Leaving H&H post, Deissler looks back

By Richard Dyer, Globe Staff  |  August 18, 2006

When Mary A. Deissler joined the staff of the Handel and Haydn Society in 1982, the organization had an annual budget of $600,000 -- and a deficit of $250,000.

Deissler is leaving her current position as chief executive officer next month. Handel and Haydn's current annual budget is $3.2 million, and the organization has a $3 million endowment, thanks to her efforts and to those of the board she helped develop.

``I'm happy about the fact we are on more solid ground than we were 24 years ago," Deissler said in a telephone conversation Wednesday evening.

Deissler will remain affiliated with H&H as a consultant on ``big picture stuff," she said, but as her 50th birthday approached this year, she felt it was time to ``try something different before I get old."

``This is the only real job I've ever had. I have learned from it and loved it 99 percent of the time, but if I am ever going to do something else, now is the time to try," she said. Deissler doesn't know yet what her future will hold, but hopes it will involve the arts.

During her years at H&H, Deissler has worked with three music directors -- Thomas Dunne, Christopher Hogwood, and Grant Llewellyn -- and recruited the last two, in addition to lining up an artistic triumverate for next season: artistic adviser Sir Roger Norrington, principal conductor Llewellyn, and conductor laureate Hogwood. The ensemble has traveled to Chicago, New York, and the Edinburgh Festival, and in three weeks H&H goes to the Haydn Festival in the Esterhazy Palace in Eisenstadt, Austria, for a program conducted by Harry Christophers. H&H began recording again during the tenure of Hogwood as music director, and in the last couple of years it has enjoyed chart-level success with two choral records led by Llewellyn, ``Peace" and ``All Is Bright."

Among the artistic highlights Deissler enjoys recalling are crossover collaborations with Dave Brubeck and Marian McPartland , the Monteverdi and Purcell operas with stage director Chen Shi-Zheng , collaborations with choreographer Mark Morris and the English National Opera, and the premiere of Dan Welcher's oratorio ``JFK: The Voice of Peace."

H&H gave important early engagements to soprano Dawn Upshaw, countertenor David Daniels, and the late mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson.

``The first time fortepianist Robert Levin came to play Mozart with us," Deissler exclaimed, ``all anyone could say was `Whoa!' I feel the same way today about our work with the young fortepianist Kristian Bezuidenhout." She adds that she is particularly proud of the programs H&H has developed for singers of high school age that give them musical experiences they would never otherwise have had.

One of the biggest problems H&H faces today, Deissler said, is venue. Desirable dates are increasingly hard to come by in Sanders Theatre and especially in Symphony Hall, where Holiday Pops holds sway during H&H's traditional ``Messiah" season. Efforts to move to such other spaces as the Shubert Theater have not proved popular with the public.

``Basically we have been homeless for 190 years," Deissler explained, ``and that makes planning and scheduling very difficult. I guess we should be grateful that we don't face the issue of a leaking roof, but if someone were to offer to build us a suitable venue, we would be very happy."

Finances at H&H have always been ``up and down," Deissler said. ``We always have to be careful not to crash. But finances supply the means, they are not the end in the arts. Our job is to do something interesting, which means that sometimes we will win and sometimes we will lose. But in the arts, you can't afford to stand still."

The Boston Symphony Chamber Players tipped their hat to composer Michael Gandolfi at their annual program in Seiji Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood Tuesday night. For many years Gandolfi has helped shepherd the composing fellows through their summers at the Tanglewood Music Center. When Boston's St. Botolph Club wanted to celebrate its 125th anniversary by commissioning a new work for the Chamber Players, the ensemble chose Gandolfi from a list of composers compiled by the club and premiered the piece in Jordan Hall last season.

``Plain Song, Fantastic Dances," performed again on Tuesday, begins with ``St. Botolph's Fantasia," based on Gregorian chant, then continues with two movements composed in dance rhythms, tango, and quick step.

Like the divertimentos of Mozart, Gandolfi's music is engaging, accessible, and entertaining but also exhibits details of craftsmanship to delight the connoisseur. The first movement, for example, has passages that sound like a Philip Glass bliss-out, but are actually densely and intricately contrapuntal. ``Tango Blue" may be a backward tribute to Pops icon Leroy Anderson and his famous ``Blue Tango," and the ``Quick Step" is built on a transformation of the Gregorian chant and on the exchange of roles between melody and counterpoint. The Chamber Players -- four strings and three winds -- played it to a T.

This spring, conductor Isaiah Jackson stepped down from the music directorship of the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra of Boston. Relations with the players had become difficult, and Jackson decided it was time to move on. The players have, however, offered Jackson the title of conductor emeritus, and he has accepted. He will lead one of the programs he was originally scheduled to conduct next season, a gala with cellist Yo-Yo Ma as soloist, Jan. 31.

Guest conductors Kevin Rhodes (music director of the Springfield Symphony) and Federico Cortese (music director of the Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras and the New England String Ensemble) will take over two of the other concerts, Oct. 1 and Nov. 26, respectively. Gunther Schuller will make his annual appearance as principal guest conductor April 1, and on May 20, Jackson's predecessor, conductor emerita Gisele Ben-Dor, will return for a program.