Handel and Haydn Society Director of Marketing Gregg Sorensen spoke with Grant Llewellyn about his musical background, conducting, and the Handel and Haydn Society. This is the first of two conversations.

GS: Tell us about your early experience with music.

GL: My first start in music was fairly traditional. We had a family piano. My grandmother, a wonderful old cockney lady from the East End of London, used to play a bit. I was drawn towards [the piano], and by the age of six, my parents suggested that I have formal piano lessons.

From the age of nine I studied both cello and piano, and then found myself at a juncture, about to go off to secondary school. My parents made a very brave decision to take me up to Manchester in northern England, where there was a new school specializing in music. It was a boarding school, so from the age of 11 I actually lived away from home.

GS: Tell us about your time in Manchester. What was that like?
GL: I was immersed in music, and I loved the sheer breadth of music that was expected at the school. I was in the chamber choir, I was in madrigal groups, I was composing, I was conducting, I was playing cello, I was in string quartets, I was in chamber orchestras, symphony orchestras, I was doing jazz. It was just incredible.

GS: When did you settle on conducting as your future career?

GL: Before going to Cambridge University, where I was a Choral Scholar, I spent a year in Italy trying to study the cello a bit. I was 18 and had a place already at Cambridge waiting for me. Certainly it was a year when I came to terms with the idea of not pursuing the cello, but to dedicate myself to conducting.

GS: Who are your musical heroes?

GL: I've been fortunate to have met and worked alongside a number of great people. Boston, of course, has provided me with many of those opportunities through Tanglewood with my summer as a Conducting Fellow. I had a wild summer at Tanglewood in 1985 where Leonard Bernstein was in great form, sharing concerts with Kurt Mazur. Seiji Ozawa was at his most fluent, a spectacular example for any young conductor. I was lucky to work with the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra at a fairly early stage in Simon Rattle's tenure. And, John Eliot [Gardner]. I admire him so much for his uncompromising standard of performance.

GS: When you work with musicians, how do you bring out the best in them?

GL: You need an incredibly wide vocabulary of techniques and gestures and methods. Just as you have an enormous cross-section of personalities working with you, so too I think you have to employ a variety of means to get the best results. [As the conductor] somebody has to take the lead and somebody has to make the tough decisions, but at the end of the day, especially with a smaller group, I think it's crucial to be respectful of the talents of the people in front of you. I've always felt a great deal of respect for the musicians, who are basically going out on the line every evening.

GS: Would you say that a conductor's success comes from being an overall solid musician rather than being identified with any specific genre?

GL: Right. One should apply the same criteria to a performance of Strauss and Shostakovich that one would to a performance of Bach and Beethoven. From an early age I couldn't understand why people did make a distinction. I thought the ingredients you needed in order to realize a Beethoven symphony as a conductor-the textures that you were looking for, the rhythmic tautness, the power, the sheer theatricality of performance situations-all those ingredients apply equally to any Rameau opera or any Handel concerto grosso.

GS: Do you have any opinions about the future of the arts in Boston? What dreams do you have for the Handel and Haydn Society?

GL: The arts in Boston seem to be doing as well as they are anywhere, and I'm encouraged by the amount of public involvement in the arts here. I think it's a pretty healthy environment in which to be a performing artist. We don't have anything of the same degree of public support in terms of endowment and private giving in Britain or Europe.

As far as my dreams for Handel and Haydn are concerned, I feel that the Society should establish a strong presence on the international music scene. I think Boston is the perfect launching pad from which to create a really world-class, world-renowned group.

GS: What do you love about Boston? What makes Boston a place where you would want to make music?

GL: The fall colors, not just the foliage, but the brightness and the clearness and the dryness of this climate in the fall are just enchanting and intoxicating. I think Boston is a vibrant, living city for all its great traditions. It also is one of the places that I feel is forever reinventing itself, and that will keep it ever young. Its musical and arts institutions are exceptional and seem to enjoy unique and sincere support from the general public.

GS: What about Handel and Haydn made you want to accept the position of Music Director?

GL: I am impressed with the sincerity of the audience members and the board members. Many of them are dedicated, committed concert-goers, and great supporters. What they've all impressed me with is their individual visions, hopes, expectations, aspirations, and ambitions for the Society, which are active. They are hands-on members who are genuinely keen to further the Society in its aims. Music making in Europe rarely has that tangible connection with its general public. In some ways they are the greatest advertisement for what I like about Boston. It's the people, the people who seem drawn to the place, or the people who seem to be cultivated in the place. There's a forward-looking quality, and there's a tremendous sense of ambition. I am encouraged to take the risks, to be ambitious, to aim high. I think that it is just brilliant for any performing arts organization to have that sort of backing.

READ MORE about Grant Llewellyn’s thoughts on Early Music, Boston, and Family

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