Classical Uprising: Dr. Emily Isaacson Is Immersing Maine in Classical Music

Today I have with me Dr. Emily Isaacson, who is the founder and artistic director of Classical Uprising. Thanks for coming in today. Thanks so much for having me. So you and I go way, way before you became Dr. Emily Isaacson and your kind of doctoring is actually a little bit different than the kind of doctoring that I do. Yes. Although I like to say that you're healing bodies and that I'm trying to heal souls so we have that connection. But yes, I have a doctorate in conducting and in literature of music literature. That was quite a bit of work to Get that. Oh my Lord, yes. I now teach at Bowden College and speak, work with college students a lot and say Think hard before you go to graduate school because it is not only a big investment of time, but really emotional resources. My graduate school experience was brutal and given the industry that I'm in, it was actually good training, but it made for some very unhappy times and I'm really grateful I met my husband before I started that program cuz I needed all the support networks I could get to get through that. Well, in the short couple of sentences, there's just a lot to Unpro , sorry. No, I think it's completely fine. I'm interested in the word brutal. Tell me what you mean by that. So the way conducting graduate school works is that you in the same way that you would say, write an essay and then get critiqued either in person or by a red pen by your professor that's happening with your conducting your music analysis, your musicianship analysis, but in front of an ensemble of anywhere from 12 to a hundred people. And so it's this very public critique and conducting is an very old boys' club, old world industry. And so the critique words are not couched in a compliment. There's no compliment sandwich happening there. It's direct and if you're lucky it's specific so that it's something that you can actually take away. But for one, I would say my primary mentor in my doctoral program, the closest I ever got to a compliment was, huh, that didn't suck as much as I thought it was going to . So that was graduate school. It's also the really tiny program. So I went to the University of Illinois for my doctorate. It's a school of 60,000 and there were six people in my program, three accepted every year and only half of my programs spoke English fluently and we were sort of pitted against each other. The way the program was designed is we were fighting for podium time and so there was not a lot of love coming from our teachers and there was not a lot of love towards each other because we were fighting for the same opportunities. So I'm really grateful. I have great friends, I'm grateful I met my husband beforehand and I love ice cream. So there we go. So I guess I'm most interested in this idea that in this day and age one would think it would be difficult to go through an educational experience and have that level of competitiveness enmity toward your students. And I think it sounds like maybe a little from the professors toward the students. Absolutely. Yeah. So why do you think that conducting is, I don't wanna say allowed to get away with it cause that sounds a little critical, but why do you think that that particular program is still in that mode of education? That's a great question and actually not something that anyone else has asked me. So bravo, Dr. Lyle. I think two things. One is there's been a real generational shift in the last 10 years, really quite recently and it's still happening right now. So I think a lot of the professors and way of educating that I experience were sort of established in the seventies and eighties and professors hang on for a really, really long time, . So I do think that some of that is changing, but I think that especially orchestral conducting and the orchestra world is extremely hierarchical. It's really, if you think about it, Verity Reem was just at the PSO this weekend and they did a brilliant job, but there's more than 200 people on that stage depending on the size of the ensemble. And the conductor is the dictator, like no question. And you might collaborate with a concert Mister Mistress or mister a little bit, but it's not a dialogue or a collaborative process in the way that you would expect a C-suite or sort of other industries of being. And that's one of the things that I've really in my organization, classical uprising really tried to change because I don't think that that's the best formula for making great art and great music. I also don't think that that's conducive to the society and era that we live in. If 200 people are on stage and only one person gets to be in charge, and guess what, most of the time they're white men, often from Europe, older white men, that really limits who is setting the narrative and who is telling the narrative, giving the descriptions. And so in my organization and in my artistic process, I really strive to be collaborative. I'm very upfront at the beginning of my rehearsals with my orchestras, I'll say I am one of many talented artists in this group and I look forward to hearing your ideas. I'm here to mediate an artistic conversation and to make it efficient. But we're all in this together. And I think that's a real chamber music approach, which is why orchestra players often really, or just musicians in general, really love chamber music cuz it's a more democratic musical conversation. And I try and bring that ethos to large ensemble work. So I wanna back up just a little bit because I know some of the people who watch this or listen to this show are art fans and some of them are just fans of Radio Main. We don't have that many people maybe who are specifically music fans. So tell me, what is chamber music and how does that compare to orchestral music or ensemble music? What are some of the definitions there? So all these terms are a little bit flexible. In the 21st century, I would say that historically chamber music would be 10 or less people. If you think about the string quartet's rise in the 18th and 19th century I'm trying to think. There's a lot of piano sonatas or that kind of like 4, 5, 6 people. Once you get above 12, it's really hard to be self-led. And that's where an orchestra or a conductor comes in. There was this jump in the 18th, so I tend to work in the Baroque era and in the contemporary era. And there was this shift that happened in the late 19th century where either music was very small so that it could be performed in the home or the court or it was enormous to show off the splendor of riches. And so that dichotomy really extended into the beginning of the 21st century. Now it's a lot more mixed and you see groups like a Far Cry, that's a string orchestra of 20. So really the term doesn't mean quite as much, but it usually means whether there is a conductor or whether, So it sounds like partially the leadership style can shift as a result of the size of the group, But not always. Yeah. So how does one get a collaborative leadership feel going in a larger group, in an orchestral group, aside from framing the conversation in the way that you've described? We are all artists here and I'm here to mediate a conversation. So I have over a decade of training in studying scores in waving my arms around in understanding what the historical and social aspects that were behind the music in the theory of music. But I have far less training in Boeing in articulation in gosh, all sorts of really technical aspects of the instruments that make a big difference or they make a small difference. But to us they feel like a big difference to the way that a musical phrase is approached or is attacked. And so I'll turn to my concert mistress and I'll say, how should we bow that? Hopefully we're having that conversation ahead of time more should we do that articulation here with a tinto or skato? And what's the feel there? What do you think? Should we be taking this up tempo a little bit more? Or especially in baroque music, there's a lot of conversation around what we call, So one of the things that's so cool about Baroque music is not all the music that you hear is written out only some of it. And so there's this group in the orchestra called the Continuo that is cello harps, accord and bass usually. And they're figuring it out as they go, What chords should we play? Should we put a seventh in there? Who's playing who the three of us is playing in that moment? And so rather than saying, This is how I'd like it to be, I say, Let's try this. I don't think that worked. What should we try next? And that's how I do a collaborative approach. So what you're trying to do is enable people to work to their highest potential for the benefit of the Larger group and to take ownership And to take ownership. Oh, that's interesting. So if somebody is going to decide to bow in a certain way, you want them to really commit to that and to decide that this is what's right for the purpose that you're trying to achieve. I think it's more that sometimes I think my job as a conductor is to make people atten pay attention to this moment. We've all got so much going on in our lives and professional musicians have a different gig every couple of days and they're practicing for one gig while they're at another gig. And so my job is this is the most important thing in your life right now, commit to this moment and this art. And so it's not so much that I want them to commit to the Boeing because that is the ultimate truth telling, but more that in saying, I've really thought about this and I think this is the Boeing that we should use. It means they're committing to this musical experience and this artistic performance as compared to the other things. I think that's a really great distinction. And I'm guessing that it probably is more challenging to be a conductor in this day and age perhaps than before we had all of the digital information bits coming at us all of the time in the rest of our lives. It is and it isn't, I would say from inside the industry in terms of working with other professional colleagues we do a lot of swapping scores and markings digitally. And so that's actually really effective and helpful. It's really wonderful to be able to say, check out this recording and rather than emailing me a cassette, I can just go on Spotify and look it up. So in the industry I think it's really beneficial. I think what's challenging is about running an organization and building audiences. So I really feel that my biggest competitors, classical uprisings, biggest competitors are not other arts organizations, but our Netflix and Billy's birthday party. I am competing for people's attention. I'm competing to get people out of their houses, out of their jammies and to come to something and to commit to something ahead of time by registering or buying tickets for it and to saying, I have, our family has Billy's birthday party, but we're also gonna go do this thing because this is important in our lives. And that that's where I think the digital age makes things difficult because it's so easy to stay at home and sort passively absorb culture. So how do you get people to pay attention if you're a conductor and you're waving your arms about, clearly that is a means of getting people to pay attention. But there is some point where that's not really gonna translate into the rest of the world cuz I don't think that everybody pays attention to the waving of the arms. How have you brought people to see classical uprising? What generates interest and makes people excited? And I would actually say that if I can get them to watch me wave my arms, then I've already won. Because when you come to an event, almost always people say, That was amazing. I'm like, I'm so glad I was here. This is the best part of my months whatnot. So it's really, again, getting people off their couches, out their doors and committing to coming. So we spent a lot of time at classical uprising thinking about that. What is it that people need in their lives right now? And a lot of classical music was clearly created before the digital era. And so Mendelson, for example, would throw these awesome parties in his greenhouse and all of his community would come and it was social it's not happening every night. It is a highlight and you're looking for cultural and intellectual stimulation because you might have books but you don't have television or radio. And so that's what that was then. But we've got all these other things now and so we really ask ourselves what is it that this day and age, this community, this moment in history, what is it that we crave? And I think it's community I that I don't think there's better to speak at this Dr. Bely than I am. That there's like all this science that shows that actually social media distance distances us from each other and that while we have all these opportunities to connect, they often are not meaningful connections, that there's a real wall between that. And so we really highlight the social and community aspect of live performance. Sometimes that's about really putting it at the forefront. So for example, we do at the Portland Bach experience, which is our June festival, we do a carnival concert and it's a street fair concert. We're performing in the outdoors, but we also invite upwards of 30 other arts organizations, educational organizations, artisans, food trucks, breweries to come. And it's a multi-hour event and it's like a house party come whenever you want, leave whenever you want in enjoy. And the music is part of the fabric there. Or we just did a salon concert at the Portland Art Gallery and we build in time to socialize. So doors open a half an hour early, you show up, you get a glass of wine, you walk around this gallery, you talk about the art with the person next to you, but you also meet new people. And we've had a lot of friendships develop out of those kinds of experiences and we build in time for them to have conversations with the musicians. It's a much more intimate experience because again, I think bringing down that wall, not just between each other but between us and the art, how do you get intimate? How do you get connected to the art makers again? So I think I've lost a little bit of track of what the original question was at this early hour, but that's what we're working on is how to make meaningful connection, meaningful music for people. One of the things I know that the Portland Art Gallery does really well is to connect people to art at wherever they're coming from. Some people are true collectors and connoisseurs and have a lot of background in art history, for example. And others are really just standing in front of a piece and saying, Wow, I feel really touched by this and trainer and demand piece for example. So in your case, I'm going to think there must be a parallel because there are some people that know a lot about music and actually know what Baro is if you bring it up. And other people who are just like, Well, I can connect with that for whatever reason. There's something about that. So how do you bridge the divide? How do you speak those different dialects to the different types of people who you're trying to bring in? That's a great question and I love that you said dialects because what we do at Classical Uprising is we say we're gonna present the same great music and it's gonna be great music, but we're gonna package it differently depending on what your needs are. So as you said, there's still a community of nerds, whether it's art history nerds or music nerds, and they really geek out about this stuff and they want to dive deep. So we do traditional concerts or these salon experiences for them. But then it's important to me that people see classical music not as vitamin C, vitamin culture, something that they're supposed to go to or experience like to raise their children well or because it's good for their health or whatever, but because it's really entertaining and it's really, it's exciting or it's inspiring or it creates a space in their heart in a way that something else does. And so a lot of what we do is repackage the same music in different contexts. So for example, we do this thing Flight of the Bumble beer where we work with a brewery and we do a flight of five beers, five ounce beers with a flight of five minute pieces of music. And we pair the beer profile and the musical profile together. And that's sort of a signal to the audience that, okay, this is different. So you don't need to know anything come if you like music, but also come if you like beer and because this is kind of a quirky thing that you've not heard of before, maybe you can just show up if you don't like either and expect that something cool and funky is gonna happen there. Or we do a program called Bach Ben's Yoga, where it's a silently led yoga class to box cello suite overlooking the eastern prom or in the middle of a public park. And again, these trying to create more than one entry point. Music is one of the entry points, but whether it's food or experience or family friendly or the environment, a secondary entry point so that you'll give it a shot. And what I strive for the most is to put classical music in really unexpected places so that people, their expectation of what a classical music concert is disrupted and they don't know what to do anymore and therefore they just open their heart to the art artistic experience. And I think that's really the most powerful when you can shed all the expectations and just be with the art, whether it's standing in front of the painting or being in a musical experience. So I believe that when I interviewed you a few years back, your children were quite a bit younger and they're nine and six now. That's right. You and your husband Yes. Have a nine and six year old. So have you found that there appreciation of music has changed over time or does it look different than it once did? So I think one of the really great things I've been able to give my kids and also their friends and our community is feeling like classical music and attending life performance is a totally normal thing that you go trick or cheating and you go cookie decorating parties at Christmas and you go to in a concerts. And so my son is six, but since he was four, he could tell you the difference between a cello and a bass, or they feel very comfortable around music. They also think that conductors are women, that they don't see any gender divide and that they feel totally this is their space. We had an awesome concert last spring. It was the US premier of a piece by a composer while she was here in residency with us. One German artist of the year, her name is Shelly Grave. And this really edgy classical music meets punk rock, meets coral, hn meets jazz. Everything was just so dynamic and we did it in this sort of very spacious area down at Thompson's point. And in the middle of the concert, my son just started break dancing cuz that was his emotional and physical response to the music. And I love that. So I think that that hasn't changed. I think one thing that we're talking a lot about right now with our kids getting a little bit older is it actually takes a ton of work to be good, to be a good musician. And it's not sexy soccer where you can score a goal early on and feel that buzz when you're just starting out learning to play an instrument. There's a lot of grunt work and while pushing kids to do that was something that was totally appropriate in parenting a hundred years ago or even 50 years ago, there's a lot more questions about that now. So I think there's more of a disjunct for them now about, okay, I feel really comfortable around this music, but how do I become a part of it? Do I have to work really hard? Am I a listener? Am I a participant? So I think that that's the piece that has changed. And so I'm putting more of an emphasis than ever on showing how fun it is to make music that it's a real, it is a team sport making, showing how art artists and instruments work together to not just taking down the barriers to access and to sort of presentation, but also, hey, a simple melody can be really beautiful. It doesn't have to be something super complicated. So I would say that's changed. So the last thing I wanna ask about is something that we started the conversation with and that is teaching. Because what I hear from you is that actually communication and education, although that sounds a little bit like kind of professor on a box, that's not what I intended to be is a pretty big part of what you do. You're outreach, it's communication, it's relational and you are actually doing this at Bowden College, which as you know, that is my alma mater. So thank you very much for doing That. My pleasure. And I know you grew up not that far away from Bowden College. So tell me what it is like to translate your experience, your work, your love, your passion into a classroom setting and generate that same sort of excitement for the students that you teach and without even knowing what their potential futures may hold. Yeah, great question. So I think one of the challenges is the same with audiences, which is just getting their attention. Very few of them are music majors. And so when they've got three or four other competing classes with assignments, how do I make them be present and care about this? I also think that they're in a really interesting developmental moment in that is so competitive to get into college. And Boden is such an incredible college and hard to get into that these students have been working so hard for the last four or five years of their life. And now I wouldn't say they've arrived, but they've crossed a major hurdle. And so to really help them connect, not just with the, did you do this correctly or can you sing this scale appropriately or whatnot, but what does it mean to make art? What does it mean to be expressive? And I'm drawing upon a much longer period of time of emotions and experiences to respond to the music, but how can I make that meaningful to them in their moment in time? I think there's also there's at Bowden and throughout the United States right now, there's a real focus on Decentering, the western cannon of classical music. And on the one hand, I totally agree with that for all the reasons that I'm sure lots of people on the show and in other places have talked about, not the least of which is there's some really awesome contemporary music that's responding to this moment in time. And I love doing that kind of work. What is music that is responding to all the crazy things that we're going to right now, But I am really inspired by the fact that 300, 400 years ago, people were essentially living the same lives. They were going to work every day, they were loving their partners, they were raising their children, all of these things, and they were creating art that expressed their moment of time. And so I get a lot of inspiration from either feeling like, Wow, isn't this amazing that we're part of this species that just exists over, I don't know, some scientists will be able to tell you how many years, but for me, I'm thinking about four, 500 years of musical tradition and that I can sing or play a piece of music from hundreds of years ago and kind of time travel and tap into that moment. And that's true even more when, or maybe not more, but with pieces of music that actually take approach the same life experiences in really different ways. So I'm gonna totally nerd out here for a moment, but one of my favorite pieces of music is Henrie Schutz music College Queen, which was written during the 30 year war. And everyone around him, Henrie is dying, whether it's from war or famine or disease. I mean, it's just so horrible. And we think of death as this horrible thing. And having just gone through Covid very present, but in fact in the Lutheran tradition and during his time, death was a release death was like, I now don't have to worry about all of these things and I can't wait to get to heaven and to be a part of this beautiful life. And I think that is really comforting to have that juxtaposition of approach. And so when I'm singing that piece of music or conducting that piece of music, I'm time traveling not just to a historical moment, but also to kind of a psychological moment that I can choose whether or not to accept or be a part of, but that feeds my intellectual and spiritual curiosity in a different way. And so I try and make those things available to my students as well that it's like, it's not just what you're learning in your classrooms and on TikTok, but let's enter the world of learning in all these other ways through music. And I feel so lucky I get to do that work. I think it's really important to be able to do while we're simultaneously decentering, that we remember that each of these traditions still have some validity. So I think what often seems to come across is that by decentering we give away any centering. And I think that it causes all of us to feel a little bit more unstable. So if there's a way that we can continue to value that center, but also be able to be open to other musical traditions, or, I'm thinking of my daughter Abby, and she did her masters in history and she has a huge interest in food history. So her way of connecting to the past is kind of food ways and how are things done. That's very cool that yeah, We should do a project together. Yeah. Well I actually think you'd really like her, Abby, if you're hearing this, call me that. That's right. She lives right near you, by the way. Woo. Anyway, Possibilities. So I do think that what you're describing is an interesting thing that we can maintain respect for all and also challenging because it does require that we kind of have an open mind and also be okay with kind of who we are and some of the traditions that we ourselves have. And I would just change one of, I agree with you except for one word, this respect word. Cuz I think what I try really in so much of history and of classical music and high art is at an arms distance. And so yes, we can respect it, but can we also learn from it and embrace it and have it speak to us in this moment? A lot of the work that I do is putting traditional or classical pieces, historical pieces in context and dialogue with either a contemporary experience like beer or although they were drinking way more beer back then, but anyway, or contemporary music. And I think that it's that kind of connection that says we're all just human, just no matter what the age and science around us, we're the same humans. And that that's really powerful to me. Well, I appreciate you're clarifying the word choice. Cause I think you're right, and I think words are very important. And I still, even today, words that meant one thing, , perhaps when I was going through my training, they mean something very different. So always being aware of the nuance as it comes to communication. And so the idea of respect, putting things at arm's length, I think that's a great kind of delineation that you've created. Well, thank you. I think a lot about these things. Yeah. Well, honestly, I do too. Good. So yeah, I see a bottle of wine in our future That very well. Well could be on some classical music Apparently. Absolutely. Yeah. Yes. I encourage people to look up classical uprising, which is based in Portland, and also maybe spend some time thinking about getting to know Dr. Emily Isaacson, who is the wonderful founder and artistic director of classical uprising. Emily, thank you so much for coming in and talking to me today. Thank you. And I would offer, if you go on our website I have a playlist that has classical and other kinds of music, and that's a really great entry way to exploring connections and also seeing what peaks your curiosity. Okay, there's my homework. And for good and for those of you who are listening or watching, there's some homework for you too.