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A Whole Different League

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Deborah Borda talks about conducting competitions and her recent experience at the ICCR Rotterdam

Deborah Borda has extended the artistic, commercial, and technological boundaries of what an arts organization can be in the 21st century through creative leadership, commitment to innovation, and progressive vision. As President and CEO of the New York Philharmonic, she revitalized the institution, working with NY Phil and Lincoln Center leadership to transform David Geffen Hall, deepening connections with the community through initiatives such as NY Phil Bandwagon during the COVID-19 pandemic, and engaging Gustavo Dudamel as the Orchestra’s next Music and Artistic Director. 
Throughout her career, Borda has advanced how arts organizations serve their communities through her leadership of ensembles including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and through the creation of community engagement programs including the nationally recognized Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA). 
WFIMC talked to Deborah Borda at the recent International Conducting Competition Rotterdam.

WFIMC: You have been on the jury of a number of important competitions. Recently, you spent two weeks in the Netherlands as Chair of the International Conducting Competition Rotterdam. 

Deborah Borda: It is called a competition because you select a winner at the end, or in our case, winners. They both had excellent skills, yet they were different from each other. But what struck me about the competition was the scope of it: it's not simply a star turn, but it's really being aimed at developing young artists. For more than a year, they develop the finalists. They take them to Vienna and London, they introduce them to people. That is so different from any other competition- it just puts it in a whole different league for me. I think the actual experience for the conductors is almost the equivalent of getting a masters degree.

The program was quite demanding.

In one week, they conducted five concerts, each with three rehearsals, with wildly different programs! This is something that a senior conductor in the United States would never do. Yes, they had time to prepare, but five different programs on three rehearsals within a week- that is a marathon. They were exhausted at the end, but not only physically: it was an intellectual marathon, it was a growth marathon for them.

It was also a marathon for the core jury!

Probably the contestants were not that aware of this, but there were five different juries. The challenge was to integrate and meld the incoming specialty juries with the core jury. There were 5 separate groups of “specialists” for each category: people like Dame Jane Glover and Iván Fischer came for Baroque music, composers like Brett Dean, Eric Whitacre and Cathy Milliken came for the contemporary round, Sarah Hicks (a terrific conductor who has a pops specialty) came for the pops concert in the park, and Vasily Petrenko and Han-Na Chang came for the finals with the Rotterdam Philharmonic. It was fascinating to have two juries to work together, and they all did very well. 
If you were on the core jury, you worked for 10 days straight, which was exhausting. But it was also a wonderful learning experience for us, so that we could give feedback afterwards. And I really felt that the competition is run on a very humane and sensitive basis, even though it's stressful.

Deborah Borda at the Award Ceremony of the International Conducting Competition Rotterdam ©WFIMC

How does it compare with the other competitions you judged?

The other competition jury I´m on is the Mahler Conducting Competition. It´s very different, although it is also spread out over a significant period of time.  It has very different operating rules. In Rotterdam, we didn´t discuss the conductors until after we voted; in Bamberg, we discussed as we went. Here, the repertoire is more spread out, even though at the Mahler they also do classical and contemporary repertoire. And then, of course, there is a big Mahler symphony, which is quite a challenge for most young conductors.
I also went to La Maestra in Paris, which was a bit more of an old-fashioned competition, except that it was all women. By the way, I don´t believe in all-women competitions. We have to have the best people, period. On the other hand, I´m glad that La Maestra was held, because it brought people´s attention to a problem that really matters.

In Rotterdam, there were no women in the finals.

Indeed, I could not believe that it was all men. There are so many gifted women, so many young women conductors- I did not understand that. The directors felt badly about it, and somehow it was the way it had worked out, but for the future, I realized that we will need to use our positions to make sure we have a little more gender balance. Once, I heard an orchestra manager say words to the effect of: “ We put plenty of average men in front of you. Why can´t we put an average woman on the podium?” Of course, there are many more than average women.  This is an ongoing problem, a problem that is changing and evolving. Not only me, but also the men on the jury felt that way. But in any case, I don´t think it will happen again..

What do you think is the reason for this outcome? Last year, there was even competitions that imposed special rules to make sure a certain quota of women would be present. But this is only the case with piano competitions. In violin, it´s the opposite: there are a lot more women than men. And conducting is different again…

Yes, it´s very different. It´s hard to give you a reason, but you should remember that one of the difficulties for young conductors are that unlike a pianist, who can always get a piano, and unlike a violinist, who always carries his instrument along, a conductor always needs an orchestra to practice on. I was the first woman to run one of the big five orchestras in the US, and that wasn´t until 1991. We did not set quota at the New York Philharmonic, but we knew that we wanted to have a presence of gender diversity.

Did you face discrimination yourself at the time?

I had been Deputy Director of the San Francisco Symphony for almost nine years, so I had a lot of experience. From there, I went to be President and CEO of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and from there, President and CEO of the Detroit Symphony. But then, I was offered the Pittsburgh Symphony, which is a wonderful orchestra. We had agreed on all the terms, the orchestra committee wanted me, the board wanted me, and all I needed was the blessing of the Music Director, Lorin Maazel. I was flown to London and went to meet him for tea at the Savoy Hotel, but he never showed up. When I called the chairman, I could tell that something wasn´t right, but he told me to see Maazel after an orchestra rehearsal the next day. So I went and approached Maazel during a break, but he completely ignored me. Only when I insisted, he offered to see me after the rehearsal. He took me to his dressing room, put his feet on the desk right in front of my face, took out a cigar box and said: “Would you care for a cigar?” I said, no, thank you, I don´t smoke. He went on: “Tell me your brilliant life story!”. I told him, well, it´s not brilliant, but here is the story. After about four minutes, Maazel interrupted me and said: “You are going to have a magnificiently successful career. Thank you very much. Good bye.”
I went back, called the chairman and said:”I don´t think this is going to work….” It was a very painful moment. I tell people this story because I remember how hurtful it was, but how at the same time it made me even more determined. And before long, I became CEO at the New York Philharmonic.

Gustavo Dudamel and Deborah Borda ©Chris Lee

Back to the competition in Rotterdam. Do you think the outcome of the competition would be different, if you had only one kind of repertoire, i.e. only romantic music, or only Baroque, or only opera? If someone has to master all these different kinds of music at the same time, does it not at the same time take away from his overall abilities, because he cannot specialize in one field? Or, to put the question differently: were there candidates who were much better in certain categories but not so good in others?

I think in many orchestras, especially in smaller ones, the music director is required to have a fairly large scope, so it´s not unreasonable to require all this repertoire from everyone. In any case, I think people will eventually migrate towards their strengths and towards the core of what they do, like singers who are performing Susanna today but will become the Countess ten years later.

In Rotterdam, you only discussed candidates after the results were announced. How would such a discussion go? Was there great surprises or disappointsments?

No, not at all. The jury was actually pretty aligned, without discussing before a vote. There was only one really big surprise where there was a division, but generally it was a very experienced jury, and you could see what was going on. Still, there were divergences, and in that particular competition, we had two winners, which had never happened before. It was something the jury proposed to the director, Rob Hilberink, because the results were so close. But I think it was a good decision.

At the Mahler Competition, were there situations when you were discussing and you could not agree?

Oh my goodness, yes! There were very lively discussions. But we were all good colleagues, and we all went out to dinner every night. When Neville Marriner was on the jury and things got heated, he was so funny. He would always say something, it would make everyone laugh, and we would be fine. But those were tough discussions, and they went on for the entire 10 days of the competition.

How would you reach a deal in the end?

You just talk through all the issues. Then you can vote. But the interesting thing is, that at the Mahler Competition, the Music Director is the chairman of the jury. Jakub Hrusa, and before that, Jonathan Nott. In a way it´s up to them to manage the jury. Yes, there were disagreements, but they were fun. They have a great group of colleagues, including many conductors, but also people like Thomas Hampson.

Looking at the history of the Mahler Competition and its laureates, there are a lot of winners who have made it to the top ranks, so they must have been doing something right.

Absolutely. Gustavo Dudamel, Oksana Lyniv, Shi-Yeon Sung, Lahav Shani, Khachun Wong, there are so many who have done really well.

Gustavo Dudamel almost dropped out because he was not doing well in the second round. But then, the jury decided to let him conduct one more time, and from then on there was no going back.

Actually I wasn´t on the jury in 2004. Esa-Pekka (Salonen) was keeping me in touch. I was in Los Angeles, producing a Hollywood Bowl Extravaganza, when he first told me about this remarkable young guy. At the end, Dudamel almost didn´t win. There were certain people on the jury- I cannot say who they are- who were just opposed. It was ridiculous. At any rate, the minute he won, Esa-Pekka called me up and said, “hey, are you willing to take a risk? I think we should have this young guy. He doesn’t speak a word of English, he doesn’t speak a word of German, but it was the best damn Mahler Five I´ve every heard”. I booked him the next day. He came, we had two dates at the Hollywood Bowl, and it was love at first sight….

Gustavo Dudamel and Deborah Borda, at a 2023 press conference of the New York Philharmonic ©Chris Lee

What do you expect from the winners here in Rotterdam?

They will have great opportunities. They have mentorship and all kinds of career support.  It´s really a fabulous competition, I have to say: Chapeau! It was very well done. They took care of everybody. The jury was probably even more tired than the conductors because we did everything, we went to every single rehearsal. Every single rehearsal! That´s six people with three rehearsals per program. For example, I counted that we heard Stockhausen´s “Kontrapunkt” something like 18 times between all the rehearsals and performances. Maybe we could let them be alone for one rehearsal, just to be complete, not to be observed constantly. But that´s not important: the point is that the ICCR is much more than a competition. It´s a learning experience. It´s a developmental experience.

 

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