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    Zdenek Macal, Conductor With an International Reach, Dies at 87

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    Shuttling between Europe and the United States, he conducted the world’s great orchestras. He was music director of the New Jersey Symphony for 11 years.Zdenek Macal in 2010. His sound, rounded and warm, was ideally suited to the 19th-century repertoire with which he was most closely associated.Michal Krumphanzl/Associated PressZdenek Macal, a Czech-born conductor who drew a distinctively rich and full sound from orchestras in several countries, including the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, where his tenure is regarded by musicians and administrators as something of a golden age, died on Oct. 25 in Prague. He was 87.The orchestra announced his death.With the New Jersey Symphony, where he was music director from 1992 to 2003, Mr. Macal (pronounced ma-KAL) was especially known for his robust performances of works by his compatriots Antonin Dvorak and Josef Suk, and by late-Romantic composers like Gustav Mahler and Sergei Rachmaninoff.But his career was international: He shuttled between Europe and the United States and conducted the world’s great orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Czech Philharmonic, where he was principal conductor from 2003 to 2007.After he left the Czech Philharmonic, he continued as guest conductor there and freelanced with other orchestras, a spokesperson for the Philharmonic said in an interview.Mr. Macal conducting the French National Orchestra. Among the many other European orchestras he conducted was the Czech Philharmonic, where he was principal conductor from 2003 to 2007.INA, via Getty Images“He was an old-world figure in music, and he really brought an old-school sound,” the New Jersey Symphony’s concertmaster, Eric Wyrick, said in a phone interview. “He would always ask, ‘Where is my sound?’ And he was relentless in pursuit of this sound world he was famous for.”That sound, rounded and warm, was ideally suited to the 19th-century repertoire with which Mr. Macal was most closely associated.“You must feel something, and you should try to show it or say it, and that’s the point for any kind of art,” he told the radio interviewer Bruce Duffie in 1990.Mr. Wyrick recalled: “There is a real aerobic feeling to the way he wanted us to play. He would tell the winds, ‘Don’t step out of the texture.’ He was marvelous.” He added that the slow tempos Mr. Macal sometimes favored were ideally suited to Dvorak, though perhaps less so to Beethoven.“He would say, ‘I don’t know how I do it. I take off with my elbows,’” and then he would gesture with his elbows, Mr. Wyrick said.In a review of a 1990 performance of Czech music by the Pacific Symphony led by Mr. Macal, the critic Chris Pasles noted in The Los Angeles Times that Mr. Macal “obviously had a sense of the correct style — the folk elements transmuted by the composer — and he emphasized the vigorous rhythms while maintaining uncluttered balance.”Reviewing a 1994 performance of the New York Philharmonic conducted by Mr. Macal, Bernard Holland of The New York Times called him “a good manager of excitement” who “manipulated the accumulating dramas” in Mussorgsky’s “A Night on Bald Mountain” with “admirable control.”The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians called Mr. Macal “a conductor of strong personality, clarity of purpose and firm structural logic in performance.”That personality could manifest itself in a certain impetuousness. When the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968, Mr. Macal fled his homeland in a taxi, telling the driver to take him to the German border.“His wife and he and his young daughter, they left with whatever they had, and he had to start all over again,” said Larry Tamburri, the former executive director of the New Jersey orchestra.Looking back in 1990, Mr. Macal told Mr. Duffie: “In the whole of my life I started a few times from the beginning. I started my career in Czechoslovakia, and then after the Russian invasion we left in ’68. So I started again and had my base in Western Europe. We came every year a little to the United States, but my base was in Europe.”He moved to the United States in 1982 and, after becoming a citizen, assumed the directorship of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra in 1986. He held that position until 1995; for the last three years he was the music director of both the Milwaukee and New Jersey orchestras.The New Jersey Symphony’s recording of Dvorak’s “New World” Symphony, which he conducted, won a Grammy Award for best engineered classical album in 2001.Mr. Macal conducting in Olomouc, Czechoslovakia, in 1966. Two years later, when the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia, Mr. Macal fled his homeland with his wife and daughter in a taxi.Frantisek Nesvadba/CTK, via Associated PressZdenek Macal was born in Brno, Czechoslovakia, on Jan. 8, 1936, and studied violin with his father from the age of 4. He enrolled at the conservatory in Brno, won an international conducting competition in Besançon, France, in 1965 and conducted the Czech Philharmonic for the first time shortly after winning the Dimitri Mitropoulos conducting competition in New York in 1966. He made his American debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1972.Mr. Macal’s wife, Georgina, a singer, died in 2015. A daughter, Monika, died last year. More

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      Turning 100, the New Jersey Symphony Sticks to Home

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      The orchestra could have rented Carnegie Hall for the celebration, but “our supporters are here, our audiences are here,” its chief executive said.When the New Jersey Symphony was planning this season’s centennial celebrations, which come to a close this weekend, a question kept coming up: Would the orchestra be going to Carnegie Hall?After all, appearing at Carnegie — even if that means renting the hall — is a mark of excellence and validation, an exclamation point on a tour or a special occasion. Like a 100th birthday.While the New Jersey Symphony has given many Carnegie performances over the years, most recently in 2012, it decided this was not the right time to return.“Sure, we can go to Carnegie,” Gabriel van Aalst, the orchestra’s chief executive, recently recalled thinking. “We could have hired it out; we could have done it. But I strongly felt that this major tentpole celebration should be us in our state. Our supporters are here, our audiences are here.”These were striking words from an institution long characterized by what — and where — it is not. The elephant in the concert hall is that New Jersey is squeezed, geographically, between two of the world’s greatest ensembles, the New York Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra.Smaller than either of those giants, the New Jersey Symphony has lately punched above its weight in programming ambition — and, as the music world continues to rebuild from the pandemic, has prided itself on thinking locally rather than trying to compete with its famous neighbors. In Xian Zhang, its music director since 2016, the ensemble has an energetic, collaboration-minded leader well liked by the players.“I felt this orchestra was, for me, very easy to conduct,” said Zhang, who has been music director since 2016. “They read me easily.”Douglas Segars for The New York Times“Since I’ve gotten here, I’ve hired 10 positions,” Zhang said. “We only have 66 musicians total, so that’s a high number. And after the pandemic, when everybody came back, there’s been even more of a sense of unity and wanting to be together. It feels closer now, psychologically.”What was initially called the Montclair Art Association Orchestra made its debut on Nov. 27, 1922, boasting female members at a time when that was unusual. The inaugural program included Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1, which Joshua Bell will reprise in this weekend’s season finale.In its early years, the orchestra benefited from its closeness to New York, since many of its players were also part of the Philharmonic — and even now, the proximity can be valuable for attracting talent. (The star pianist Daniil Trifonov might not be such a perennial presence if he didn’t live just across the Hudson River in Battery Park City.)Under the decade-long directorship of the young conductor Samuel Antek, who died suddenly in 1958, community outreach — lowering ticket prices, appearing on the radio, hiring local choruses, creating children’s concerts — was a priority. Ten years later came the glamorous tenure of Henry Lewis, the first Black music director of a major orchestra, who presided over the kind of booming institutional growth that spread throughout the American orchestral world in the 1960s and ’70s.Henry Lewis, the first Black music director of a major orchestra, presided over a golden era of institutional growth. Bettmann/Getty ImagesThe ensemble has been known for charismatic podium leaders. Hugh Wolff’s programming was creative, and his performances polished. Under Zdenek Macal, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark opened in 1997, providing a home base for the orchestra, and Neeme Järvi, in charge from 2003 to 2009, led enthusiastically received concerts.When Zhang, born in China in 1973, made her first guest appearance, in 2010, her English was still a work in progress, recalled Eric Wyrick, the orchestra’s concertmaster.“She was very businesslike” at those initial rehearsals, he said. “Very straight up and down with her delivery. But then, at the performances, she just exploded. For a tiny person, she was just huge.”“I felt this orchestra was, for me, very easy to conduct,” Zhang said. “They read me easily.”With swooping yet clear gestures, she has guided the ensemble into repertory it hadn’t touched in a long time — like, earlier this year, Mahler’s Third Symphony — as well as major commissions from composers like Steve Mackey, many of them based in New Jersey.At a recent rehearsal for a concert that featured Randall Goosby as the soloist in Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, she worked with the musicians on a new piece by Chen Yi, emphasizing buoyancy and the length of the musical line: “Everything needs to be lighter and have a lot of space.” (With the composer in the house, it was a rare moment in the music world — a rehearsal being guided entirely by women of Asian descent: Zhang, Chen and the ensemble’s assistant conductor, Tong Chen.)“They’re faster than a lot of orchestras to grasp different things,” Zhang said after the rehearsal — a necessity, since the group is constantly traveling among its five main performance spaces across the state.“Because we’re not a behemoth, we can be more responsive to community needs,” van Aalst said. “Traditionally orchestras either say, ‘Come to us, we’re wonderful,’ or they go out into communities and say, ‘Hey, listen to us.’ We were very intentional that we were going to go to communities and ask, ‘What do you need from us?’”Zdenek Macal with the orchestra at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark, which became its home base.Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesThis approach has meant bigger and richer Lunar New Year celebrations than at most American orchestras, and an intriguing performance of Indian music in May that aimed to engage with the state’s substantial South Asian community. The players’ contract has a strong chamber component, encouraging participation in educational activities.“We’re not going to compete with the New York Phil,” van Aalst said. “We’re not going to compete with Philadelphia. That’s not the point. We have been very intentional about framing the orchestra as ‘your New Jersey Symphony.’ We’re here for your community.”Zhang’s current contract extends through the 2027-28 season, at which point hers will be, at 12 years, the longest music directorship in the orchestra’s history. “She could have done this for eight years and gone and done other things,” van Aalst said. “But I think she loves being here; there’s a symbiosis.”There are also things to look forward to: new repertory, including more Mahler and a robust slate of commissions, as well as hopes to create a new building that the orchestra would own — unlike the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, which is its own entity — devoted to offices, rehearsals and education. In the even longer term, there are dreams for a summer venue for the region, along the lines of the Hollywood Bowl.While Zhang said she would love to lead the orchestra on tour, including internationally, there doesn’t seem to be much worry about proving the ensemble’s bona fides — particularly nearby.“I would rather commission two new pieces from New Jersey composers than spend the money to go to Carnegie Hall,” van Aalst said. “That’s actually driving the art form forward; that’s actually celebrating the orchestra.” More

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      Review: The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra Returns, With Gusto

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      The dynamic conductor Xian Zhang opened the symphony’s new season at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center on a balmy night in Newark.NEWARK, New Jersey — Since becoming the music director of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra in 2016, the dynamic conductor Xian Zhang has worked steadily to reflect diversity and inclusion through the institution’s programming, outreach initiatives and guest artists. This was crucial in a city where a majority of residents were Black and Latino; it also spoke to Zhang’s own experience as one of a small number of Asian female conductors leading major ensembles. These priorities were in evidence on Friday when, 557 days after its last full orchestra concert (because of the pandemic), the New Jersey Symphony opened its new season at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center on a balmy night in Newark.The program opened with the premiere of Michael Abels’s “Emerge.” Best known for his scores for the contemporary horror films “Get Out” and “Us,” Abels describes this eight-minute piece as suggesting a group of highly trained musicians getting back together after a long break, a scenario that speaks to the moment.It begins with an evocation of an orchestra tuning up. We hear the oboe playing a single pitch of A, which the other instruments pick up on. Soon the various players break off into short three-note melodic bits, quivering strings, fidgety rhythms and sustained sonorities that keep swelling and diminishing. During one episode the players seem almost to be in free-for-all, somewhat reminiscent of the way many orchestras warm up on the stage as the audience drifts in, creating a borderline-annoying mass of sounds. But the music here becomes as a restless aural collage pierced with flinty dissonance. Soon various players take off in bluesy solos, or engage in fleeting bits of counterpoint. Finally, the musicians team up in passages of mellow lyricism, skittish bursts, manic scales, all leading to a brassy, celebratory coda.Roumain fuses elements of hip-hop, jazz and classical contemporary styles in his work.Dan GrazianoNext up was the composer and violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain’s “Voodoo Violin Concerto,” a 25-minute work from 2002 that reflects his Haitian heritage but also fuses elements of hip-hop, jazz and classical contemporary styles. The solo part drives this work, and Roumain played commandingly on a violin that was amplified, including electronics with which he could eerily process certain sounds. In the first section, “Filter,” the violin jumps into orchestral atmospherics with perpetual-motion, repeated-note riffs. The instruments respond with pungent backup music for woodwinds, and jarring, jazzy full orchestra harmonies.There were extended episodes where Roumain improvised winding strands of frenzied yet lyrical lines over orchestra music that maintains a respectful distance. Though an unabashedly episodic work, with passages evoking call-and-response jazz styles and a bravura cadenza that tweaks the “Star-Spangled Banner,” the concerto still has compositional sweep that carries into “Prayer,” the mellow, elegiac second section, with the violin playing over a chorale-like piano music, and a funky, wailing “Tribe” finale.Though it’s hard to imagine that, as a music student at a traditional conservatory in Beijing, Zhang could have imagined performing a score alive with jazz, blues and improvisation, she led a confident and irrepressible account. Roumain, who has collaborated excitingly with Bill T. Jones, Savion Glover and other creators from outside classical music, this season begins an appointment as the orchestra’s Resident Artistic Catalyst, and the title says much about his ambitions in this role. After the concerto, he spoke to the audience about the responsibility we all have to love one another and be creative during what has been “a time of death and despair.”Zhang then led an elegant, rich-toned and spirited account of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. The slow movement was especially fine, taken at a true Allegretto pace, steady yet never forceful, restrained yet coursing with inner intensity. It was a long-awaited and rewarding return for an essential orchestra. More