Excitement in the air
Michael Hall and the Southwest Florida Symphony start a new era
_BY NANCY _STETSON M
M ichael Hall is excited. He's excited about Beethoven, Schubert and Mozart the way preteens are excited about "American Idol" and Hannah Montana.

And he's especially excited about taking the podium for the first time this weekend as the new Music Director and Conductor of the Southwest Florida Symphony.

"Excited" is a word that comes up over and over again when he talks about his new role and about working with the symphony, which is Lee County's only resident musical organization. "I'm nervous, I'm excited, I'm filled with anticipation," Hall says. "Mostly I feel excited. I feel a lot of anticipation to work again with this orchestra. We had such a wonderful time when I auditioned last season."

Hall uses romantic terms when speaking about the Southwest Florida Symphony.

"I liken it to a blind date," he says, describing the first time he met the orchestra. "You don't know much about the orchestra, other than what you hear in the industry, but you've never worked with them before. You go to an orchestra, both of you knowing you want to create something great. You try it out, you work with each other.

"I was very excited to find out we worked well with each other. With every rehearsal, we had a great rapport, a great time. I liked the sound they produced, their dedication to the goals we set. It's a chemistry. The audience responded to that. So I think it was a great fit all the way around. By the time I left, I was hopeful I'd be able to work with them again."

The decision to hire him as Paul Nadler's replacement was made in May by a search committee consisting of board members, staff members and musicians. The audiences voted too, after hearing each candidate conduct. After everything was tallied, it was agreed: Michael Hall should be the new music director and conductor.

It made sense to Hall that the audiences would vote.

"The community needs to have a say. We're doing it for the community," he says. "This is our purpose, this is why we exist, for the community."

Hall is associate conductor of the Pacific Symphony in Orange County, California, and also the music director of the Pacific Symphony Youth Orchestra. He'll spend the next year being bicoastal, as he finishes his obligation with them.

SPECIAL TO FLORIDA WEEKLY The Southwest Florida Symphony's new season kicks off this weekend at the Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall.

"I'd like to make this clear," he says. "This is my sixth season with them. My focus is on this new venture with Florida. That's who I want to devote most of my energies.

"As music director, my responsibility is to the artistic level and the artistic growth of the orchestra. Also programming, setting a course, a vision for the artistic direction of the orchestra: what pieces you'll perform, how you'll perform them. It's all tied into the conducting duties, your way of bringing to life the artistic concepts you have. It's you and the orchestra bringing the artistic vision to life. My job as conductor is to facilitate the orchestra into performing at the highest level they can."

Prior to the Pacific Symphony, Hall was resident conductor for the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra for three seasons. He's also appeared with various orchestras, including the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, the Houston Symphony, the Tucson Symphony and the Bozeman Symphony. He's a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music in London.

For his inaugural concert with the Southwest Florida Symphony, Hall chose a program that opens with Schubert songs and ends with Beethoven's 9th Symphony.

Why Beethoven's 9th?

"It's a work incorporating the symphony chorus, with a universal message of brotherhood," he explains. "That's what the chorus sings about in the 9th Symphony. It's an appropriate place to begin my tenure with the orchestra, to let people know that the symphony is moving in new directions."

Plus, he adds, the chorus comes in at the last movement, so pairing it with some songs by Schubert in the first half helps balance the program.

"It pairs very nicely together, I think, to make for a nice concert," he says. "We certainly wanted to begin the season in a grand fashion, to let the audience know we're here, that we're starting a new era. There's a lot of excitement in the organization right now."

COURTESY PHOTO Michael Hall will take the podium for the first time this weekend as the new Music Director and Conductor of the Southwest Florida Symphony.

It's a time of change, he says.

"It's a critical time, the start of something," he says. "This is why I'm very excited for me personally and for the orchestra. I think any time an orchestra gets a new music director, inevitably you're going to have a new direction, new ideas. The organization itself seized this opportunity and was working very hard to address issues, visibility, the artistic side of it. It's as if new life is being breathed into the symphony, not just from my arrival, but from the organization."

Hall hopes to entice more people to fall in love with classical music.

"Our mission is to have people discover how great, how impactful this music is, and to encourage people to attend," he says. "There's a certain amount of mystery in a symphony concert. People don't think it's for them, and feel that if they don't know it, if they're not educated in it, 'It's not for me.' If they go, there's a certain level of emotional connection that this music has in itself."

Some have preconceived notions he's anxious to dispel, he says, such as, "It's too elitist," "It's too highbrow," "It's a foreign language - music written 200 years ago has no relevance to me or my life."

"This music exists for centuries. It's played all over the world for a reason," he says. "It's so emotionally impactful and beautiful. There are so many levels of music that people can enjoy. Even the experience of hearing 70 musicians playing together for a common purpose. This in itself is highly rewarding. It's like looking at a baseball game: you see all these highly trained players doing their thing. That in itself is an experience."