October’s Artist of the Month: Conductor Jahja Ling

Jahja Ling, the San Diego Symphony’s conductor and music director, has never forgotten the first time he heard the sound of a live symphony orchestra. He was a 12-year-old piano student when his mother took him to a rehearsal of Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in Jakarta, Indonesia, Ling’s hometown.

The rehearsal was held in a basement; the musicians were doctors, lawyers and businessman rather than professional musicians. Yet the impact was so lasting that he might as well have been hearing a top orchestra in a world-class concert hall.

“I was astonished,” recalls Ling, whose only previous experience with orchestras had been through recordings. “I was so fascinated to see all the instruments and how they were played. I kept running around to look at the musicians. I’d watch the flute, the oboe, the strings…everything.”

Now, 45 years later, the fascination remains strong. Ling, who turns 58 on October 25, is the musical boss, resident maestro and guiding artistic force at the San Diego area’s leading symphony orchestra, where he’s involved in everything from what the orchestra plays to how it plays it.

On October 2, he’ll step onto the Copley Symphony Hall podium to begin his sixth season as music director.

“Can you believe it?” Ling asks with wide-eyed wonder. “Time goes so fast.”

Perhaps so. But he and the San Diego Symphony’s musicians, staff, board and supporters have accomplished much.

The once-bankrupt orchestra — which will celebrate its centennial during the 2010-11 season - has proved its resilience and staying power. As the Comeback Kid of the symphony world, it’s widely respected and debt-free, with a $17.2 million annual budget that puts it in the top tier of the country’s symphonic ensembles, according to the League of American Orchestras, the New York-based service organization.

The ensemble has moved up artistically as well as financially.

“Jahja is the quintessential music director,” says executive director Edward B. “Ward” Gill, who commends Ling’s educational background, experience and leadership. “He has worked with many great orchestras and been a wonderful mentor — this orchestra needed that. He has really shaped the orchestra, starting with the strings and going on to the woodwinds and brass. We don’t have a weak section. There’s nothing we can’t play.”

Masterworks and more

The orchestra’s versatility  will be amply demonstrated in the upcoming season, which includes the “Winter Pops,” “Family Festival Series,” “Young People’s Concerts” and “Symphony Exposed,” the latter hosted by commentator Nuvi Mehta, the “Voice of the San Diego Symphony.”

Ling will double as conductor and pianist during the “Opus 2009 Season Opening Gala” on October 3 at Irwin M. Jacobs Qualcomm Hall and will lead the majority of concerts in the “Jacobs’ Masterworks Series,” the orchestra’s core classical programming at Symphony Hall.

It’s no coincidence that this season’s “Masterworks” open with a program that includes Dvorak’s Symphony No. 8 and closes with concerts featuring Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 — the same two pieces that Ling conducted during his first season here, as music director designate.

“I wanted to have them bookend the season,” says the conductor, who hopes that audience members will notice, and appreciate, how the interpretations have changed.

Ling will also preside at the performances of Beethoven’s Ninth (Dec. 4-6) as well as at the “Beethoven Festival” (in April and May) that showcases all five of the piano concertos, with the celebrated Yefim Bronfman as soloist.

Up close and personal

Given his lofty responsibilities, you might assume that Ling would have a lavish dressing room. But his backstage headquarters are as unpretentious as the man himself.

There’s a piano and a microwave — two essentials for a busy maestro — plus a clock in the shape of a treble clef. Hanging on the walls is art that has special meaning to him, including works from China (reflecting his Chinese heritage) and Indonesia (his birthplace). There’s also a portrait of his mentor Leonard Bernstein (”he is always an inspiration to me”), a copy of the program for a historic Mahler concert in 1900, and a framed proclamation of San Diego’s “Jahja Ling Day” (October 2, 2004).

But the past isn’t nearly as exciting to him as the present. Talk to Ling (whose first name is pronounced “Yahk-ya”) and you feel like you’re speaking to someone who’s fully immersed in the moment. He speaks rapidly, often passionately, at an allegro con brio tempo. When he wants to get a point across, he’ll lean forward at the edge of his chair, combining gestures with his somewhat fractured English. You half expect him to whip out his baton and start conducting the conversation.

Ling is looking particularly fit these days. He credits twice-a-week sessions with a Pilates coach in Hillcrest, which has improved his posture and lessened the lower back pain he experienced as a result of conducting.

His fingers are also in shape. He has been practicing the piano about two hours a day for the past three months in preparation for the Gala on October 3, when he’ll team with the esteemed Takacs Quartet in Schumann’s challenging “Piano Quintet.”

Does his wife, pianist Jessie Chang, give him any advice?

“Sometimes she plays passages for me so I can see how she does them,” he says. “They are so easy for her.”

They live in Bonita with their two young daughters, Stephanie, 4, and six-year-old Priscila (who will portray a baby mouse in California Ballet’s holiday production of “The Nutcracker”).  Ling is also close to sons Gabriel, 27, a venture capitalist, and Daniel, 26, a medical student, the children from his marriage to wife Jane, who died of cancer.

“They lost their mother when they were teenagers,” Ling says. “So I got worried sometimes because they didn’t have a mother to nurture them. I thought: ‘How are they going to grow up and get educated and become a good person?’ God took care of them. I was very thankful.”

Surpassing expectations

Ling is no less candid about the satisfactions and difficulties of being the San Diego Symphony’s music director.

“The best thing is that you are building the orchestra (in a way) that people can really hear the difference,” says Ling, whose current contract runs until mid-2012. “We are reaching artistic excellence.

“A few years ago, I used to say that we’re a $13 million orchestra that plays like a $30 million orchestra,” he adds, referring to the annual budget. “Now we’re a $17 million orchestra that plays like a $40 million orchestra. We surpass expectations.”

To concertmaster Jeff Thayer, one of Ling’s greatest strengths as a conductor is his “musical integrity. His love of our art is incredibly genuine and his interpretations, I find, are always true to the music. His musicianship and experience enables him to create consistently high-quality, well-respected performances.”

About 40 players have joined the 70-member symphony during Ling’s tenure. Not all of them have stayed. But those who are now performing with such top U.S. ensembles as the Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony and Boston Symphony are proof that the San Diego Symphony attracts high-caliber players.

The downside is the ongoing challenge to change people’s minds about the state of the institution and its financial needs.

“The hardest thing to overcome is the perception that the San Diego Symphony has a bad history. I feel I am fighting the shadow of the past,” Ling says about the orchestra’s years of financial struggle, which culminated in a near-fatal crisis and two-year shutdown, from 1996-98.

The extraordinary generosity of benefactors Joan and Irwin Jacobs gave the orchestra unprecedented fiscal stability and confidence about the future. But it has also made fundraising more complicated.

“People don’t think we need support because the Jacobs are so generous,” Ling laments. “It can be like a brick wall. People say: ‘You already have money. What else do you need?’”

One thing that doesn’t bother Ling much is the love-hate relationship that musicians often have with music directors.

“It’s part of the job description,” he says. “Love is always good but respect is more important. You have to earn that. Musicians need to know that when you stand there, you mean business. You want to make music of the best quality. There’s a sense of oneness. Everybody serves the music together.”

The prize-winning pianist-turned-conductor has been serving music for decades. Trained at Juilliard and Yale, he has guest conducted around the globe, from Boston to Beijing, and distinguished himself in such posts as resident conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra, director of its Blossom Festival, and music director of the Florida Orchestra, of which he is now music director laureate.

And he has high hopes for the San Diego Symphony. The orchestra’s debut at New York’s famed Carnegie Hall is a possibility in 2012 or 2013 while a concert in Los Angeles or Orange County is under consideration for next year.

Also being discussed are additional recordings, both distinctive commercial CDs (like the recent Bright Sheng disc) and in-house CDs that highlight more traditional repertoire from Symphony Hall performances.

Above all, Ling wants to share music with listeners.

“Music can touch their heart, move their soul, and even sometimes change their life,” says the conductor who knows all about such things, having experienced them himself.

Valerie Scher is the SDNN Arts & Entertainment editor. You can reach her at valerie.scher(at)sdnn.com; follow her on Twitter at vscher

Event info

What: 2009-2010 Jacobs’ Masterworks Series

Where: Copley Symphony Hall, 750 B St., downtown

When: Concerts held on selected days between October 2 and May 23

Tickets/information: (619) 235-0804; www.sandiegosymphony.com

Tags: Beethoven, Beethoven Festival, Blossom Festival, Bright Sheng, Carnegie Hall, Cleveland Orchestra, Copley Symphony Hall, Edward B. "Ward" Gill, Florida Orchestra, indonesia, Jacobs Masterworks Seriess, Jahja Ling, Jakarta, Jeff Thayer, Juilliard, Leonard Bernstein, Nuvi Mehta, San Diego Symphony, SDNN, Yefim Bronfman

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 at 9:29 pm and is filed under Artist of the Month, Arts & Entertainment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.