Alexander Briger: What Makes a Conductor is Personality The Australian conductor tells us about growing up in a musical clan, founding the Australian World Orchestra, and reducing the work load to better enjoy performances and time with his young family. by Jo Litson, 16 May 2019 The Australian conductor tells us about growing up in a musical clan, founding the Australian World Orchestra, and reducing the work load to better enjoy performances and time with his young family. Was there lots of music around you when you were growing up? Yeah, a lot. My mother was a ballet dancer. My uncle Alastair [Mackerras] who lived downstairs was the Headmaster of Sydney Grammar, and he would drive me to school. He was a classical music fanatic. He owned thousands and thousands of CDs, from A to Z, and he was so methodical about it. So, I learnt a hell of a lot of music. Alexander Briger. Photo © Cameron Grayson What instrument did you play? I played violin but I didn’t really take it all that seriously, I have to say. I was much more into aeroplanes, that sort of thing. My uncle was Charles Mackerras, although I didn’t really know him well, he didn’t live here. He would come home to conduct the Sydney Symphony or the opera occasionally. I remember when I was 12, I was taken to a concert that he gave, Mahler’s Fourth Symphony with the Sydney Symphony, and that was the first concert that I was allowed to go to. I remember just being completely blown away by it and that’s when I started to take music very seriously and to think about conducting. Were you aware at that point that you wanted to conduct, not play an instrument? Absolutely. I never wanted to become the great violin virtuoso soloist… I really played the violin with the aim of getting into an orchestra, principally to see how conductors worked. The first thing I ever got when I was just starting at the Con, was with the Opera. They wanted a young musician to come into the orchestra and play Meistersinger. And they auditioned a whole lot of people and I got chosen. I remember asking them why. It was Pamela Monks who was the leader of the second violins back then and she said “because it was quite clear to us that you were the only one that knew this opera”. So that was my first professional engagement as a violinist but again it was really only to see how conductors worked and to see what the instrumentalists would all say backstage. People ask me all the time, “what makes a great conductor?” And it’s very simple in my opinion. Everyone goes on about you have to have a good ear, and good knowledge of harmony and repertoire and stick technique, which is true. But that’s taken for granted. Really, what makes a conductor is personality, it’s all about the human being because orchestras make up their mind immediately. Immediately. It’s very strange. When you’re walking out onto the podium, every one of them is looking at you and they’re just seeing how you are. From the moment you give an upbeat, it’s yes or no for them. How much did Sir Charles help you? He was like a father to me, I suppose. He didn’t teach me conducting. Never. He did take me through scores when I needed it, Janáček of course, note for note. That was incredibly interesting. But it was difficult, a complicated question. There’s that nepotism bit and you just can’t escape it no matter what you do. It’s easier in certain countries but in England it was terrifying. He asked me to assist him when I was in my 20s but he was very strict with me because, if anything had gone wrong he’s the one that would have ended up with egg on his face. I went to Edinburgh and we did all the Mozart operas. Nobody knew more about Mozart than him. Nobody. And Brahms, all the symphonies and Beethoven’s Fidelio, so I assisted him on all of that. The one way he did help me was this opera Don John of Austria, the first written and ever performed in this country in 1847. And Isaac Nathan [who wrote it] was a relative of ours. [In 1997] Spitalfields Festival in London was having an Australian musical festival and they wanted to put this opera on so they approached Charles to do it with the Chelsea Opera Group. He said that he wouldn’t conduct it, but he would orchestrate it because they only had the piano score. He said, “you should get my nephew to conduct, this is perfect for him” so I did conduct it [which led to me being taken onto the books of arts management company Askonas Holt]. Alexander Briger conducting the Australian World Orchestra at the Sydney Opera House in 2016. Photo © Anna Kucera What inspired you to form the Australian World Orchestra in 2010? I went to Japan to conduct [the Japanese Virtuoso Symphony] and it was just so collegial and respectful; this orchestra just seemed to click. I just thought “God, this is a great idea”. And I remember talking to Australian musicians everywhere. I also remember talking to an Australian professor at the Royal Academy of Music and saying, “I’d love to make something that is really extreme, really pushes something to the boundaries”. I remember everyone talking about doing a Glyndebourne thing in Australia, building a big opera house in the countryside, but I just thought that was too over the top, that was just never going to happen. But I thought if all the Australian musicians [playing around the world] got together it would be so fun. I thought, “I just did this in Japan, it can happen”. And that’s when I approached my sister [Gabrielle Thompson, AWO’s CEO]. I needed someone to produce it, and find the money, and she was a film producer so she’d done quite a bit. We had a bottle of red wine, and I said, “I don’t know if this is possible…”. We decided to work at it very slowly. My first port of call was to ask all the musicians around the place. I went to a couple that I trust [including Brett Dean] who I knew had contacts, and that’s how it started. You are conducting the AWO this year. Can you tell us about the choice of repertoire? I wanted an Australian work and I love Nigel Westlake. One of the difficulties with orchestras is commissioning [new works], it’s expensive. We asked could we do something he’d already composed? And he said, “do this piece of music [from the film Paper Planes], it’s perfect, and I’ll reorchestrate it a bit for you”, and it’s a fantastic piece of music. Because I do consider myself a Janáček specialist, we’re doing Taras Bulba. And then there’s the Sibelius, I just adore the second symphony, it’s one of my favourites. And I’m doing a different ending with a reorchestration, which in my own opinion makes a big difference. Where are you based now? I was in London for a decade and came back to Australia to set up AWO and now I really want to go back more into conducting, so things are really snowballing with the conducting career again. It was weird, I became a businessman for a while and I loved it too because I wanted to see if I could do that in my life. I’m not one of these people that is obsessed with working week in, week out as a conductor. I did that at the start of my career, and it’s not easy. [I was so busy and exhausted] I got really bad pneumonia… and I just thought, “I’ve got to stop.” I really wanted to take time out, go to Australia and [spend time with] the family. I had these young kids and I wanted to raise them here around their grandparents, and just take a breather. [Then the AWO] took off and it overtook my life. It was a lot of fun but now I’ve moved back to Paris to be in Europe and get more into conducting but with nowhere near that schedule [I once had]. I will never do that again. All I want to do is have my conducting career but be really well-prepared and on top of everything, and just enjoy every moment, and enjoy my family. I’ve got a baby, a one-year-old, so I really want to be there for her. It’s really interesting how life changes. I’m much more relaxed now and you know what? Things go a lot better in performance..