An Extended Intermission
By Kelly Kuo
Thursday, March 12, 2020. I remember that date clearly because it was at 6:45 pm, just 15 minutes before I was supposed to start my second rehearsal with the Reno Chamber Orchestra (RCO). There had been a lot of tension leading into this week because, in the two previous weeks, I had barely completed conducting a run of eight performances for Seattle Opera before the city essentially shut down due to the presence of the coronavirus in the region.
Bion Tsang, soloist for Shostakovich’s first cello concerto in my Reno concert, reached out just the day before to ask if the performances were still moving forward and if he should expect to get on his Friday flight to Reno. Spirits in the organization were high, however, and the organization was optimistic that we could present these two performances before the state of Nevada followed in the footsteps of its northwest neighbors, so I informed Bion that the concerts were still on. Now, just one day later, everything was about to change.
Thom Mayes, RCO’s Executive Director, and Jennifer Smith, Board President, pulled me aside as I arrived at the rehearsal venue and sadly informed me that Nevada’s governor had just announced a temporary shut-down that would directly affect our performance venue and, very likely, our potential audiences. There was no choice but to cancel the upcoming performances. As I accompanied the administration into the rehearsal room where over 30 musicians were warming up with musical strains of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2 and Chinese-Canadian composer Kevin Lau’s musical portrait of the goddess Artemis, questions began bouncing around in my dazed mind.
Were these performances going to be rescheduled? Was I going to be paid for the preparation I had done for the concert? Was there a flight available that would get me home the next day? Was RCO going to have to end their Music Director search prematurely after having only had four out of their six finalists appear in concert?
That last question started my mind racing. After all, I was a Music Director finalist for three different organizations at that point in time. With the application process having started many months and even years prior, it was difficult not to start imagining all of that incredibly hard-earned work and preparation going down the drain. However, Thom Mayes reassured me before I left Reno that RCO was committed to giving the last two finalists a fair opportunity to be considered for the position.
Being pragmatic, I dealt with the short-term issues upon my return home and then immediately started mentally preparing for what I felt would be at least a six-month intermission. Performances around the world were postponed and then canceled as the pandemic juggernaut started its course and the world raced to defeat it. After a period, RCO reached out to determine my availability later that year in October and November, intending to present their last two Music Director finalists in concert when they felt it was possible to do so. At that point, I had another engagement in October, so I was assigned to the November dates while the other remaining finalist moved to October. Fortunately, my cello soloist, Bion, was also available to appear in November.
Given all of the uncertainties about COVID-19, the decision was made to create contingency programming for these two concerts that primarily used string and percussion instruments. This meant that I had to abandon all of the pieces I had chosen to conduct in March and come up with and prepare another set of repertoire that would allow me to make as powerful a case for my candidacy as possible. My program became Starburst, a short work for strings by talented upcomer Jessie Montgomery, Tan Dun’s mesmerizing Crouching Tiger Concerto based upon music he wrote for the Academy-Award winning movie, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, and an arrangement for string orchestra that Gustav Mahler made of Schubert’s epic Death and the Maiden string quartet.
Meanwhile, the pandemic got worse, and arts organizations were forced to find substitutions for live indoor concerts. Zoom and ring lights became everyday vocabulary. Online streaming platforms were explored for live presentations and pre-recorded performances by individuals and large groups alike. Musicians struggled and faced frustration trying to find a streaming platform with a low enough latency that would allow effective virtual collaboration from a distance that was also affordable for students and professionals alike. Many performances such as the one RCO made of Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony were, in effect, stitched together by amateur and professional audio engineers from recordings made by dozens and even hundreds of individuals in the safety of their own homes or studios using equipment ranging from cell phones to high-definition cameras and microphones. But it wasn’t the same.
Though most of the country was still operating virtually, some states gradually opened up enough so that a limited number of musicians could rehearse and record or perform together under very strict safety protocols involving masks and testing. In these conditions, RCO’s October performances with the (now) fifth Music Director finalist were able to go forward in Acro Enso, a unique aerialist studio with high ceilings and a specialized dance floor. A very small, masked audience was allowed to attend and enjoy their first live concert in nearly eight months, and a video was made using footage from both performances and then streamed to RCO subscribers who were unable to attend in person.
Things were looking up again. I was one week away from returning to Reno when I got the bad news that Nevada was shutting down again due to a rise in COVID-19 cases in the state, and my performances with RCO in Acro Enso was postponed once more. Second set of works prepared. Second cancellation. Dates in March of 2021 were closely examined and though things looked favorable, RCO opted to push the rescheduled concerts into the end of May when the pandemic would SURELY have run its course as vaccines were already being developed and tested at a miraculous pace.
For the May concert, I was asked to revise my programming once again in the hope that wind and brass players could safely return to the orchestra, but in a way that if RCO had to return to an orchestra of mostly strings, it could be done by changing just one of the works rather than all of them. So, I kept Tan Dun’s concerto, changed Starburst to Strum, another captivating piece written by Jessie Montgomery, and I offered a wonderful symphony by the woefully undervalued 19th century female composer Louise Farrenc to complete the program.
With bated breath, I waited for the final call from RCO as I conducted operas in March and April under challenging circumstances for live audiences in Florida and Ohio. And then came the green light, which committed to what was my third program. I absolutely adored preparing this program, but it never occurred to me until I arrived in Reno that none of the three composers were household names in the traditional classical music world. Suddenly I had doubts about the program I had chosen.
Would the Reno audience be averse to works and composers that are unknown to them? Could unfamiliar programming compromise my Music Director candidacy? Would the musicians be able to handle three unfamiliar and challenging works in limited rehearsal time?
I didn’t know at the time that the answers to all these questions would be “No,” so it certainly felt like I had made a risky commitment to being uniquely me and that this bold choice could very well lead to a decision not in my favor. Nevertheless, I unapologetically presented my case for the new and neglected music RCO and I performed together for two enthusiastic audiences. The reward was hearing the musicians play their hearts out, ecstatic to be able to make music together after such a long time apart. In terms of my own concert preparation, the third time was the charm as the call came to offer me the job as RCO’s third music director. I could not be more thrilled to join the Reno community.
Photo/Daniel Welch.
Praised by the Cincinnati Enquirer as “a leader of exceptional musical gifts, who has a clear technique on the podium and an impressive rapport with audiences,” Maestro Kelly Kuo brings a dynamic versatility and nuance to a diverse repertoire, which includes nearly 100 operas and an expansive symphonic repertoire as well. Currently Music Director of the Reno Chamber Orchestra, Artistic Director and Conductor of Oregon Mozart Players, and Associate Artistic Director of American Lyric Theater, his recent engagements have included productions with Lyric Opera of Chicago, Seattle Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, Indianapolis Opera, Opera Columbus, Opera Orlando, and the Brevard Music Center, and concerts with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, Malta Philharmonic Orchestra, Sunriver Music Festival, Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, and Ballet Fantastique.
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