For decades, the 25 largest orchestras in the United States have been led almost exclusively by white males.
That’s going to change. The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra announced Thursday that it had chosen Jonathon Heyward, an up-and-coming African-American conductor, as its next conductor. He will start on a five-year contract in Baltimore at the start of the 2023-2024 season.
Heyward, 29, who grew up in Charleston, SC, the son of an African-American father and a white mother, will be the first person of color to lead the orchestra in its 106-year history. In an interview, he said he would work to expand the audience for classical music by bolstering educational efforts and promoting underrepresented artists.
“This art form is for everyone,” he said.
Heyward succeeds Marin Alsop, the first female conductor of a top American orchestra, whose tenure in Baltimore ended last year. His appointment comes amid a wider reckoning in classical music about serious gender and racial inequalities.
The choice to hire Heyward is a milestone for Baltimore, where more than 60 percent of the population is black.
“We are inspired by his artistry, passion and vision for the BSO, as well as what his appointment means for aspiring musicians who will see themselves better reflected in such a position of artistic prominence,” Mark Hanson, the president and chief executive of the orchestra, said in a statement.
Heyward, chief conductor of the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie in Germany, has developed a reputation as a sensitive and charismatic conductor. His appointment comes at a challenging time for orchestras, with many ensembles, including Baltimore’s, struggling to win back art patrons amid the pandemic — a crisis that has exacerbated protracted declines in ticket sales and forced art groups to seek out new ways to reach audiences, including through live streaming.
The Baltimore Symphony recently announced it would cancel 10 concerts from the upcoming season at Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, its longtime home, amid sluggish ticket sales. Turnout in Baltimore during the 2021-22 season averaged 40 percent of capacity, up from 62 percent in 2018-19.
Heyward said he was confident audiences would eventually return, adding that he would work to make the orchestra more recognizable by programming a wider variety of works, with a greater diversity of performers and some concerts gone. from traditional locations.
“It’s just a talent to really understand what the community needs and listen to what the community needs and then get them in,” he said.
Although Heyward has been based in Europe for much of his career, he has increasingly appeared in the United States. Last spring he conducted several concerts in Baltimore, including the orchestra’s first performance of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 15, and a benefit concert for Ukraine. He will perform with the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra at Lincoln Center in early August, where he will lead a program with violinist Joshua Bell.
In 2017, when Heyward was 25, he was widely acclaimed for a string of appearances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic when he replaced an ailing conductor at the last minute. The program included a premiere by composer Tania León and works by Stravinsky, Glinka and Leonard Bernstein.
“He knew when to lead and when to follow, effortlessly balancing his roles as a natural showman and a sensitive collaborator in the service of music,” wrote critic Rick Schultz in The Los Angeles Times.
The field of conducting has long suffered from a lack of diversity. In recent years, there was only one black conductor at the top of American orchestras, and only a handful of leaders were Latino or of Asian descent.
With sales expected soon at a number of major orchestras, there are signs of change. This season, Nathalie Stutzmann takes the stage with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. She will be only the second woman to lead a top American orchestra.
Heyward will also be one of the youngest leaders of the Baltimore Symphony. He started studying the cello when he was 10. After graduating from the Boston Conservatory, he later became assistant conductor of the Hallé Orchestra in England, under the direction of longtime conductor Mark Elder.
Heyward said his own experience of falling in love with classical music convinced him of its enduring appeal.
“If a 10-year-old boy from Charleston, South Carolina, with no music education, no musicians in the family, can be charmed and amazed by this, by the best art form there is—classical music—then I think anyone can do it,” he said. he. “I intend to prove that in many, many ways.”
