Conference 2020 – What is the Artistic Work of Orchestras for Today?

Julia Bullock
Vocalist

American vocalist Julia Bullock is “a musician who delights in making her own rules” (New Yorker). Combining versatile artistry with a probing intellect and commanding stage presence, she has, in her early 30s, already headlined productions and concerts at some of the preeminent arts institutions worldwide. An innovative programmer whose artistic curation is in high demand, she serves as 2019-20 Artist-in-Residence of San Francisco Symphony, while her other past, present, and future curatorial positions include collaborative partner of Esa-Pekka Salonen in his inaugural season as music director of that orchestra in 2020-21, opera-programming host of new broadcast channel All Arts, founding core member of the American Modern Opera Company (AMOC), and 2018-19 Artist-in-Residence of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Chosen as one of WQXR’s “19 for 19” artists to watch, Ms. Bullock is also a prominent voice of social consciousness and activism. As Vanity Fair notes, she is “young, highly successful, [and] politically engaged,” with the “ability to inject each note she sings with a sense of grace and urgency, lending her performances the feel of being both of the moment and incredibly timeless.”

Ms. Bullock has made key operatic debuts at San Francisco Opera in the world premiere of Girls of the Golden West, Santa Fe Opera in Doctor Atomic, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence and Dutch National Opera in The Rake’s Progress, and the English National Opera, Spain’s Teatro Real, and Russia’s Bolshoi Theatre in the title role of The Indian Queen. In concert, besides headlining the Bernstein centennial gala with Andris Nelsons to launch the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s 2017-18 season, she has collaborated with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel, the San Francisco Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas, the New York Philharmonic and Alan Gilbert, Japan’s NHK Symphony and Paavo Järvi, and both the Berlin Philharmonic and London Symphony Orchestra with Sir Simon Rattle. Her recital highlights include appearances at New York’s Carnegie Hall, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Cal Performances at UC Berkeley, Boston’s Celebrity Series, Washington’s Kennedy Center, and the Mostly Mozart and Ojai Music festivals, where she joined Roomful of Teeth and the International Contemporary Ensemble for the world premiere of Josephine Baker: A Portrait. This was the original prototype for Perle Noire: Meditations for Joséphine, a work conceived by Ms. Bullock in collaboration with Peter Sellars, and written for her by Tyshawn Sorey and Claudia Rankine. Ms. Bullock’s growing discography includes Doctor Atomic, recorded with the composer conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and West Side Story, captured live with Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony, both of which were nominated for Grammy Awards. Ms. Bullock was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music, Bard College’s Graduate Vocal Arts Program, and New York’s Juilliard School. She lives with her husband, conductor Christian Reif, in Munich.

Jonathan Harper
Chief Executive Officer, Paraorchestra

Jonathan Harper is the Chief Executive Officer of Paraorchestra, the world’s first large-scale integrated orchestral ensemble for professional disabled and non-disabled musicians. Paraorchestra creates ambitious, innovative, and inclusive performances that are performed at major venues and festivals across the world, attracting a high proportion of new attendees to classical music. Mr. Harper has worked for the Paraorchestra since it was set up in 2015. Prior to that, he produced No Boundaries, the UK national arts conference that embedded diversity and access at the heart of decision-making. Mr. Harper has over twenty years’ experience in arts and culture, specialising in marketing and communications, and he has previously worked at a range of national performing arts venues.

Charles Hazlewood
Conductor and Artistic Director, Paraorchestra

Charles Hazlewood is Paraorchestra Artistic Director, an award-winning conductor, and a musical revolutionary. He has conducted some of the greatest classical repertoire with some of the best orchestras in the world and is a significant presence on British television and radio. Under his leadership Paraorchestra became the world’s first large-scale integrated ensemble of professional disabled and non-disabled musicians who made their debut at the Closing Ceremony of the London 2012 Paralympics and were the first ever orchestral headliner at Glastonbury Festival. He has authored, presented, and conducted the music in multiple films for BBC TV (on Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, among others, as well as The Beatles, and on the Minimalist form); he has won three Sony Awards for his shows on BBC Radio 2 and created the score for the South African Mysteries (West End and worldwide) and Dead Dog in a Suitcase (and other love songs), and a new opera, The Tin Drum (both Kneehigh) and has three TED talks to his name.

His innovations have created new audiences for orchestral music and even reset what our concept of an ‘orchestra’ is.  He is a visionary with a mission to bring the ever modern joy of orchestral music to the 21st century audience and in doing so, to change lives and communities for the better.

Joanne Roughton-Arnold
Co-Founder, formidAbility

A lyric coloratura soprano with a flair for contemporary music, a range of over three octaves, and a taste for a challenge, Joanne Roughton-Arnold emigrated from New Zealand to the UK to pursue a career as a violinist. She began her vocal studies with Esther Salaman and Paul Hamburger while a postgraduate violinist at Trinity College of Music, London, before going on to become a prize-winning vocal student at Birmingham Conservatoire, then continuing her studies with renowned operatic soprano Nelly Miricioiu and international vocal coach David Harper.

In 2019, Jo co-founded formidAbility with Holly Mathieson out of a conviction that opera can touch so many more people if we better reflect the diversity of our audiences on stage. This new opera company is made up of a healthy mix of disabled and non-disabled professional artists creating high calibre work, breaking down barriers, and challenging perceptions of disability and inclusion in the arts. The company’s first production was a double-bill of Hotspur by Dame Gillian Whitehead and Schoenberg’s iconic Pierrot Lunaire. Ms. Roughton-Arnold shared the stage with dancers Isolte Avila and David Bower of Signdance Collective International in this world-first merging of opera with Signdance and the Rationale Method of audio description. She sings regularly with Paraorchestra under Charles Hazlewood: The Nature of Why (Perth Festival, Southbank Centre, The Lowry, Kneehigh Festival, Blackpool Empress Ballroom, Bristol Old Vic), which was shortlisted for the 2019 Royal Philharmonic Society Awards, Kraftwerk: Re-werk (WOMAD, Colston Hall, The Marble Factory) and Minimalism Changed My Life (Southbank Centre, Bridgewater Hall).

Esa-Pekka Salonen
Music Director Designate, San Francisco Symphony

Composer and conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen’s restless innovation drives him constantly to reposition classical music in the twenty-first century. He is Music Director Designate of the San Francisco Symphony, which he first conducted in 2004; Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor for the Philharmonia Orchestra (through the 2020-21 season); and Conductor Laureate for both the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He is the Artist-in-Association at the Finnish National Opera and Ballet, where he will conduct his first full Ring cycle in future seasons, as well as Pelléas et Mélisande. Mr. Salonen co-founded the annual Baltic Sea festival, serving as Artistic Director from 2003 to 2018.

Thirteen of Mr. Salonen’s works were programmed around the world during the 2018-19 season, including Homunculus, for string quartet; Helix, at the Minnesota Orchestra and Oslo Philharmonic; and LA Variations at the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He also conducts his own Pollux at the Helsinki Festival and Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, and his Cello Concerto on tour with the Philharmonia and at the Baltic Sea Festival, with Truls Mørk as soloist. Previously Mr. Salonen’s music was featured as part of close artistic partnerships with the New York Philharmonic and London’s Barbican Centre.

In 2018-19, Mr. Salonen conducted the Philharmonia Orchestra on tour across Europe, the US, and Asia. He also directed a new Ivo Van Hove production of Weill’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in summer 2019. Recent years have seen Mr. Salonen experiment with groundbreaking ways to present music, with the first major virtual-reality production from a UK symphony orchestra; the award-winning RE-RITE and Universe of Sound installations; and the much-hailed iPad app, The Orchestra.

As the Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic for seventeen years, Mr. Salonen was instrumental in helping the orchestra to open Walt Disney Concert Hall; presided over countless premieres of contemporary work; and began the Esa-Pekka Salonen Commissions Fund. In spring 2019 he brought a three-part Stravinsky series that he created at the Philharmonia to the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Mr. Salonen has an extensive and varied recording career. An album of Henri Dutilleux’s Correspondances, recorded with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, was released in 2013 by Deutsche Grammophon on the composer’s 97th birthday. Also that year, Sony released a two-disc set of the orchestral works of Witold Lutosławski with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, in what would have been the composer’s 100th year. An album of five of Mr. Salonen’s orchestral works is available on Sony. His most recent recordings include a disc of Stravinsky’s Perséphone, released by Pentatone Music, and a 61-disc box set of all his Sony recordings. 2019 saw the release of the premiere recording of Salonen’s Cello Concerto with Yo-Yo Ma and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.