Hostetter to Debut as Colonial Symphony Music Director
BY MIKE TSCHAPPAT
DAILY RECORD 12/2/05
Paul Hostetter will raise his baton as music director of the Colonial Symphony for the first time Dec. 3 at Morristown's Community Theatre, leading a concert of music by Beethoven, Sibelius, Respighi and Stravinsky.
"I've been waiting for a year since I took my audition to work with the wonderful musicians of the Colonial Symphony," he said. "Plus the music on the concert is all music I love."
Hostetter's energy is evident in the series of programs he had planned almost as soon as he was named to his new post, succeeding Yehuda Gilad. "Dance and Fantasy" will be the theme Dec. 3, followed by "The Art of the Laugh" Jan. 28, "A Summertime Romance" March 25, and "The Memory of Love" May 6.
His first program will start with music by Beethoven, not a composer one usually associates with dance and fantasy. But his Contredances are an exception.
"The Contredances have a light feel," Hostetter said. "It's Beethoven in his best mood."
Respighi's "The Birds," Sibelius' Valse Triste and Stravinsky's "Pulcinella" round out the concert.
"Each one of these pieces has symmetry with the others," Hostetter said. "There's a sense of progression through the concert. You walk away feeling like you had some great tastes for your ears, but that you would like a little more."
Hostetter chose composers from four different countries, giving the concert an international feel. Beethoven was German, Respighi Italian, Sibelius Finnish and Stravinsky Russian. Those origins lend the music some national traits.
"Respighi's 'Birds' is very Italian and has a sense of the dramatic," Hostetter said. "Sibelius' Valse Triste has a dark brooding sense."
In addition to conducting the concert, Hostetter will give a pre-concert lecture. This will not be the usual analysis of the upcoming program accompanied by musical excerpts. Instead his topic is "How a Conductor Builds the Future of an Orchestra."
"I'm trying to do different things that relate to the process of making music," he said. "It gives people a chance to know me a little better. You have musicians on the stage and people in the auditorium. I want to try and break down that barrier."
In future talks, Hostetter will address compositional inspiration and music as therapy.
He's determined to get people into the concert hall and away from their iPods.
"As time goes along, people are getting away from the live music experience," he said. "I want to see people, no matter what the music is, going out and experiencing live music."
