YSO to host guest conductor for holiday
The holidays are a hectic time for many people.
Conducting the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra’s Christmas pops concert on Saturday at Powers Auditorium won’t be hectic for guest conductor Edward Leonard, at least compared to his YSO debut in October.
Leonard had about 48 hours notice before the first rehearsal when he was asked to step in for Sergey Bogza, who was supposed to make his debut as the orchestra’s new conductor and music director on Oct. 5.
“The orchestra is very nimble and very professional and terrific musicians, so they made it easy for me but, yeah, it was quite an experience,” Leonard said.
Bogza resigned as conductor in early November becayse of “personal, health and family reasons,” and Leonard was announced as his replacement for the Christmas concert at that time.
“I let them know as soon as I was done in October that I’d love to come back,” Leonard said.
“I know a lot of folks in the orchestra and it was nice to meet a bunch of new players. I was so pleased with how they performed and just the warmth I felt from them and the audience and the board members I met and the staff. Everybody was really terrific, and I jumped at the chance when they asked me back.”
Leonard is a South Carolina native and both of his parents were string players in the Charleston Symphony Orchestra.
After earning his bachelor’s degree in piano performance at the College of Charleston, Leonard moved to Pittsburgh and earned his master’s degree in orchestral conducting at Carnegie Mellon University.
He is the founder and music director of The Chamber Orchestra of Pittsburgh and served as music director of the Pittsburgh Philharmonic for eight seasons and assistant conductor with Opera Theater of Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh Ballet Theater.
For Saturday’s concert, Leonard and the orchestra will be joined by vocalists Scott Coulter and Jessica Hendy and pianist John Boswell.
Coulter is the founder of Spot-On Entertainment, which creates orchestral concert programs, and he also has toured with composer Stephen Schwartz and vocalists Liz Callaway and Debbie Gravitte in the musical revue Stephen Schwartz & Friends.
Hendy appeared on Broadway in “Cats,” “Aida” and “Amour,” and Boswell appeared on Broadway in the musical “Crazy for You” and has served as musical director for Judy Collins, Andy Williams and Bob Newhart.
The theme of Saturday’s concert is “Christmas at the Movies” and features plenty of holiday standards (“It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas,” “Sleigh Ride,” “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” “O Holy Night,” “The First Noel”) and some less-traditional selections. animated hit “Frozen.”
“It’s kind of tricky to program these kinds of concerts, because you want to feature music that’s pretty familiar to the orchestra because of time restraints (with only one rehearsal), but I also want to keep it interesting for the orchestra,” Leonard said. “They’ve played so many of these shows, and I personally can’t speak for the musicians, but it’s easy to lose that edge of excitement they maybe have for repertoire you don’t play all the time.
“Luckily Scott sent some pieces that aren’t normally on a holiday concert. We’re doing ‘Tomorrow’ from ‘Annie’ and we’re doing ‘Let It Go’ (from ‘Frozen’). They may have played it in a holiday concert before, but it’s a newer piece.”
Leonard said holiday concerts can serve as an introduction to classical music for some concertgoers, and he hopes those who may be seeing the orchestra for the first time on Saturday will come back for one of the Masterworks concerts later this season.
With the Youngstown Symphony Society relaunching its search for a new music director and conductor, Leonard wouldn’t mind being the one who leads those future concerts.
“I’m certainly interested,” Leonard said. “I live right up the road. It’s a really tremendous orchestra. I think the folks of Youngstown are very lucky to have this caliber or orchestra … We’ll see what the future holds.”