Ruth Reinhardt conducts the Rhode Island Philharmonic this Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at the Vets with violinist Blake Pouliot. There’s also an open rehearsal on Friday at 5:30 p.m.
TRANSCRIPT:
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Baumgartner: Given your experience – Europe, guest conducting in New York, Cleveland, San Francisco, Los Angeles – why take over at the Rhode Island Philharmonic? Why here?
Reinhardt: Because it’s just such a special place. I really love the community that surrounds the place, the city. I come from a very similar place back in Germany that feels similar.
Baumgartner: What town is that?
Reinhardt: Saarbrücken, which is right next to France. And of course, the orchestra immediately, I felt like it’s so wonderful to be here and make music here. And, but again, like everybody surrounding it.
Baumgartner: This will be your first role as music director for an orchestra where you really get to set the vision for an organization. What are you most excited about, interested in for this type of role?
Reinhardt: It’s a super exciting role, particularly because the music school and the Rhode Island Philharmonic are a joint organization. And I find it really interesting. That’s one aspect that I find really interesting to see, how one can even further strengthen those ties and connect those two entities.
Baumgartner: Do you have some plans or some expectations for how you might interact with the music school?
Reinhardt: There’s definitely always the side-by-side, which is I think the highlight for most orchestra players, to get to play in the concert side by side with the Philharmonic musicians. But then there’s going to be more things. Whenever I’m here, I’m going to be at the music school a few times and either just go in and conduct the orchestra briefly or give a chamber music master class, or just be there and interact. And the same thing for the guest artists too. We want to engage guest artists, soloists that are also open to this idea, and to this kind of idea of being integrated in the community, and sharing and being present.
Baumgartner: You’re known for programming concertos that feature instruments that don’t often play with orchestras, and also for highlighting women composers of the late 20th and early 21st century. What can we expect to hear in the 2025-26 season?
Reinhardt: Well, I’m probably not allowed to give away too much yet.
Baumgartner: Maybe some broad strokes?
Reinhardt: There’s going to be some really exciting soloists coming, hopefully that are not traditional instruments, but that are such incredible musicians and such charismatic figures. In terms of composers, I find it always really important to to program for the city that we are in, not just to have generic programs. So I think we ideally want to also program things that have a connection to the city. For example, composers that live here or grew up here or something like that. And then, of course, there’s some women composers that I want to introduce, that I just think they’ve not been played enough.
Baumgartner: When programming a different sort of instrument, what does that bring to the orchestra that we don’t usually hear?
Reinhardt: Well, I think like to the audience, it brings like, let’s say you have a saxophone concerto or a percussion concerto, it just brings, particularly if it’s younger people in the audience, you see so many different things that you don’t usually see. And particularly, I think, for kids or young people, seeing a percussion concerto is also visually very, very exciting. And it’s very often much more appealing than having yet another violinist. I mean, as much as I love having violin soloists on stage, but I think it just brings out a different aspect. And that’s refreshing.
Baumgartner: Classical music certainly has its devoted fans, but what can you say to people who are maybe a little skeptical, who don’t have as much of an interest in a symphony orchestra? Why should they give the Rhode Island Philharmonic a chance?
Reinhardt: First of all, it’s a really unique organization in this city. But live music is just really powerful, not just classical live music, any live music. And now there’s some research that it has a very different effect, even what’s going on in your brain if you listen to recording or to live music. And it’s just, as musicians on stage, we can also feel that there is a connection to the audience. And that’s very different from, you know, COVID times when there was no audience. So I just think everybody should experience the pleasures of live music, not because it’s something that, you know, like makes you more intelligent or anything like that, but just because it’s a form of connection that I think, as human beings, we really need. And also I think there is sadly, around classical music there’s kind of the stigma that you need to know a lot about it, or that, “oh well I’m just not musical” or “I don’t get it” or something, and I think that’s so wrong. I think any human being gets music. And I’m not just talking about classical music. We all relate to it. And music does something to us. And whatever it does with us is great and is right and there’s no wrong. So I think that’s what I hope that everybody will just enjoy.
Baumgartner: You are conducting the Philharmonic this weekend. Briefly, what’s on the program?
Reinhardt: So we start out with Dvorak’s 9th Symphony, “From The New World.” Most people will have heard it before. It’s a really epic, amazing work. And then we have Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto which is just fun and light and super exciting, with Blake Pouliot, a young soloist who’s just incredible. And then we end with the Hindemith Symphonic Metamorphosis. It’s an amazing piece. I mean, with Hindemith, there’s always so much humor. And I think people kind of think of him sometimes as being this German, very serious, stiff composer, which is completely wrong. For example, in the first movement, there’s this place where suddenly, it sounds like somebody is trying to whistle along with a tune, but totally out of key, you know, like a kid that kind of had hit the right note or something like that, but still singing along and all those kind of places that are, of course, not meant seriously.
Baumgartner: The Dvorak is one of my favorites. “From the New World” is the usual title for it. And it’s debatable how much he was actually using American melodies, could be more Bohemian melodies than American melodies, but so much of it influenced I think American film scoring in a lot of ways. I don’t know.
Reinhardt: Yes. And even just jazz and everything. I mean, he was really kind of visionary in the way that he taught, and he even told composition students or young composers in the States, he told them, don’t be intimidated. You know, like, don’t try to compose what European composers are doing. You need to find your own voice and you need to use your history and your heritage and go on from there, and don’t try to match the other things that are going on right now.
Baumgartner: Ruth Reinhardt, soon to be music director of the Rhode Island Philharmonic, thank you for talking with me today.
Reinhardt: Thanks for having me. It’s been a pleasure.
