These questions - you said they were going to be easy, Peter. So what is it that goes into conducting?ĪLSOP: Oh, my god. SALIE: I guess what's really under the question is that every kid who goes to see a concert thinks he or she can be a conductor, right? The actual movement that you make - forgive me - looks simple. ![]() SAGAL: Yes, said maestro Bernstein to his student. SALIE: How does one become a protege of a conductor? Like, I'm thinking of "Karate Kid," you know? Like, is there a lot of work with the swish of the arm?ĪLSOP: There's a lot of that. And, I should say, somewhat famously, you became, I guess, what's - student isn't good enough a word - one of his protegesĪLSOP: And that was the highlight of my life. SAGAL: Why - so you saw Leonard Bernstein. I could do that, right?ĪLSOP: And he was sweating and spitting. And I thought, oh, nobody's yelling at this guy. And, you know, he was really excited, and then he started jumping around and conducting. He came out, and he started talking to me - talking to the audience - talking to me, I thought. ![]() And then, luckily, my dad took me to a concert, and I saw the conductor. And, you know, I was just moving, and everybody else was, you know, already like Stonehenge, and I was busy. SAGAL: How do you try to conduct the orchestra from the second violin?ĪLSOP: I think the problem was I was having a really good time.ĪLSOP: I - like, the timpani guy was really cute back there.ĪLSOP: And I was just having fun. ![]() SAGAL: Wait a minute - so they actually brought you into - like. And they got some complaints that somebody was trying to lead the whole orchestra from the back of the second violins. But I played in the orchestra, which I loved. SAGAL: And is it true - we read that you decided at some point you wanted to be a conductor.ĪLSOP: Well, what happened was that after practicing for five hours for eight weeks.ĪLSOP: I was pretty good, so I got into Juilliard right after that. SAGAL: What were the other activities - like, weeping?ĪLSOP: The only sport we were allowed to do was pingpong. SALIE: But she was on top of a horse while she was practicing. SAGAL: And this was supposedly for pleasure. SAGAL: And they made you practice your violin five hours a day. SAGAL: And when you got there, they just put you in your little cell.ĪLSOP: Yeah, the teacher said, so you're going to practice from 8 until 1 every day - five hours. It's fondly called the concentration camp for violinists, so that's where they sent me. And.ĪLSOP: They said, oh, before we go, we forgot to tell you you might have to play the violin. And horseback riding - somehow horses got in there. SAGAL: I've left some candy inside this odd, wooden object.ĪLSOP: It was very close because they said, you want to go to summer camp? You know, and so I already had an archetypal image of summer camp, you know, with sailing and swimming.ĪLSOP. And then I - you know, for every kid, there is a right instrument. SAGAL: Now, was that because you didn't like the piano or because you just resented your parents' - like, this is why you are here?ĪLSOP: Well, how much time do we have now?ĪLSOP: No, they tricked me into playing violin. And really, I hated the piano - hated it. My parents were professional musicians.ĪLSOP: My dad was a violinist and my mom a cellist, and so they needed a pianist. SAGAL: So I always ask sort of musical geniuses like yourself, were you, like, a musical prodigy? Did you have to be forced to practice the piano, or did you love it?ĪLSOP: No, I was born with a job. ![]() SAGAL: She's now the music director of the Baltimore Symphony and the Sao Paulo State Symphony. But Juilliard wouldn't admit her to their conducting program, so she just started her own damn orchestra next door, presumably to drown them out. Marin Alsop discovered her passion for music at an early age. And now the game where we ask pioneers to go discover something completely uninteresting.
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