Pizzazz on the Podium

Montage Art, books, diverse creations 14 Open Book 15 Bishop Redux 16 Kosher Delights 17 And the War Came 18 Off the Shelf 19 Chapter and Verse 20 Volleys in F# Major places this orchestra square- ly at the center of cultural and intellectual discourse.” The Philharmonic sounds better than it has in decades, too, because Gilbert has im- proved morale, changed the seating plan, and worked on details of tone and balance— even the much-reviled acoustics of Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center sound Alan Gilbert less jagged now. The conducting conductor is also pre- CHRIS LEE the New York Pizzazz on the Podium Philharmonic pared to be surprised: at Avery Fisher to him, his job is both Alan Gilbert’s music that should be heard Hall in Lincoln to lead and take in Center what the musicians by richard dyer are offering. The unexpected hit of his first season ike his celebrated predecessor as diverse as György Ligeti and Wynton was Ligeti’s avant-garde opera, Le Grand Leonard Bernstein ’39, D.Mus. Marsalis, named a composer-in-residence Macabre, in a staging by visual artist Doug ’67, Alan Gilbert ’89 seems to en- (Magnus Lindberg), and started speaking Fitch ’81, a friend who had tutored art in joy whipping up a whirlwind and informally to the audience, as Bernstein Adams House when Gilbert was in col- then taking it for an exhilarating sometimes did. His programs are full of lege. To publicize the opera, Gilbert ap- L ride. Though only in his second year on interconnections and his seasons add peared in three homespun videos that the the job, the second Harvard-educated mu- up; Gilbert has said that every piece tells Philharmonic posted on YouTube; Death, sic director of the New York Philharmonic a story, and every program should, too. a principal character in the opera, was his has shaken things up at an orchestra that His stated intention is “to play the wid- costar in all three. In one, Death sported a had grown a bit stodgy under previous est range of orchestral repertoire as well makeshift Halloween costume and ate an conductors Kurt Masur and Lorin Maazel. as it can be played, while at the same time ice cream cone—“Pistachio,” he confided Gilbert has freshened the repertory with taking risks, striving to add to New York to Gilbert, who pointed out that Death new and unusual works by composers City’s artistic landscape in a way that had spilled some. In another, Gilbert and Harvard Magazine 13 MONTAGE Death staged a musical duel using instru- York Philharmonic insider; both his par- think you have something.” Today, Gilbert ments from the popular music video game ents played violin in the orchestra, and his is director of conducting and orchestral Guitar Hero. One can hardly imagine mother, Yoko Takebe, still does (his father studies at Juilliard. old-school maestros like Masur or Maa- retired a few years ago). A child violinist, In college, Gilbert joined the Harvard- zel doing such a thing (though Bernstein Gilbert studied music both at Juilliard in Radcliffe Orchestra and concentrated might have). In truth, Gilbert has been New York and Curtis in Philadelphia. At in music, even though “there were still omnipresent in the media: he told the New Juilliard, he had his first chance to con- people in the department who paradoxi- York Times where he buys his bagels, and duct during a reading session of the first cally believed that music should be seen has begun writing “Curiously Random,” movement of Dvorák’s Sixth Symphony. and not heard,” he recalls. “I gravitated an entertaining and informative blog that “That was a crucial experience, a powerful toward the faculty who were active in appears irregularly at www.musicala- experience, an eye-opening experience,” composition and performance—Earl Kim, merica.com. he says; Ronald Braunstein, the conductor Leon Kirchner, and Peter Lieberson.” As a The young music director is a New of the pre-college orchestra, told him, “I senior, he conducted the Bach Society Or- In the wake of troubling decisions—cooking the books at Enron, going to war in OPEN BOOK Iraq on suspect grounds, making mortgage loans to indigent borrowers and pass- ing the risk on to others—scholars in many fields are examining how individuals and organizations conduct themselves relative to ethical standards. In Blind Spot: On Behavioral Why We Fail to Do What’s Right and What to Do about It (Princeton, $24.95), Straus professor of business administration Max H. Bazerman and Ann E. Tenbrunsel, Martin professor of business ethics at Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Busi- Ethics ness, seek answers not in philosophy, but through analysis of cognition and behav- iors, such as “ethical fading.” This excerpt is from chapter 1. Could the financial crisis have been solved by giving all indi- this transgression to be less objectionable than did those who viduals involved more ethics training? If the training resembled saw another person commit the same transgression. This wide- that which has historically and is currently being used, the an- spread double standard—one rule for ourselves, a different one swer to that question is no. Ethics interventions have failed and for others—is consistent with the gap that often exists between AGES will continue to fail because they are predicated on a false as- who we are and who we think that we should be. M sumption: that individuals recognize an ethical dilemma when it Traditional approaches to ethics, and the traditional training IUS/GETTY I is presented to them. Ethics training presumes that emphasiz- methods that have accompanied such approaches, lack an un- L ing the moral components of decisions will inspire executives derstanding of the unintentional yet predictable cognitive pat- CORNE to choose the moral path. But the common assumption this terns that result in unethical behavior. By contrast, our research L AY-ME training is based on—that executives make explicit trade-offs on bounded ethicality focuses on the psychological processes R between behaving ethically and earning profits for their organizations—is incomplete. This paradigm fails to acknowledge our innate psychological responses when faced with an ethical dilemma. Findings from the emerging field of behavioral ethics—a field that seeks to understand how people actually behave when confronted with ethical dilemmas— offer insights that can round out our understanding of why we often behave contrary to our best ethical intentions. Our ethical behavior is often inconsistent, at times even hypocritical. Consider that people have the innate ability to maintain a belief while acting contrary to it. Moral hypocrisy occurs when individuals’ evaluations that lead even good people to engage in ethically questionable of their own moral transgressions differ substantially from their behavior that contradicts their own preferred ethics. Bounded evaluations of the same transgressions committed by others. In ethicality comes into play when individuals make decisions that one research study, participants were divided into two groups. harm others and when that harm is inconsistent with these de- In one condition, participants were required to distribute a re- cision-makers’ conscious beliefs and preferences. If ethics train- source (such as time or energy) to themselves and another per- ing is to actually change and improve ethical decision-making, son and could make the distribution fairly or unfairly. The “alloca- it needs to incorporate behavioral ethics, and specifically the tors” were then asked to evaluate the ethicality of their actions. subtle ways in which our ethics are bounded. Such an approach In the other condition, participants viewed another person act- entails an understanding of the different ways our minds can ing in an unfair manner and subsequently evaluated the ethicality approach ethical dilemmas and the different modes of decision- of this act. Individuals who made an unfair distribution perceived making that result. 14 March - April 2011 MONTAGE that are involved Opera for three years, beginning in 2003. Gilbert on the podium with the Philharmonic last year beyond creating His goal, says Gilbert, is to make a hu- an artistic event. man and spiritual connection between I emerged with a the music and the audience “in a natural sense of owner- and handmade way that is also sophisti- ship, and all that cated and elegant. It is more important experience has to make this kind of connection than to stood me in very try to get everything good stead.” right.” He adds, “The After gradu- decisions I am making Visit harvardmag.com/ ation, Gilbert here at the Philhar- extras for links to Alan played violin as a monic, good or bad, Gilbert’s Philharmonic videos. substitute in the are a function of being Philadelphia and myself. When decisions are made by com- Santa Fe orches- mittee, you can feel it. It is possible to de- tras and served as termine what people want and give it to CHRIS LEE music director of them, but that is not the function of art, chestra. “The great thing about the Bach the adventurous Haddonfield Symphony which is to lead. A great orchestra like Society and about Harvard was that I had (now Symphony in C) in Camden, New the Philharmonic is a large operation, to create opportunities for myself; I got to Jersey, from 1992 to 1997. He was also assis- but you do not want people to think of do all kinds of things as a conductor and a tant conductor at the Cleveland Orchestra it as impersonal. The responsibility of an performer that I would never have had the and an active guest conductor in both the American music director is to give the chance to do at Juilliard—not to mention United States and Europe before taking orchestra a face.” coming up with plans, finding rehearsal the baton of the Royal Stockholm Philhar- space, arranging advertising and ticket- monic from 2000 to 2008—while working Richard Dyer, A.M.

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