I started by singing in a choir, then piano, then some violin. In general, conductors are trained to listen to all instruments for blend, balance, quality of tone. One has to know what you want to hear and with experience you learn how to ask for what you are looking for.

Good question. At the big opera houses, there are always "cover singers" who are ready to take over if someone feels ill. It’s happened to me that we have had to fly someone in who knows the opera role, but not the staging. So you sometimes have the situation in which the singer is singing from the side of the stage and someone in the production acts the part on stage.

in symphony concerts, if a violin soloist breaks a string, it’s common for the concertmaster to hand over his violin to the performer.

I love karaoke! My Japanese and Korean friends always take me to places for late night fun. We usually listen to the Beatles, or other "oldies" like that which I appreciate. They captured an era and you can really hear it in the music.

Singing in a choir is one of the best gifts you can give your kids and yourself. Not only is the music enriching, but there’s a social aspect as well, like a team sport. I would recommend a voice teacher once a week If you are pressed for time.

Definitely bring your kids to the opera. I do with mine as young as 6. They won’t understand everything, but they’ll love the battle scenes! And the spectacle!

There’s only one Principal Conductor at the Opera in San Diego and at other organizations, though they go by different names- Chief Conductor, Music Director, etc.

We do have a Resident Conductor in San Diego. I’m in San Diego once or twice a year for an opera, and the Resident conductor usually does one opera. We also have guest conductors come.

Rehearsing opera takes time. Usually anywhere between 2-4 weeks before you start performing. In the German/Austrian system which is called a repertory system, meaning a different opera every night, they can have as little as 4 days to rehearse. But that makes for rocky performances sometimes!

I love some of the premieres I’ve seen at the Metropolitan. Operas by Corigliano, Glass, Dun, Picker, Puts.

every piece is difficult to conduct. In their own way, they all have their difficulties. Our Gianna Schicchi is a really tricky ensemble opera that needs to fit in with the orchestra like a fast moving puzzle. But Suor Angelica has its own tricky bits, with the flexibility required to paint the character‘s emotions.

funny stories? Here’s one! I was just starting the overture to Gounod’s Faust at the Paris Opera when the lights totally went out in the pit. Much to my amazement, the orchestra just kept playing the 3" overture until they got to the end without seeing their music. It was astonishing (and scary). Turns out the electricians were going on strike (during the performance!)

Never heard of that…sorry…we use violins and oboes in our operas. But sounds amazing. Could that be the future? Thing is, classical music has survived for centuries. I don’t think it’s ready to be replaced by robots yet…

I generally like what I see getting developed these days -- A lot of exciting stuff. In other words, there's a lot of good music being produced for the most skilled players, incorporating all kinds of influences and drawing on cultures around the world.

This is wonderful, and yet, I'd love to see more attention for music for youth and/or young musicians, not just the elite high-level players. In classical music, young musicians tend to mostly play rather standard rep when they should be exposed to ALL of the riches out there. At my Academy (www.glfcam.com), we've started some initiatives where my talented mentees, who come from a lot of different demographics and draw on a myriad of different aesthetics, are composing music for pre-college kids to address this. I think valuing our kids would go a long way to bringing classical music firmly into the 21st century.

It's pretty unbelievable. As a composer, I'm about the internal story and what the ear receives. Adding in the theatrical element with costumes, set design, staging and the correlated technical challenges of writing for an orchestra in a pit (as opposed to out on top of the stage) is FASCINATING. I've fallen in love with this world (the singers cast, including the understudies, and the chorus are awesome) and hope that this is not the only opera project I'm offered.

Thanks for asking!

Ohhhhh yes. My mentee composers laugh that I'm constantly using food and cooking metaphors.

I grew up in Berkeley eating "chifa" or Peruvian-Chinese food. When my mom was growing up in Piura and Chimbote, Perú in the 40s-60s, this was the food that her Cantonese-Chinese father wanted to see cooked in their household. So, the model of delicious cultural-fusion certainly normalized cultural fusion in my own music today.

Oh, this means so much to me, Moose. Thank you for these kinds words. While I write my pieces for "the ages," who am I kidding, what's eminently real to me is what the performers think... :)

I've always thought that if aliens land on our planet, they would both marvel at our arts and feel great disappointment at our political tensions and enmities... I might very well play them your performance of Pachamama Meets an Ode, what with its message about centuries-long cross-cultural tensions and their correlating harm to the earth. The piece ends on a telling question tinged with hope; I'd hope for any outer galactic intelligent species to glom onto that and give humanity a chance.

I just did a quick search on "conductor motions" on YouTube, and a bunch of promising videos came up. Try that?

And for your six-year-old -- That's awesome he's into music! Have you tried looking up kiddie concerts in your area, either through your local orchestra or other ensembles? These tend to be shorter, encourage clapping at frequent points for that physical release for kids, etc. I'm also wondering about getting your kid some music lessons on his chosen instrument, or into a local little kiddie choir? Sounds like there's talent there for a proud daddy to cultivate! :)

NOT humiliating! You're a novice but that's exciting and not anything to be embarrassed about. So first, let me congratulate you for being able to verbalize that you are artistic. That's a big first step.

Second, I think you could begin thinking about what your goals are. Do you want to learn an instrument? Do you want to learn to read or write music? (For me, it's very necessary but I know a lot of incredible musicians who don't use notation.) Do you want to write music using technology, i.e., via computer(s)? It's okay if you only have vague answers at this point, but starting to define your desires even in general terms can help you.

Then, there are some things you can do somewhat alone, just to get started, such as take online courses, and there are lots of places to do that. Just start with a very general search tailored to your goals, and DON'T spend a lot of money at this early point. Maybe even some method books can help. (It just depends on what your goals are so my counsel is admittedly a big vague here as I don't know you.)

At some point, you will likely want a community. These can include teachers found through Craig's List or in local music schools with "amateur music" courses (I personally don't like the word "amateur" in this context), or other peers with similar goals. Once you start actually interacting with other people in your preferred musical styles, it will be much, much easier to find information about how to keep developing your craft.

All this to say -- It's a journey, and you know what they say about journeys beginning with a step. Just... step. :)

I've been dancing around this question for the past hour... Having an incredibly difficult time coming up with just five names... I'll keep working at it...

What a great question.

I'm actually tearing up a bit as I think about this... Music opened up the world to me, literally and metaphorically. It's given me the vehicle to inquire, to witness, to process what I see and rewire/retell in my music, developing my character. And in the actual creative habit itself, as I push myself to take risks, to create stamina to not put paper and pencil aside when I'm frustrated or afraid to commit to the process, I learn how courageous I am, how disciplined I am, how imaginative I am. It's helped me to get closer to myself, to become this Gabriela that I would like to be.

Wiping away a tear, ja ja ja. That's gratitude for what music has given me.

Hiya Adam XVII:

Oh, I HAVE to plug the up-and-comers (and a few are now firmly established) that attend/attended my Academy... Check out these beautiful souls here:

https://www.glfcam.com/composer-fellows

Honestly, I have become a better artist for opening up my life to the next generation of talents. I started my Academy a few years ago from a place of genuine alarm to see how culturally and politically divisive the US had become. A few years later, even with everything going on in the world, these emerging voices have filled me with resolve and optimism.

Thank you for the kind words, Adam. :)

It sounds like you've already started developing a process -- This is all very detailed!

I admit that my brain works differently when it comes to composing, a kind of "guided/assessed mental improv"... For instance, if you and I were to have a conversation, while we're hopefully connecting and speaking on the same subject, we're also improvising our words. We're not reading from a script, in other words, but coming up with spontaneous responses to one another. Yet, our words are also guided by the subject matter as well as the specifics of language, grammar, etc.

So, in contrast to what you're describing above, I compose more in this vein. It's a pretty perfect marriage of intuition and intellect that seems to work well for me.

Yes, TOTALLY. Just accept that floundering around will likely be a part of the process, especially at first, but you absolutely can start composing at age 30. Without a doubt.

These are all good questions! Often times, when solos are given in these kinds of creative contexts, the soloists can make up music on the spot. There's an understanding between the lead musician (here, Yanni) and the invited soloist that whatever they make up would still be stylistically appropriate while they are exercising a certain amount of creative freedom. So, while it's possible that Yanni is writing down every single note of the solo and the player is just playing that, I would guess that it's more likely they are improvising.

As for choosing to use the conductor -- That will depend on not just the piece of music (is it complex?), but also whether the players have enough rehearsal time to do it without the help of the conductor. Sometimes, the conductor is the lead personality, so it's going to start with that person and even if the music is not super complex or needs the conductor to keep everything together, the vision is the conductor's, so the ensemble will feature that person. It just all kind of depends.

Good questions.

Thanks for the kind words!

You know, over the years, there has been a lot of material that has wound up on the cutting room floor, stuff that doesn't make it into the deadlined piece on hand but still have some creative fire in them. So, I save all of that stuff into a huge library of binders I keep in my home studio. Now, when I start a new piece, I don't worry about staring at a blank page. If nothing's coming to me, then I can go consult my binders (and over the years, different categories have emerged, such as "good for vocal music" or "When you need the gnarly" or "symphonic ideas"). Sometimes this stuff will just help me to light the match to entirely new ideas, or they are completely transformed to something unrecognizable, but they can still be an essential part of the puzzle.

I also keep in shape... I don't just work on the music that's contracted, but I do the composerly equivalent of shooting a hundred baskets on the court each morning, or scales on an instrument. I might warm up in the morning with one of my favorite exercises, for instance, which is a "transitions" exercise... say, connecting eight bars of music from a Bartok string quartet to eight bars of another composer's music. I'll give myself a few minutes to play around with that. By doing stuff like this, your brain is busting with ideas, "warmed up" for your own work.

By investing creative time like this, you won't be bereft for ideas, from a narrative or musical standpoint. I do improvise, but don't need that skill so much anymore; and I usually can hear everything in my head but sometimes, I'll use NotePerformer (a new tool for me) for some playback from the computer, too.

Muy, muy serio...

Ja ja ja... Excellent.

Yeah, the shock of hearing something coming to life can feel very similar to the shock of your music being played incorrectly. When I mentor aspiring composers, I tell them it's important for them to take a breath when hearing something for the first time in real life, not just on the computer or in their head. After a little while, your memory of its first life might fade for what is actually real.

Then, if you get multiple performances of your music, you'll begin to see how rich different interpretations are. This is the greatest compliment a performer can give a composer, to teach us everything that our ideas promise. We may originate the ideas but we don't fully know everything they are capable of. Kind of like having kids who grow up and form their own opinions. :)

Ennio Morricone all the way... I grew up on those spaghetti westerns...