu Lintu.
In 2018, he was invited by Kristjan Järvi invited to conduct the Baltic Academies Orchestra in Berlin. He has since gone on to conduct lots of the world’s main orchestras, and would assist to re-establish the Helsinki Chamber Orchestra, the place he now holds the title of Principal Conductor.
Kahane formally took up his place because the ninth Music Director of The Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra initially the 2024/25 season.
The Interview
What made him make that swap from piano to conducting as a teen?
“It was a mixture of a number of elements,” Kahane says. As he explains, as a younger music pupil, he was extra inquisitive about performing and dealing with teams than he was spending time in a solitary piano studio. “I didn’t actually benefit from the solitary side of piano,” he says. “Until you do chamber music, its all by yourself.”
It was additionally a necessary query of style. He was listening virtually solely to orchestral music, and enjoying piano transcriptions of orchestral works.
“The combo of these two issues type of led me naturally to conducting,” he observes.
The Finnish Approach: The Sibelius Academy
What makes The Sibelius Academy such an distinctive place to find out about conducting?
“I can slender it right down to a mix of three issues which can be all essential,” Kahane begins.
First, he factors out that in his research, an orchestra was accessible so that every of the 5 to seven college students in a cohort might work with the musicians immediately twice per week.
“It implies that each week you possibly can conduct an orchestra for about 40 or 50 minutes, which is loads.”
It’s an unlimited benefit to realize all that have even earlier than commencement.
“They’ve this fairly fascinating and fairly efficient philosophy of educating,” he continues.
Primarily, it boils right down to: the liberty to develop your individual type.
“The instructor doesn’t intervene very a lot.” It’s akin to letting children discover ways to work out learn how to steadiness and journey on a bicycle on their very own, the place intervention solely takes place if one thing clearly isn’t working.
The third part was a copious quantity of suggestions. “All our classes have been recorded on video.” After a category, the scholars would sit with the instructor, and undergo the video to replay the lesson and what was discovered. “There, we’d get an enormous quantity of suggestions.”
The duality of complete freedom in entrance of the orchestra whilst you have been conducting, juxtaposed with detailed suggestions afterwards, creates a uniquely productive atmosphere for studying, he believes. The proof, as he notes, is within the proverbial pudding.
“You possibly can see it of their skilled life,” he factors out. “There are not any two Finnish conductors which can be the identical.”
Europe vs North America
The atmosphere for Western artwork music is totally different in Europe versus North America. The roles he occupies with varied organizations are additionally not the identical. With the HPO, for instance, as Music Director, he’s accountable for programming, whereas as Principal Conductor elsewhere, he could make strategies, however the needs of a committee and the Inventive Director in the end decide what’s performed.
“Sure, the philosophy of programming could be very, very totally different,” Kahane says of his varied roles. In France, with the Orchestre de Chambre de la Drôme, the ensemble is devoted virtually solely to up to date music.
“We program new music virtually each live performance,” he says, drawing similarities to his current work with the Hamilton Philharmonic and their Intimate & Immersive live performance sequence.
He remarks that the classical music market is a superb deal extra crowded in Europe than it’s in Canada, as a rule. In Helsinki alone, for instance, there are 5 orchestras. “I believe the audiences in Finland anticipate possibly a bit extra selection than audiences in Canada,” he says. “If you’re […] any orchestra in Helsinki, it’s important to set your self somewhat bit aside.”
European packages will have a tendency to incorporate rarer and lesser heard works, in different phrases.
Coming Up…
Kahane will probably be again in Hamilton to conduct the HPO with visitor soloist James Ehnes on Could 3 in a program that features Mahler, Tchaikovsky, and the premiere of a brand new work by HPO Composer Fellow for 2024/25 Massimo Guida.
The HPO then ends their season with group live shows and a pops live performance of online game music. For subsequent season, Kahane can’t say a lot, however he’s promising an strategy that can take the orchestra in some new instructions.
“We are attempting to variety somewhat bit our providing,” he explains. Which means, there will probably be some additions to the anticipated symphonic repertoire and mainstage live shows. “We’re dipping our toes into opera, somewhat little bit of ballet,” he says.
- Discover our extra in regards to the Could 3 live performance and the HPO season [HERE].
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Anya Wassenberg is a Toronto Metropolis Editor at Ludwig Van. She is an skilled freelance author, blogger and writing teacher.