Q. Last year you became the first chief female conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra (SSO), and you are contracted to the Orchestra for the next three years. You must be happy to be back working in Australia?
A. Yes, very. My contract has me in Sydney for 8-9 weeks a year, and it is indeed wonderful to reconnect with family and friends. Of course, I have been guest conducting the Sydney Symphony for many years, so this feels very much like a natural progression.
Q. You have met many challenges during your long career. Do you think that this new position with the SSO will represent enough of a challenge for you?
A. Every concert is a challenge – a challenge to do justice to a masterpiece, a challenge to inspire and enthuse both orchestra and public.
Q. Are you happy with the way KNOWING THE SCORE has turned out? How does it compare with the like minded 2008 documentary ‘Simone Young: To Hamburg from Down Under’ made by Ralf Pleger?
A. I find looking at myself on a screen for 90 minutes quite confronting, and I rarely watch footage of myself, or read my own interviews. I feel very fortunate that the public is curious about what makes me the artist I am today, and I hope that KNOWING THE SCORE resonates with many people and encourages them to engage with live concerts.
Q. Ralf Pleger has also written the only biography of you, which was published in 2006 in German. Were you happy with the bio, and Pleger’s portrait of you?
A. In fact, last year Kerstin Schüssler wrote a new bio “Don’t Call Me Maestra” in German. Again, I am astonished that people want to read about me or watch a documentary about me, but if it serves to encourage more people to attend and engage with concerts, so much the better.
Q. Music has been defined as a universal language that can be enjoyed by anyone. Has spoken language been much of a barrier to you, having worked for a long time overseas? Do you find it easy to immerse yourself in other cultures? Are you good at picking up other languages?
A. I speak German, French, Italian very comfortably and have a good working knowledge of Russian, Czech, Spanish and Norwegian, so Europe is pretty comfortable for me. I think languages are essential for an artist and doubly so if one conducts opera. I never conduct an opera in a language that I do not understand.
Q. KNOWING THE SCORE is about to open at the same time as Tár with Cate playing in cinemas. Tár is also about a first chief female conductor conducting a major symphony orchestra. This not only puts women in the spotlight but also the world of conducting.
A. Cate Blanchett is quite extraordinary in Tár. Her commitment to the role, her performance, the training she undertook to perform as a conductor of Mahler 5 adaigo – all incredibly impressive. But the film is fiction, her character is a fictional person. The very charged environment of the symphony and the emotional nature of Mahler 5 put the disintegration of a powerful person through poor decisions into a very clear focus for the audience. I am delighted if this extends and expands the discussion about the arts.
Q. How magical is the world of conducting? How immersed in the music do you become? Do you, in fact, become the music?
A. Yes, one becomes very immersed in the music – anything less and you don’t deserve to be in that position. “Becoming the music” is going a little too far though – the conductor is not the composer!
Q. How do you see the world of classical music going forward? Young people seem more interested in the world of techno and the like. Will classical music survive, or will popular music end up taking it over? Will it safely stay its own genre of music like all the other wonderful genres of music?
A. For 40 years I have heard people saying that we need to work more to attract young audiences – but the 60-something audience members of today were 20-year-olds then! Masterpieces are described as such for reason – they are timeless and speak to contemporary generations as freshly as they did when they were written. The big difference today is that music in schools is not as extensively taught as in the past, and musical organisations need to take on more and more the role of the educator as well. Communication and engagement – and I am very happy that the Sydney Symphony is very strong in this area.
Q. You have built your world around music. If not music, what would it have been?
A. Possibly law – I love the English language and would have enjoyed playing with the details of legislation. Or possibly neurological research – I am fascinated by the brain, and we still only know some of what the human brain is capable of. Next life….
The documentary about Simone Young, KNOWING THE SCORE, directed by Janine Hosking with Serendipity Productions Margie Bryant producing alongside Cate Blanchett as Executive Producer starts in cinemas on the 16th February 2023.
New York, London, Paris, Berlin, Simone Young has conquered them all in the most male dominated of professions, a Conductor of Opera and Classical Music. The girl from Manly beach, now a woman with so many firsts to her name, she’s tired of the whole “woman” title that follows her around. KNOWING THE SCORE captures the career of a great conductor, its challenges and triumphs, past, present and into the future. You can watch the trailer here.
For those interested in a bit more about Simone Young, please click on the link below for an article by Sydney Arts Guide journalist Randolph Magri Overend about the brilliant Australian conductor which was published on the site on the 10th August2019.
https://sydneyartsguide.com.au/contemporary-conductors-simone-young/