JAMES BAUMGARTNER: David Beauchesne, what impressed you about Bramwell Tovey when you first started talking with him about the possibility of joining the Rhode Island Philharmonic?
DAVID BEAUCHESNE: Well, it’s a long list. To be honest, every arts organization, when you’re looking for an artistic leader, the first thing people typically look at is, you know, can they create art that people want to come and listen to? Is he capable of creating concerts that will draw audiences, that are worthy of making recordings? You know, all the things you want to do in a musical arts organization. And Bramwell had done that in other communities with other orchestras, in some ways better than anyone I’ve ever known. So Bramwell valued that high artistry and had those standards. But he also valued education as the other side of that coin, and viewed the audience not only as listeners and supporters, but as creators of music in their own right. And that’s core to who we are, and it was core to him. And the other aspect of him that was apparent right away, and that kind of comes from that, is that he wasn’t self important in any way. And he viewed the youngest student as being just as important and worthy of his time and attention as, as the most famous guest artists on the planet.
BAUMGARTNER: Bramwell was a composer as well. How do you remember him in his composition career?
BEAUCHESNE: His compositions are wild. They’re all over the map. We played a piece in his very first season here. I had to convince him that we should put one of his pieces on the season. And we chose “Urban Runway,” because it’s short, but it’s also joyful. It’s just a great, upbeat, joyful, very accessible piece. And I would say that about a lot of his compositions.
[MUSIC: URBAN RUNWAY]
Just like his conducting, Bramwell wanted to draw the audience in, and his compositions do that as well. Composition was just an extension of that for him, as was conducting, as was playing the piano, playing jazz.
BAUMGARTNER: Bramwell Tovey was with the Rhode Island Philharmonic for only a short period of time, what do you feel is his legacy that he’s leaving for the Rhode Island Philharmonic?
BEAUCHESNE: If I had to boil it down, I would say he embodied our mission in a way that I think, would be hard for just about anybody else to do. And I mentioned before his commitment to education, his warmth for students, audiences, artists, treating everyone equally, putting himself, you know, treating himself on the same level as everyone else. That’s really what our mission is about. It’s about not just performing for or to the community. It’s about empowering the community, and being a partner with the community, and making the community better through music, making us all feel better. Process our lives, process the challenges we all face through the art of music, discover ourselves. And he just, he embodied every single aspect of that by embodying our mission so fully, and by giving it this international visibility and recognition. Perhaps his greatest legacy once, you know, we see it unfold in the coming years, will be that, by bringing all of these wonderful people into our mix that weren’t there before, and expanding that awareness of what we are doing here, why we’re doing it, why it’s important, I think his legacy will, will be that this work will continue to grow and live on in ways that it never could have without him being here, even though it was for such a short period of time. But it’s, yeah, we had, we had quite a ride together, we had some wonderful experiences with incredible concerts here. But it took a lot of hard work. And he was right there as a partner, despite fighting cancer at the same time. So as hard as the last three years were for him, I’m just going to remember the joy and all those accomplishments.
BAUMGARTNER: Executive Director of the Rhode Island Philharmonic David Beauchesne, thanks for talking with me about the legacy of Bramwell Tovey.
BEAUCHESNE: Thank you, I really appreciate the opportunity.
[MUSIC: “Urban Runway”]
