Alan Gilbert ’89: Musician, Conductor, Visionary

Lowell Common Room was pitch black. The audience shuffled. Instruments fell silent and the music began. Alternatively dissonant and melodic chords rose and fell, interrupted by meditative poetic passages.

Alan Gilbert ’89 had just entered Harvard College as a freshman. He was playing the violin that evening, performing an experimental piece that juxtaposed the chamber music “Quartet for the End of Time” by French composer Olivier Messiaen with the lofty poetry set “Four Quartets” written by T.S. Eliot.

“He was so totally committed to the music, very unselfconsciously absorbed,” said Yun Soon Lee ’87, who played piano in the quartet with Gilbert that evening. “He projected a very natural confidence and authority based on his musicianship.”

Gilbert has now served as director of the New York Philharmonic for the last five years, honing a reputation for unexpectedly intermingling the symphony with other artistic forms.

He has managed to define a cohesive musical philosophy that relies on technical proficiency while approaching the complex, and often unfamiliar, landscape of modern music.

Today he says that the years he spent at Harvard profoundly shaped how he approaches musical performance at the Philharmonic by encouraging him to take risks while maintaining technical exactitude.

A YOUNG MUSICIAN AT HARVARD

Gilbert estimates that he participated in about 100 productions over the course of his four years––one for about every week he was on campus.

“We had to do everything ourselves, so resultantly we were always putting on concerts,” he said.

Gilbert also used his time at Harvard to develop his eclecticism. Already an experienced conductor as well as a violinist, Gilbert was constantly asked to conduct works by a slew of known and more obscure composers.

“The range of things was really impressive,” he said.

Harvard ultimately fostered a unique community, which Gilbert acknowledged could verge on pretentious.

“It was extremely highbrow and unbelievably austere and pretentious,” Gilbert said. “It would only have happened at Harvard.”

Although the Harvard music scene could be overly highbrow at times, it offered Gilbert a chance to pursue a wide range of academic and musical opportunities.

A conservatory, on the other hand, would have offered a more focused path.

“If I want to be able to experience a broader liberal arts education and spend time around people who would be exploring all different fields of inquiry, the time to do it was right after high school,” he remembered thinking.

According to Gilbert, the music faculty was instrumental in inspiring and challenging him by encouraging him to broadly examine the music he studied.

Lee, now a professor of English literature at Wellesley, painted the faculty at the time as worthy of immense respect, but also remarkably open. Gilbert also respected his former professors, particularly the composer and faculty member Earl Kim who mentored him.

“[Kim and I] would become beautifully obsessed about the smallest detail in a piece of music or a sauce that he was making for his food,” Gilbert said. “The kind of aesthetic delight that he embodied is something I think about to this day.”

Although Gilbert formed strong bonds with professors like Kim, some of his fellow students thought he was aloof. Justin Davidson ’87, who is now a music and architecture critic for New York Magazine, took several classes with Gilbert and was initially surprised by his persona.

“You have this idea that conductors have natural charisma and physical grace,” Davidson said. “Alan in college was quiet and somewhat aloof.”

Even Gilbert jokingly admitted that he might have rubbed fellow students the wrong way.

“I remember being unbelievably confident––even annoyingly so––about my approach to music,” Gilbert said. “I was probably kind of insufferable.”

THE DIRECTOR

As musical director of the Philharmonic, Gilbert has departed from the orthodoxy of predecessor Lorin V. Maazel to craft challenging and contemporary programming.

“I’m still figuring out how to allow musicians to be fully themselves while remaining true to myself,” Gilbert said.

While acknowledging that there is room for continued growth, Davidson lauded the current state of the Philharmonic.

“The Philharmonic––and I never would have said this ten years ago––is one of the more modern orchestras.”

Davidson praised the maestro’s daring choices, highlighting how Gilbert has mounted a performance of Stockhausen’s intricate “Gruppen” in the booming Park Avenue Armory, presented a staged version of Ligeti’s “Le Grand Macabre,” and collaborated extensively with visual artist Douglas Fitch ’81.

Gilbert was forced to be creative since the number of patrons willing to buy subscriptions to the Philharmonic has dwindled in recent years, creating a need for constantly engaging content.

According to Davidson, Gilbert has managed to generate the interest among New Yorkers that the Philharmonic needs to thrive.

Gilbert’s genius, Davidson suggested, lies in his ability to generate widespread enthusiasm with his ingenuity.

Describing how New York has responded the programs crafted by Gilbert, Davidson said, “something interesting is going on at the Philharmonic––and it isn’t just another Mahler concert!’”

—Staff writer David J. Kurlander can be reached at david.kurlander@thecrimson.com.