Man Of The World
Maestro Bruno Ferrandis of France, who has led orchestras around the globe, takes the podium in Santa Rosa this week
Published on October 8, 2006
© 2006-The Press Democrat, p. D1
By DIANE PETERSON
French conductor Bruno Ferrandis has always had one eye on the score and the other on the world at large.
It was curiosity that first prodded him to leave France to do post-graduate work at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, then jump across the Atlantic to pursue a master's degree from Juilliard in New York.
As a guest conductor for the past 20 years, Ferrandis has given downbeats on stages all over the world, from Asia and the Middle East to Europe and Canada. Along the way, his inquisitive nature has launched him on a musical journey of unusual breadth, spanning the worlds of ballet, musical theater, film and opera.
“I'm a curious human being -- not an inventor, but I'm interested by what the others do,” Ferrandis said in a phone interview from his home outside Paris. “Maybe through that curiosity, I can interest them to come to me.”
Last March, that strategy worked like a charm for the 46-year-old conductor, who was chosen as the Santa Rosa Symphony's fourth music director in its 78-year history. Ferrandis was the final of seven candidates to audition with the symphony over the span of two years.
Concertmaster Joe Edelberg, who served on the music director search committee, said the orchestra was not only impressed by Ferrandis' communication skills but inspired by his collegial spirit.
“He's a natural communicator on the podium. ... It flows out of him and everyone can see it,” Edelberg said. “He also made it clear to us that he wants people to be personally engaged. ... That's a great offer from a conductor.”
In the end, it was an offer the search committee could not refuse. The 10-member panel was unanimous in its support of Ferrandis, whose candor, warmth and charming French accent won over staff and board members alike.
“I think he can take our orchestra to the next artistic level,'” said Nancy Berto, a longtime symphony board member who served on the search committee. “Each day, I found I liked him more and more. He's very easy to be with.'”
Picking up Kahane's baton
The lithe, energetic Frenchman -- who bears more than a passing resemblance to San Francisco Symphony Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas in physique and conducting style -- has a tall order to fill.
When the orchestra tunes up next weekend for the first concert of the season, Ferrandis will step into the role held for a decade by former music director Jeffrey Kahane, now conductor of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra in Denver. After starting out his career as a pianist, Kahane spent his time here raising the profile of the Santa Rosa Symphony.
“Our orchestra is at a different level, now that we've had Jeffrey here for 10 years,” Berto noted. “About 90 percent of our musicians come from the Bay Area. They come because they love playing here. And it's so important that we keep that challenge.''
This month, Ferrandis plans to reconnect with the musicians and the audience while reaching out to the community at large during special receptions.
On Tuesday, Ferrandis outlined his musical philosophy to the symphony board with a blend of gravitas and humor. Dressed elegantly in a gray shirt and black jacket with a red scarf, the conductor stressed the need for the orchestra to “touch a younger audience.'”
“Playing beautiful music beautifully is not enough,'” he said, flexing his long fingers. “I'll be reaching to other media.”
Ferrandis foresees challenges ahead, as he shifts from a Europe-based career to an America-based music director position. It's the first time he will lead his own orchestra.
“As a guest conductor, you go and you go away,'” he said. `”That's a very different type of experience.”
Although he shares Kahane’s passion for music and collegial approach, Ferrandis’background and culture are unique.
“He's his own man,'” said Santa Rosa Symphony Executive Director Alan Silow. `”So it's a good next step for this organization. ... I think this really is a new era.”
Plans for 2007-2008
It's already been a busy year for the globe-trotting Ferrandis. In July, he led a double production of Verdi's “La Traviata”' in the French cities of Antibes and Lacoste, with a double cast and two orchestras.
After conducting the symphony opener at Wells Fargo Center next weekend, he will jet off to Switzerland to prepare Gian Carlo Menotti's opera “The Telephone” at the Lausanne Opera.
Meanwhile, he is firming up plans for the symphony's 2007-'08 season in conjunction with Silow. For his first full season as music director, Ferrandis would like to incorporate a variety of art forms, such as dance and cinema, into the symphonic programs.
“I will try to bring my spontaneity and my freshness, and if I can, my inventivity, looking toward other arts,” he said. `”We don't want to live in an ivory tower.'”
This season, Kahane planned all the symphony’s concert sets, including the three that Ferrandis will conduct: next weekend’s Russian program, a Chinese program in January and another Russian program in May.
Ferrandis is looking forward to working with the international lineup of guest artists this season, including Korean pianist Joyce Yang, Israeli cellist Maya Beiser and Italian violinist Nadia Salerno-Sonnenberg.
“What is amazing is this array of nationalities,'” he said. “This shows only one thing -- that music unites people.'”
Man without a country?
Ferrandis himself is a hodgepodge of many different cultures, all clustered around the Mediterranean.
“For a Frenchman, I could be called an accident,”' he said.
The name Ferrandis -- with the “s”' pronounced -- comes from the Spanish village of Elche, just south of Valencia on the Costa Brava. His mother hails from Naples on the west coast of Italy. “She is 100 percent Neapolitan,” he said.
Ferrandis’ grandparents immigrated to Algeria in North Africa around 1910, 80 years after it was claimed by France as a new territory.
“They came because they heard it was a land of bounty,” he said. “It rapidly became hell in the 1950s, because the Algerians wanted their independence.”
Ferrandis was born in Algeria on May 26, 1960, in the midst of the bloody Algerian War of Independence. That conflict left deep scars on both countries, as evidenced by the riots in France earlier this year.
“We were called the ‘pieds-noir’ -- the black feet -- because the French soldiers on Algerian soil had big black boots,'” Ferrandis said. “There was a lot of resentment on either side.”
His father was already working as a laboratory technician on Corsica when his mother was forced to flee Algeria with her two children: 2-year-old Bruno and his 1-month-old brother, Jean.
“My mother told us that she took one of the last boats leaving Algiers,” he said. `”She heard the bullets whistling, and we abandoned everything -- all our possessions, our home.”
The family had to start over “at ground zero,'” with nothing. `”It was a very bizarre way to start life,” he said.
The family reunited on the French island of Corsica, then moved to Toulon in southeast France in 1965, eventually settling in Nice later that year.
That’s where the 5-year-old Ferrandis started studying piano and solfege -- a system of ear training -- first at elementary school and later at the Nice Conservatory of Music. Although he showed a talent for music, Ferrandis credits his parents -- who were thwarted in their own musical education -- for his early training.
“In a way, they took revenge on their parents and put us to music,” he said. “For me ... it was a routine. I only had consciousness that it could one day be my job much, much later in life.'”
At 18, Ferrandis considered studying science, but decided against it. Instead, he followed his mentor, the famous Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral organist Pierre Cochereau, to Lyon. There, the organist launched a new conservatory that offered an alternative to the conservatory in Paris.
In Lyon, Ferrandis studied conducting and the double bass for three years before applying to a post-graduate school in London, at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
“I wanted more guidance in my life,”' he said simply. `”I was anti-academic, in that I didn't like the authoritarian faculty of France. ... I like the Anglo-Saxon way, to give you advice.”
From England, the determined Frenchman decided to go to New York, where he got his master’s degree in conducting from Juilliard. He stayed in New York for 10 years, serving as music director of the Juilliard Pre-College Orchestra and associate conductor of the Juilliard Opera Center.
Musical vision
Ferrandis has carved out a niche in both the standard and avant-garde repertoire, recording three CDs with the Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra, including Yves Prin’s “Dioscures/Ephemeres/Le Souffle d’Iris” on the Naxos label.
His “desert island'” composers -- those he admires most -- include 12-tone pioneer Arnold Schoenberg and Russian iconoclast Igor Stravinsky.
“Those two men have pushed ideas,” he said. "They went into all disciplines ... and I think their curiosity paid off."
Among art forms, Ferrandis is most attracted to painting and sculpture -- the simple lines of Dali and Picasso, the modern sculptures of Henry Moore, and the Spanish painter Goya.
Like his taste in art, his musical vision for the Santa Rosa Symphony is broad, encompassing the early music of Bach and the classical era of Mozart as well as Romantic, 20th-century and contemporary composers.
“My goal is to enlarge the scope,” he said. “I will continue to have a classic thread, but the idea is to mix them with modern composers of the Bay Area and living people.”
Throughout his career, Ferrandis has collaborated with many composers, including New York-born William Schuman and Pierre Boulez of France. He has also worked with Martin Matalon, composer of the 1995 soundtrack for live performances of Fritz Lang's silent film classic, Metropolis.
Under Ferrandis’ eclectic and versatile baton, the symphony will stretch itself like a rubber band, enlarging the idea of what an orchestra should do and be.
“The idea is to keep it alive,'” he said. “When you are isolated, somehow you die. There is life where there is communication and exchange.”
About Bruno Ferrandis
What: New Santa Rosa Symphony music director
Age: 46
Education: Studied under Pierre Cochereau at the Nice Conservatory of Music and the Superior National Conservatory of Lyon, France; graduate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, England; master's degree in conducting from the Juilliard School, New York City. Studied with maestros Pierre Dervaux of France, Franco Ferrara of Italy and Leonard Bernstein.
Family: Brother Jean Ferrandis, a professional flutist; sister Marielle Rivet teaches piano; lives with his partner, Agnes, outside Paris; daughter, Cassandre, 2 years, 8 months old
Quote: “I'm an artist ... I cannot ignore what other artists of other forms try to do. If I have a chance to include it, I will.”
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