Candidate No. 3 gets his turn

The third candidate for music director of the Richmond Symphony Orchestra gets an interesting ride in his two major slots on the podium.

Steven Smith was scheduled to conduct an all-George Gershwin program last night in the orchestra's first Pops Concert of the season at the Landmark Theater. He is slated to tackle Samuel Barber and Franz Schubert along with Igor Stravinsky's "Symphony of Psalms" with the Richmond Symphony Orchestra Chorus beginning Friday night.

The Toledo, Ohio, native spends most of his time in New Mexico, where he is in his 10th season as music director for the Santa Fe Symphony Orchestra. He also is music director of the Cleveland Chamber Symphony. From 1996 to 2003, he was assistant conductor of the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra.

"I've heard about the quality of the Richmond Symphony over the past few years and how it's been improving," Smith, 48, said in a recent telephone interview. "Combined with that, I've learned a lot about Richmond being a vibrant, growing city.

"I've also read a lot about the downtown redevelopment, including the CenterStage project, which seems incredibly exciting, not just for the symphony but for all of the arts in Richmond. All of these things come together to provide what I think would be a great opportunity for a place to work and live, looking at it from the standpoint of a new conductor coming to the orchestra."

Smith believes that there are good vibrations to be gained from the Richmond Symphony having to perform away from its former home at the Carpenter Center. "Playing at the various venues around the city as the orchestra has done for almost five years, I actually think is a positive," Smith said. "Hopefully, the fact that people who might not ever have heard the symphony attended some of these concerts in outlying areas, and the orchestra will have had a sort of Pied-Piper effect and these people will decide to come down to CenterStage."

The Cleveland Chamber Symphony, established in 1980 by Dr. Edward London, has the motto: "Music that dares to explore." While the CCS plays a few concerts a year, it has presented more than 170 world premieres, mostly by American composers.

A composer himself, Smith said his composition selections for the RSO would be widely varied.

"I think music really is a continuum," Smith said. "I think it's fascinating how composers of any generation are influenced by the works of previous generations. This current period of time in terms of contemporary music probably is one of the most varied periods of music history we've ever seen.

"As a result, we have an enormous variety of music from very abstract atonal works to what's been called neo-romanticism . . . a return to the music we would have heard 100 years ago, and virtually everything in between."

In addition to that, he said, is the variety of new influences from around the world.

"The movement has been enormous," Smith said. "What has been the tradition of Western classical music -- the classical symphony orchestra -- is bringing in composers from places such as Asia and Africa. And what we're finding is they are introducing what could only be described as a new sound to the symphony orchestra.

"I think it's a very exciting time for orchestras today. That said, we know that listeners are depending on us to make good and judicious selections, leading them to listen to music that we believe deeply in and we feel will speak to them."

Smith is married to Stacia Lewandowski, whom he met when they were students at the Eastman School of Music. Lewandowski is a flutist, but she is not plying her musical trade. She works with the Zaplin Lampert Gallery in Santa Fe and is writing a book on early artists in the Santa Fe area.

Nine candidates are vying to be music director after Mark Russell Smith leaves next season.
Contact Walt Amacker at (804) 649-6247 or .