Mälkki making a name in America

Mälkki, whose trio of concerts began last night and continues through tomorrow, is well known in Europe, having conducted the Royal Concertgebouw and Berlin Philharmonic orchestras. And though she's still something of an unknown quantity in the United States, she seems to be making an impression quickly. Writing about her performance with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra at last summer's Mostly Mozart Festival, Anthony Tommasini of The New York Times wrote that she offered "one of the most quicksilver and spontaneous accounts of Beethoven's 'Eroica' Symphony in memory. . . . . Ms. Mälkki is a joy to watch and a technical whiz; the two go hand in hand."

And so she continues to make inroads into America, having recently conducted orchestras in St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Detroit. "I really appreciate the orchestra culture [in America] - there seems to be such a fantastic work ethic," Mälkki says by phone from her Paris home. While rehearsal time is generally scarcer here than in Europe, "the results are not less great because [the players] are so fantastic. The small experience I have is that it works within the very limited time because of the quality of the musicians, and they're used to working rapidly and efficiently."

Mälkki, 40, began her conducting studies in 1995 at the Sibelius Academy in her native Finland. Prior to that she was in the midst of a successful career as an orchestral musician: In her 20s, she had already been named one of the principal cellists of Sweden's Gothenburg Symphony.

"I think many people were wondering what I was doing," she admits, when asked why she decided to give up what she calls "an easy life" as an orchestra musician. Ultimately, she says, it was the chance to engage the music at a level broader than that of a single instrument.

"I suppose what really fascinated me from the beginning is the palette," she says. "Even if you have a lot of possibilities with one instrument, you still have a hundred times more with an orchestra. And in a way, as a conductor, you get to play all the parts, if the conditions are ideal."

She also discovered that conducting gave her a freer route to self-expression. This was brought home to her by her first conducting teacher, Jorma Panula, whose other students include Esa-Pekka Salonen and Osmo Vänskä.

"The remarkable thing about him is that he never wanted anybody to copy anybody," she says of Panula. "As soon as you imitate somebody you're on a slippery surface. That's why I instantly felt at home in conducting; I felt so much more free to do what I want than I did as a cellist."

Currently Mälkki is music director of the Ensemble Intercontemporain, an ensemble founded in 1976 by Pierre Boulez that has become synonymous with the forefront of contemporary music. (She was offered the job after a single performance with them.) Despite the eminence of the position, though, she doesn't want to be ghettoized as a new-music conductor. She estimates that she's currently splitting her time "about 50-50" between contemporary and established repertoire.

But Mälkki does think that her lengthy experience with the avant-garde has helped keep her interpretations of core repertory dynamic. "What really fascinated me already in my so-called cello days is that I felt more direct contact with the contemporary music because there were less layers that I should care about. I felt that I was immediately communicating with the composer. And in a way, that has given me the courage to approach older scores in the same way."

Like most female conductors, Mälkki is frequently reminded that women remain something of a rarity in this corner of the music world. BSO assistant conductor Shi-Yeon Sung, who made her Symphony Hall debut two weeks ago, was only the fifth woman to lead the orchestra in its 127-year history; Mälkki will be the sixth.

She is quick to point out, though, that things are changing, and rapidly. "If you look at the last 10 years, I think there are suddenly several of us. Definitely 20 or 30 years ago it was much more odd than it is today.

"I suppose my generation is the first one that has grown up imagining that we could be equal and worth as much as the other half of the population," Mälkki says with a laugh. "It starts very early on, and people can be encouraged and discouraged - there are so many ways of cutting people's wings, unfortunately."

Asked about her goals for the future, Mälkki seems determined to keep her focus on the present. "Each concert is a goal," she says. More than anything else she professes to be grateful for the opportunities she has already had. "I was prepared to wait for 10 or 15 years before being on this level with the people I work with.

"If I can continue doing what I'm doing now, I think I can consider myself very lucky. And I'm open. You never know what's waiting behind the corner, so it's best to take one step at a time anyway."

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The Pulitzer is Reich's first and says something about the extent to which minimalism has penetrated musical culture and its status among younger generations of musicians.

"Thankfully, a lot of young musicians have not only played all kinds of my pieces, but have played them well," Reich told NPR earlier this week. "It's because they heard them when they were younger. This is the case in all music history. Composers have a real difficulty in that first generation when they are writing these works. But the following generations grow up with it as part of the furniture in the room. So eighth blackbird, and many other groups, I'm happy to say, can not only play it, but play it convincingly and enjoy themselves."