6 January 2010
Alexander Shelley took up his position as Principal Conductor of the Nuernberger Symphoniker this week. Here he discusses the exciting opportunities that this will offer.
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‘I think of it as my musical home, really’, says London-born conductor Alexander Shelley of Germany, as he sips a cup of tea in Soho on a rare trip back to England. ‘I love the tradition of music-making there. Unlike the UK, they see it as their heritage; it’s as important to them as a healthy economy.’ Shelley, 30, has spent the best part of the last decade studying and, latterly, conducting in Leipzig, Dusseldorf, Hamburg and Bremen; now he is about to take the helm at Nuernberger Symphoniker, where he was recently named Principal Conductor. ‘It’s incredibly exciting,’ he admits. ‘To have the opportunity to really build and develop an orchestra. I want to extend the palette, to find new colours, and define those colours; to explore extremes in the strings and brass; to tackle new repertoire. They have a very loyal subscription audience who come to expect music from a very digestible, 19th-century symphonic period, but almost everything else has been ignored until now.’
His eyes sparkle, and I get the impression that the creator of such groundbreaking ventures as the Zukunftslabor Project in Bremen and the 440Hz series in Dusseldorf, where classical musicians collaborate with artists from other genres (hip-hop, poetry, techno, jazz) with rapturous results, might have a few surprises up his sleeve for his rather more conservative Nuremberg audience. ‘It’s true, I’m planning on doing many more premieres, more new music, more 20th and 21st-century work, more Second Viennese School,’ he confesses. ‘I mean, Berg is still romantic, still luscious; there’s no reason to be scared by him. I love the idea of taking an audience with me, but it will all depend on trust.’
On the evidence so far, Nurembergers have no reason not to trust their new, angelic-faced maestro. An open-air concert Shelley conducted there in the summer drew an audience of 60,000, and spectators and press alike were euphoric. He chuckles when I point this out. ‘Well hopefully, that’s ammunition.’
It turns out that Shelley had spent the earlier part of that summer in Caracas, Venezuela, working with the Símon Bolívar Youth Orchestra. Their legendary energy clearly rubbed off on him. ‘I learned so much,’ he enthuses. ‘They are so giving: the inspiration and vitality that you usually have to impart to an orchestra, they give to you, in the first few seconds.’
Along with that energy, what he also shares with the Venezuelans is a belief in classical music’s relevance to all, regardless of background. I wonder if, given his own youth and exuberance, he feels a sense of responsibility to make classical music accessible to a younger audience? ‘I do, yes,’ he says, name-checking other young conductors such as Robin Ticciati, Yannick Nézet-Séguin and, of course, Gustavo Dudamel as an ‘exciting’ generation of ‘non-dusty’ maestri who will do away with the ‘perception that all conductors have grey hair’.
It’s a role he clearly takes seriously. ‘Classical music is a complex thing: we need to hold people’s hands. But I honestly do not see anything in my day-to-day life in music that shouldn’t be exciting for everyone. Give me any person, and I’d put money on the fact that I could find a piece that moves them.’ Given Alexander Shelley’s talent, commitment and passion, you’d be a fool to bet against him.
© Clemency Burton-Hill