August 3, 2026
The first time Andris Nelsons conducted the Boston Symphony was a transcendent musical experience for me. We had recently been through a traumatic loss of music director partway through a dress rehearsal of Mahler 9, which we were not only performing in Symphony Hall in Boston, but planning to take to Carnegie Hall in a few weeks. An early-career assistant conductor led the orchestra in Boston because of how abruptly James Levine left his position, but there was time to hire a great conductor before our trip to New York. That conductor was Andris Nelsons.
Andris came to Boston for one rehearsal and immediately transformed and transfixed the Boston Symphony. I can't speak for the experience of anyone else on that stage, except to say that what I heard was utter devotion to listening from every person in the room.
When Andris arrived it was to lead an orchestra in disarray. Truthfully, Levine had been unwell leading up to his departure and morale on stage was quite low. People had begun talking a lot during rehearsals, and we were frustrated with ways his failing hearing put us in tough professional situations over and over. Levine was uniquely obsessed with where exactly on stage different people sat, often moving a section five feet in some direction and then expressing delight at the sonic transformation only he could hear. He had also set the orchestra up with violins across the front of the stage. There are arguments for this seating, but it means that the players at the back of each violin section are as far away from each other as they can be, and distance always makes our jobs harder. The two violin sections often have material in octaves, as if it is one violin section, or material in dialogue. In both of these instances when violins sit across the front of the stage in stereo, it is as if one violin section has been divided, one could argue, in an unnatural Solomonic way. Sometimes it felt like the orchestra was so frustrated we just stopped trying to accomplish the impossible--listening for things that were not possible to hear.
It was in this context that Andris took the podium. We started playing the first movement of Mahler 9, which begins with a musical heartbeat. It is sweet and tender, and needs the musicians to listen with generosity and collaboration to fit together meaningfully. My recollection is that somewhere on the first page of my part, someone came in too soon with material that clipped the end of our phrase. Andris gently asked the player to listen to the violas so he could coordinate with the end of our gesture. It had been so long since someone had asked us to listen to each other, to support each other musically in this generous way, that one of the violists, a senior member of the orchestra who had studied with the legendary William Primrose, literally stood up and clapped.
Without taking you through each moment of that rehearsal, I will say that it was transformative for the Boston Symphony. It was healing. It was hopeful. It was affirming. And it was a reminder of what is possible when a hundred people share a vision. It was magical, as it always is when a great orchestra is led by a profound musician who connects us to each other through their interpretation of music that calls to our souls. By the end of that epic symphony, which is in some ways the journey of a whole lifetime, including its heartbreaking quiet end, we listened to each other. We listened in reverence as we played, as we completed our part of the score and rested, as we collectively traversed this momentous piece of music. We listened.
I wept.
Can you feel the stillness, the sanctity of being on that stage with us?
I weep now remembering it. When I travel through the memory of this rehearsal, I am called upon to love my colleagues, whose artistry was essential to the sublime musical journey led by Andris. I am called upon to love the same colleagues who drive me crazy talking during rehearsals while I am playing, or who scrape the lowest moments we've shared to tell the press when we've failed to be our best, or who don't continue to listen with generosity while we make music together. I am still altered because of what Andris did on the podium that day. I am called upon to be a better human.
What I experienced was transcendent.
It is common to be a good conductor; it is rare and so very precious for a conductor to breathe transcendence into music. When people ask why the Boston Symphony is so connected to our music director, this is why, and and this is why we have been connected to him from the beginning. It was immediate. When people don't ask why we are so connected to him, particularly people with a lot of money and power, this is why we are so confused and upset. This is why we have written letters, asked for explanations, demanded recognition of our expertise, found myriad ways to explain answers to questions that are not being asked. The unasked questions we are offering answers to should have been asked by anyone claiming to lead the Boston Symphony.
A symphony orchestra is not an office, a democracy, an army, or a corporation, and it should not be run like them. To do so is to destroy it. As Andris says every time he comes to Boston to lead us, a symphony orchestra is an artform that calls to our humanity, asks us to love each other in meaningful ways--ways that demand equity, inclusion, justice, peace, courage, empathy. A symphony orchestra calls upon you and me both to be our most generous selves.
Andris Nelsons conducts every concert with the expectation that we will make profound music together. He leads us wholeheartedly with belief in the mission of our artform, belief in its universal appeal, with a desire to welcome all to our shared space. On stage, we feel how essential our audience is to the life of the score. We collectively ask people to consider others as we share the concert hall with each other because it allows each of us to hear the vast array of sounds together--sounds that make us feel alive, that heal us and connect us. Considering each other is vital to the life of music. We need each other--on stage and in the audience--to be able to share. Indeed, listening well together is the very thing that creates the unforgettable, inexplicable, undeniable transcendence that feeds our souls. The shared experience is the transcendence.
Andris Nelsons leads the Boston Symphony with an indefatigable hope that profound music-making can make a difference in a world that needs and deserves our love and strength every day.
Why would anyone ever crush that generosity--the beautiful living thing that animates our art?