“It’s Like a Great New Instrument”

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Photo by Scott Paulus

Bradley Symphony Center

The Bradley Symphony Center

Born in Leipzig, Germany, Ken-David Masur is the son of conductor Kurt Masur. As a child he studied classical voice and trumpet and was also a champion-level table tennis player. He continued vocal studies in Berlin, then graduated from Columbia University where he established the Bach Society Orchestra and Chorus. He has conducted renowned orchestras around the world including l'Orchestre National de France, the Munich Symphony Orchestra and the Boston Symphony, his last post before Milwaukee. 

In 2019 he was appointed music director of the Milwaukee Symphony, and also became principal conductor of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago. He and his wife Melinda founded the Chelsea Music Festival in New York, in which classical music mingles with visual and culinary arts, and where he has premiered dozens of newly commissioned works. They have three children.

I talked with Maestro Masur about the current season at the symphony and how he has settled into his role over the last few years.

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Photo by Scott Paulus

Ken-David Masur

Ken-David Masur

Last time we talked, it was right before the 2019-20 season, and obviously things went differently than planned.

When I look back, I look back with gratitude. Not in the wrong way, not to be oblivious to what happened. Obviously, there was great sacrifice on everybody’s part, both in the community and also in the arts and organizations. To see the resilience and dedication of the orchestra family and the city was tremendous. I started a podcast [Musical Journeys]. I did over two dozen episodes, talking with not just great artists like Yo-Yo Ma and Manny Ax, but also people in the community, learning about Milwaukee and relating that to the music we were featuring each week. And then my wife and I did a concert series. Many of the musicians brought music to their own neighborhoods, playing on porches and in driveways. 

Then we started again, with the keys to the new hall, and we created the re-imagined season. So even though there were so many challenges connected with the 2019-20 season, a lot of extraordinary good and creative things have come out of it.

How has the new hall shaped your approach to performance and how you work with the orchestra?

It’s like a great new instrument. You want to just play around with it, and with our programming we’ve tried to get a huge range to really understand how this instrument works. The musicians can hear things they haven’t heard before. We want to let the audience’s imagination soar, making them feel welcome, letting them be inspired by the artwork and the architecture as they prepare themselves. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been there only once or if you’re going to come repeatedly. People who have season tickets come and discover something new each time about how the hall is special.

I wanted to ask about this three-concert Water Festival. 

I thought it would be interesting to explore the relationship between mankind and nature, and how are we connected with composers and artists over the centuries – because the three programs span three centuries of music – through the medium of water. We are next to one of the Great Lakes, and rivers, and we experience water in many forms over the seasons. We partnered with organizations like UWM Freshwater Sciences whose daily exercise is to understand water better. In the arts we look past the plumbing, if you will, and look at what it means to us philosophically or spiritually. So it’s about starting a conversation around the topic that we can all identify with.

After living in Milwaukee a few years now, what have you learned about the city?

I’m just as curious about the city as I was before, still digging through the history and things that fascinate me as I’m planning further projects down the road. We want to bring everyone into the hall. You don’t need to know anything about music to experience it in a rich way. It will meet you where you are in your life and give you peace and renewed purpose. And I feel still not enough people know that one of the great orchestras in the country is in their backyard. It’s my hope that people would know that this resource is here for them.

I know that we’re ending the season with Mahler 2 and I’m really excited about that. What does Mahler or that piece specifically mean to you?

Like Beethoven, Mahler amplified his personal experience and put the hope of the greater mankind into a work, blowing it up even more. We did Beethoven 9 last season. Now the “Resurrection” is a step further, with even larger forces. The poetry is much more personal. I draw a parallel with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Mahler’s Resurrection in that both composers had such tragedies in their lives. And the only way they could express what was going on was by putting it down in music and sending it off almost like a message in a bottle: is there anyone out there who will understand?

Mahler was able to create this contrast between extraordinary pain, earthly pain, in the music—the suffering of seeing his own children die and other people around him die—and then at the same time, giving such hope to look beyond. And with the great forces we have, and the great chorus and soloists, I’m sure it will be a memorable thing to hear, and will also be the first Mahler symphony we will hear in the hall.

In these next couple years, is there a lofty dream piece you’d want to do, or is there a more general vision of what you want to accomplish with the orchestra?

The greatest power that we get is when we do a piece that we feel is just meeting us where we are in the moment, that needs to be heard. It’s important to me to find new ways to celebrate music and celebrate life, whether it’s through more festivals or new partnerships in the community. To me it’s never about feeling that we will have “arrived” when we have realized a certain project, or there’s always one project per season that I would want to highlight, even if that’s an easy way to market things. I want this orchestra to be a life-giving force in the city, where Milwaukeeans think, “I’m going through this moment in my life …what’s happening at the symphony?” That is where I imagine the orchestra to be, and we’re on a really good path.