Symphony NH finalist: Capturing the 'quiet joy' of being in New Hampshire woods

When Maestro Roger Kalia announced his decision to step down as the music director of Symphony New Hampshire at the end of the 2024-25 season, executive director Deanna Hoying assembled a search committee composed of board members, musicians, and community leaders to identify his successor.

Five finalists were chosen, and over the next season each finalist will curate and conduct a concert while participating in meet-and-greet events across New Hampshire. Audience members will have the opportunity to provide feedback for the individual concerts through surveys after each event.

The next finalist to perform is Tianhui Ng. He will perform "New Hampshire Passions" at the Keefe Center for the Arts in Nashua on Sat., April 18 at 7:30 p.m. with a pre-concert conversation at 6:30 p.m.

Ng was born in Singapore and did his undergraduate work in the United Kingdom. Ng came to the United States for his graduate studies in conducting. He is the music director for the Pioneer Valley Symphony, New England Philharmonic, The Victory Players, and White Snake projects. In addition, Ng teaches at Mount Holyoke College, as the director of Orchestral Studies.

NHPR’s Joe Boehnlein sat down to talk with Ng about his upcoming show and leadership philosophy.

To hear the full interview with Ng and all of the finalists, visitclassicalnh.org.

Transcript

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability. 

It's wonderful to talk to you! First, congratulations on being one of the finalists for the Music Director position at Symphony New Hampshire! For your program on April 18th at the Keefe Center, you've chosen Mabel Daniels, right? Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto number two, and David Ibbett's Black Hole Symphony. Let me into your thinking about that. Why those artists for this performance?

The first thought was that we needed an encore piece that would be something that audiences could connect to. And so, you know, I actually gave a whole range of options and the orchestra actually picked this.

I was just thinking what would be, in that sense, box-office friendly and also a way for people to, get to know me as an interpreter of standard repertoire. And so I offered, I believe it was Tchaikovsky violin concerto and Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1, Rachmaninov No. 2. And even though if we talk about Mozart, there's obviously all the beautiful Mozart piano concertos and so on. Historically, the data from the League of American Orchestra shows that they don't sell terribly well.

One of the things that we've been thinking about is the ways in which we can hear anything that we want on Spotify, on the radio, on digital concert halls and so on. What gets people out to concerts has been something that I've been exploring together with the orchestra during this process, and it soon became obvious that just doing a so-called war horse is generally not going to cut it.

Even with a piece as strong as Enigma Variations, I think it's like going to a restaurant, you know, and there's this unknown dish on the menu, you're probably not going to pick it but if you do pick it, it's probably going to be amazing.

In the case of orchestras and concerts, we have to get people to come in and pick it — otherwise they're not even going to show up. So then the question was: was Enigma Variations sufficiently well known by the public for us to actually program it that way? And in December, we decided to go for a different direction.

I had just had a very successful premiere of this piece in Boston in December. And it was a very full concert hall of 6 or 700 people. We had, in fact, almost increased our audience participation by 50, 60 percent.

And I said, well, you know, if you want to try something different, here's something that is really cutting edge in a way: David Ibbett is the composer in residence at the Harvard Smithsonian Institute for astrophysics. He has the role of taking the latest scientific concepts and data and converting it into something that orally makes sense to people, and allows people an artistic way into the most exciting developments in science in our time.

And so the Black Hole Symphony really is an example of what I think could be a masterwork for the years to come. We are so excited about that. Shep Doeleman himself is so excited about that. He's going to come to this concert and give basically a pre-concert talk. So we have a chance to meet the man who allowed us to actually see a black hole for the first time in humanity's history.

So you said that the orchestra picked these pieces. That leads me into this question — your approach to the music director position — how would you conduct your time with the musicians?

Yeah. You know, and actually — just to further clarify that — I feel like I'm the chef, right? I've seen all the ingredients available and I've picked, I've decided to make these dishes and I've offered them to the orchestra. And out of my selection, they decided to pick appetizer number two and main course number three and dessert number four. You know, that is kind of like what's happening here.

And I would be remiss in not talking about Mabel Daniels. I thought it was very important for me as a finalist — and with an orchestra like Symphony New Hampshire, that has a real responsibility to reflect and represent the state of New Hampshire — that I chose something that was written here.

And lo and behold, there was this beautiful piece by Mabel Daniels, who taught for many, many years at MacDowell Colony and therefore really influenced the course of contemporary music in America right here in New Hampshire. And she wrote this piece about the woods at MacDowell Colony.

So, you know —this is very interesting too — because there's a visual connection. If you're familiar with the works of John Singer Sergeant or Mary Cassatt, then these American artists went to Europe, saw all the amazing stuff that was coming out in the form of Impressionism, like Monet and Cezanne, Renoir, and they came back and did their work here, painting the American landscape with these techniques. And this kind of is what Mabel Daniels has done.

It's like this absolutely gorgeous, dreamy piece about the woods here in New Hampshire and I think it really quite encapsulates the kind of quiet joy that we have just being in the woods in New Hampshire. So, what a way to start that journey.

So from my perspective as a chef, right, I was starting with something that represents the local with Mabel Daniels — going to something that everybody loves, this is like the meat and potatoes, if you will — and then I wanted to offer something that was really quite refreshing at the end of it that showed something about the chef's personality, my personality in the music.

I think these processes are designed so that I get to know the community as much as possible.

So, anybody who's listening, please come forward to say hi at the end of the concert. I would love to meet you. I like to hear your ideas and your dreams and your favorite stories about Symphony New Hampshire, because all of that is going to fit in and feed into my imagination of what I would do and what the orchestra would do with me in this process.

I am, in that sense, a guest, and I'm very excited to visit. And if everything works well, I might actually be invited back!

Tianhui Ng, you are one of the finalists for the Music Director at Symphony New Hampshire. Your show includes Mabel Daniels, Rachmaninoff and David Ibbett and will be on April 18th at the Keefe Center for the Arts at 7:30. You're also taking part in Preludes, right?

That's the one that Shep Doereman is going to be there. So I'm going to be quizzing Shep Doereman, and you'll get to learn all about how he made this possible — how we know what we know about black holes today.

Okay. That's that's at 6:30. The concert is at 7:30 on April 18th. Thanks so much for zooming in and talking with me today. I look forward to your concert on Saturday!

Thank you. I look forward to seeing you too.