Gemma New: conducting with artistry
Conductor Gemma New
Photo credit: Roy Cox
Conductor Gemma New had what she calls an epiphany on the podium in the middle of a concert in May this year. She was with the San Francisco Symphony, playing Mendelssohn’s 3rd Symphony, the “Scottish”, a work she has conducted many times. “Suddenly”, she tells me, “it seemed I needed to relax, and the music did just ease and flow in a different way. Since then, I’ve been able to take a different approach. I do prepare very thoroughly, but maybe I don’t need to be so stressed about it, and that resonates with the orchestra. You need to find a sense of calm, and I’ve been more aware of that recently, which is nice — it makes things a bit more fun.”
Each time Gemma New strides to the podium to conduct the NZSO, she brings not only her dynamic approach and lauded high level of skill and attention to detail. There's also a deepening of experience as she develops her international career, and, with that, a greater depth of interpretation. She's also bringing the relationships with composers and soloists she’s constantly building.
We talked a week ago, while she was en route to New Zealand for NZSO concerts, which included Elgar’s Violin Concerto in B minor, Opus 61 with German soloist Christian Tetzlaff. She has worked with the super-star violinist before, the first time at short notice. In 2022, at the New World Symphony in Miami, she “jumped in”, she tells me, for an ailing Michael Tilson Thomas, and conducted Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto with Tetzlaff as soloist.
In March this year, she was on the podium of the Orchestre National de France with Tetzlaff again, in Shostakovich’s 2nd Violin Concerto. “His playing is transformative,” she says. “Tetzlaff is one of the greatest musicians today; in Paris it was like hearing the violin’s soul from Russia, in the cold, 50 years ago. I’m really excited about bringing him to New Zealand.”
Violinist Christian Tetzlaff
“…ardent, lyrical and fiery by turns.”
Photo credit: Giorgia Bertazzi
On the Wellington stage a few days later her rapport with both the famous violinist and the NZSO musicians was fully evident. Tetzlaff was in commanding control of Elgar’s romantic violin part, which flowed magnificently, ardent, lyrical and fiery by turns. New, dynamic on the podium, is a great collaborator, leading an orchestral accompaniment now full-voiced and passionate, now sotto voce for the soloist’s pianissimo. The slower 2nd Andante movement, in particular, requires a flexible tempo rubato and New partnered with Tetzlaff with great sensitivity and artistry. In the final Allegro molto, against non-stop fireworks from the soloist, she and the orchestra maintained the work’s tension, pressing forward with urgency, then pulling back for the slower section near the end, before a magical and exuberant finish. The excited audience applauded enthusiastically after every movement.
Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho’s short Asteroid 4179: Toutatis opened the programme. The work was composed as part of Simon Rattle’s project with the Berlin Philharmonic, which resulted in an album of Holst’s The Planets with shorter, related works by contemporary composers.
Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho
“…otherworldly textures, very dense but not necessarily loud.” (Gemma New)
New first got to know Saariaho’s music early in her career, while assistant conductor at the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. “The Orchestra played her concerto, Notes on Light, with cellist Anssi Karttunen, who was one of Saariaho’s best friends. Her music speaks so softly, yet profoundly, you can really see the flash of gold light. She creates these otherworldly textures, very dense but not necessarily loud.”
While New was Dudamel Conducting Fellow with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2015, she met Saariaho, who died last year. “She was there because Dudamel was playing her True Fire, and I was awestruck,” New remembers. “She was incredibly intelligent and intense, poised and quiet. There’s something about the Finnish; they’re quiet, but you can feel the fire inside.”
Asteroid 4179: Toutatis is complex, New says, “with interleaving textures and rhythms, related to the different rotations of the asteroid. There’s a quintuplet line, and a triplet line and a duplet line, and a longer throbbing.” New’s conducting is always brilliantly clear, and she successfully created the transparency she sought within Saariaho’s dense score. The clarity of the performance revealed the work’s kaleidoscope of colours, and a strong sense of the music’s sometimes foreboding atmosphere.
New is keen to ensure NZSO audiences hear such music of our own time. “We have,” she says, “a really beautiful collection of New Zealand music in both this season and 2025. I also want to introduce living composers from Europe and America and other places so our composers and students and emerging composers can hear the music of today in live performance. Experiencing that visceral sense of people breathing together and creating music; you can’t replace the impact of sensing it with all the senses.”
New was 22 when she left New Zealand 15 years ago for graduate studies in conducting at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore. She’s lived in the States ever since, building her conducting career first in North America, as resident conductor at the St Louis Symphony Orchestra, Dudamel Fellow at the LA Philharmonic, Music Director of the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra in Ontario — a role she left this year after nine seasons — and Principal Guest Conductor of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra (2019–2020).
Critics have consistently praised her work, suggesting “her total rapport with the musicians, attention to detail and intensity of musical expression prove totally commanding” (South Florida Classical Review), and appreciating her “unique sensitivity and a heightened attention to detail and texture” (Washington Post).
Since our last interview in 2022, New has gained increased experience with European orchestras, including WDR Sinfonieorchester, the BBC Philharmonic, Hallé Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre National de Lyon and the Orquesta Nacional de España in Madrid. Earlier this year she returned to the BBC Proms for a second straight year with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
“In Europe,” she says, “it’s very apparent how different orchestras approach the music differently. In Spain, for instance, there’s a beautiful way of crescendoing, right near the end.” (She waves her hands upwards to demonstrate.) “It reminds me of a flamenco dancer. I was playing Sibelius 2 in Madrid a year ago, and the 1st trumpet player would always do crescendos with a flare. And then in Hannover recently, we had seven rehearsals which is a lot! We used them all; it’s a long marination of ideas and they really take their time, working on every note to get just the right colour or feel.” She’s also noticed different approaches across Europe to rhythm and articulation. “It all helps me as a conductor to expand my ideas. I’m inspired by these national differences.”
The NZSO concert this week ended with Gustav Holst’s The Planets, the work that may have attracted the large audience. It probably fits into the “warhorse” category, and I personally find it bombastic, repetitive and full of harmonic cliché. New tells me sincerely that she loves it, having conducted it many times. It requires a huge orchestra, extra-large wind and brass sections and two harps plus celeste.
New and the NZSO gave a marvellous performance of the 53-minute work, fine playing throughout the sections, excellent solo work from section principals, and disembodied, heavenly singing in the final movement, Neptune, The Mystic, from the female voices of the Voices NZ Chamber Choir, hidden in the upper reaches of the Michael Fowler Centre.
Thinking of her recent “epiphany”, I looked for clues to greater relaxation, but New seemed as fully engaged and intense as ever, wringing the most from every movement and keeping up the pace and momentum, in spite of audience applause after every planet. For those for whom it was a first hearing, it was probably thrilling to hear it so well-played.
Gemma New on the podium
“… fully engaged and intense.”
Photo credit: Antoine Saito
After the fine compositions in the first half of the programme, I regretted that New’s skills and these huge orchestral forces were not engaged in more brilliant music, but the NZSO must please a broad range of supporters. In 2025, New will conduct the Orchestra in Mahler’s 6th Symphony and Bruckner’s 7th, works new to her repertoire, which she is keenly anticipating.
Before she returns to the concert halls of Aotearoa in late March next year, New will conduct in New York, where she’ll take New Zealand composer Salina Fisher’s Kintsugi to the Juilliard Orchestra. Then she’s back to Europe early in the new year, working with orchestras in Belgium, Sweden, The Netherlands, and Prague, before St Louis and Kansas City back in the US.
No doubt her luggage will include some substantial scores — she is always meticulous about preparation. On a personal note, the slightly built New tells me that as well as tennis and cooking, she took up boxing recently, which is good for building upper body strength. No, not for conducting — it’s for carrying those heavy suitcases.
NZSO The Planets Elgar and Holst Gemma New (Conductor) Christian Tetzlaff (Violin) Voices NZ Chamber Choir Wellington 22 November 2024
You can read other Five Lines articles about conductor Gemma New: On the podium in a pandemic, The conductor’s art, and Gemma New: the NZSO’s new Principal Conductor .