Students Get Their Turn With Baton

‘Conducting is the only kind of instrumental music-making where the performer can’t just take the instrument out of its case to practice,” says Gunther Schuller, the conductor who teaches conducting to a class of 11 young conductors at Sandpoint’s Schweitzer Institute of Music.

Six conducting fellows from the institute will lead the Spokane Symphony Orchestra at Memorial Field on Saturday in the final concert of this year’s Festival at Sandpoint. The program includes works by Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert.

Schuller selected the conducting fellows from dozens of applications submitted by musicians who recently completed degrees in conducting or are enrolled in graduate programs at universities or conservatories. This year’s Schweitzer Institute conducting class includes conductors from seven states and from Canada, Guam and Greece.

Saturday’s concert will begin with Schubert’s Overture to “Rosamunde” conducted by Barney Blough from Seattle. Blough, who has attended the Schweitzer Institute for three summers, is music director for the Imperials’ Youth Symphony and is assistant principal horn in the Bellevue Philharmonic.

Robert Franz, who will conduct Mozart’s Symphony No. 25, is the founder and music director of the Carolina Chamber Orchestra and conducts the Winston-Salem Youth Symphony. He also has conducted the orchestra for North Carolina’s High Point Ballet and was a participant in the International Workshop for Conductors at Zlin in the Czech Republic.

Another Mozart work on Saturday’s program, the Overture to “Don Giovanni,” will be led by Scott Terrell, a candidate for a master’s degree in conducting at the University of Minnesota, where he conducts the University Chamber Players. Terrell also serves as music director of the Linden Hill Chamber Orchestra in Minneapolis.

Howard Rappoport, from Houston’s Rice University, will conduct Beethoven’s “Egmont” Overture. He conducts Rice’s Campanile Chamber Orchestra. Anthony Quartuccio and George Mathew will share the podium for Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8, with Quartuccio conducting the first two movements and Mathew the Scherzo and Finale.

Quartuccio conducted the Spokane Symphony at Sandpoint in 1987 and has since attended conducting workshops at Zlin and Tanglewood. Mathew, originally from India, is a harpsichordist studying performance practice at Duke University.

Based on videotapes submitted with their applications, five applicants were chosen by Schuller as the institute’s “active conductors” - those who knew in advance they would be conducting in the Sandpoint Festival’s final concert. (Mathew was added to the list after Schuller observed his conducting in class.) The six other participants, like the “actives,” take part in the institute’s daily sessions, conducting under the scrutiny and criticism of Schuller and other class members.

Is it more difficult to conduct for Schuller, who has played French horn under such conducting legends as Mitropolis and Reiner and who has himself conducted most of the world’s major orchestras? Or is it harder to conduct in front of 10 other people who want the same few conducting jobs? The class is divided on the issue.

There is agreement, however, that Schuller is superb at diagnosing errors and suggesting corrective measures.

The “orchestra” for the classes is a small upright piano played by Stefan Kozinski, former Spokane Symphony associate conductor and, like Schuller, a composer as well.

“That guy is just amazing,” one conducting fellow said of Kozinski. “He can sit there and play a full orchestra score bringing out all the important parts with just 10 fingers on one piano, instead of the 800 or more fingers of a full orchestra.”

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: The Spokane Symphony Orchestra Location and time: Memorial Field in Sandpoint, Saturday at 7:30 p.m. Tickets: $17.50 and $27.50.