Read on to discover all about JoAnn Falletta, the trailblazing American conductor, who this year celebrates 25 years as the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra's music director...
Who is JoAnn Falletta?
JoAnn Falletta is no stranger to milestones, but even she accepts that 25 years as music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra is a big one. Such landmark anniversaries are rare, and see her welcomed into an elite pantheon of quarter-centenarians that includes Zubin Mehta at the Israel Philharmonic and Iván Fischer at the Budapest Festival Orchestra. But Falletta is many things besides. She’s a double Grammy Award winner, a prolific recording artist with an omnivorously eclectic repertoire, and a tireless evangelist for community engagement.
How old is JoAnn Falletta?
JoAnn Falletta was born on 27 February 1954 in Queens, New York, and is 70 years old.
Working with the 'independent and exuberant' Buffalo Philharmonic
‘It’s all gone very fast,’ JoAnn Falletta admits of her time in Buffalo, New York State’s second largest city, at times unfairly belittled as a blue-collar town with somewhat challenging weather patterns.
Today, her imprint is all over the orchestra. ‘At this point I’ve probably appointed more than two thirds of the players,’ she explains, speaking over Zoom from the US. ‘We’ve been through difficult times, like the pandemic, but the relationship has grown stronger. For me, it has created an orchestra with a personality, but one that has become more independent and more exuberant.’
As we chat away, it’s clear why Falletta is so admired and roundly liked in the business. She’s thoughtful, generous with her time and quietly modest about her achievements. Some of those traits she likes to think she’s fostered in her players. ‘I believe very much in flexibility,’ she says. ‘There’s a kind of plan you have in rehearsal and then a blossoming – or a risk-taking – in the concert. I like the idea that players can inject a lot of themselves into the music, and of course when you know an orchestra you can let them do that. But it involves a lot of trust, in both directions.’
It’s a relationship founded on familiarity and mutual respect. ‘Being with a group of musicians for so long, you see so much of their lives,’ she explains. ‘The happy things, like having a child or buying a new house, or unhappy things like losing a parent or an illness. It really is like a family, in the best sense.’
What Falletta calls the orchestra’s ‘extravagant’ personality is well suited to its Buffalo home. Kleinhans Music Hall is an acoustical gem opened in 1940 and declared a National Historic Landmark in 1989. ‘They love it,’ she says, ‘and the audience is close so there’s the feeling of playing directly to people who know them.’
JoAnn Falletta - the first female music director of a major US orchestra
Over a 47-year career, Falletta’s broken more glass ceilings than some have had hot dinners. In 1989, she was the first woman to become music director of an American regional orchestra when she took the reins at California’s Long Beach Symphony; her appointment in Buffalo made her the first female music director of a major American orchestra; and from 2011-14, she was the first woman and the first American to serve as principal conductor of the Ulster Orchestra. She was even namechecked by Cate Blanchett in Todd Field’s Tár.
How did JoAnn Falletta become a conductor?
Born in Queens into an Italian-American family, her first passion was the guitar she was gifted on her seventh birthday. Four years later, conducting came calling. ‘I remember going to a concert conducted by Leopold Stokowski in Carnegie Hall,’ she recalls. ‘He played Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony, that’s all I remember, because afterwards he turned around, which astonished me, and said, “Since you liked that, I’m going to play the last movement again.” I was ecstatic, and I said to my father, “I want to be that person.”’
At 18, Falletta enrolled at New York’s Mannes College of Music as a double major in guitar and conducting. Never imagining that gender would be an issue, it came as a surprise when it was suggested that, since so few women had succeeded as orchestral conductors, she might try choral conducting instead. ‘Oh, no, no. I want to be in the middle of the orchestra!’ she replied. ‘But I didn’t do it to be a pioneer; I was just in love with the orchestra.’
Studying with Leonard Bernstein
Mannes agreed to let her sit in on classes, only formally accepting her in the second year. From there she progressed to Juilliard as a full-blown conducting student. Her teachers, Jorge Mester and Sixten Ehrling, were important influences, but nothing was quite so inspiring as the occasions when Leonard Bernstein would drop by.
‘It was an eye-opener,’ she says. ‘He walked into that room and the whole atmosphere changed. It was electrifying. He would show us what he would do with the orchestra. And then I realised that something was emanating from him, some force, some belief in this music that was so strong even the most confused person in the orchestra knew what to do.’
A particular moment springs to mind when her group was nervously studying Bizet’s Carmen. ‘There were five of us very carefully planning how we were going to subdivide beats,’ she recalls, ‘and he said, “No! What are you thinking about? You’re in the middle of the bullring, the sun is beating down on you. The crowd is screaming, and you can smell the blood. That’s where you are. That’s what the music means.” And of course he was right.’
JoAnn Falletta's big break - winning the Stokowski Competition
Falletta’s break came when she won the Stokowski Competition in 1985. ‘That was a big deal, because a woman had never won that,’ she says. ‘Margaret Hillis was choral director of the Chicago Symphony and one of the judges, and she said, “You’re about to do what I wanted to do, but it was too early. The door is open now – you go for it.”’
The music director rollcall at Buffalo is impressive, from legendary maestros such as William Steinberg and Josef Krips to modern heavyweights like Michael Tilson Thomas, Semyon Bychkov and composer Lukas Foss. ‘It was daunting to follow them,’ Falletta admits, ‘but every one of them has created the orchestra’s sound. People like Lukas Foss and MTT gave it a certain American muscle, a rhythmic energy and a willingness to go for it.’
A partnership with Naxos Records... recording lesser-known works
Soon after her appointment, Falletta took a call from Naxos Records founder Klaus Heymann. ‘He asked if Buffalo would like to be one of his US orchestras,’ she recalls, ‘“But you can’t do anything we have in our catalogue,” he said to me.’
‘I thought, “There’s nothing”. But there were things, and so for the last 25 years we’ve been recording works by people like Josef Suk, who’s hardly ever done, and Marcel Tyberg, who died in Auschwitz and never heard his music.’
It’s been a great adventure, and in part has defined her career. ‘A friend said to me once, “You’ve become the queen of the B-pieces,”’ she laughs. ‘I said, “What do you mean by that?” And he said, “Pieces that are good but are not Beethoven. You lavish so much love on them that you make them shine.” That was a big compliment.’
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Naxos has produced nearly 30 BPO albums to date. Earlier this year, they released a disc of music by the criminally under-recorded Lukas Foss. Not only was he a previous music director in Buffalo, but he mentored Falletta when she was his associate conductor at the Milwaukee Symphony in the mid-1980s.
‘Lukas was a crazy man, but he was a genius,’ she says. ‘Three years with him gave me the chance to watch a composer conducting an orchestra. He was a great champion of young composers – he gave the world premiere of John Adams’s The Chairman Dances when it was considered unplayable – but then music went in a different direction and he was forgotten. Everything interested him, but Lukas said he was out of sync with the times. The pieces on the disc are ones any orchestra could programme, and audiences would say, “Wow, that was amazing”.’
More to learn and new works to discover
New music remains front and centre in Falletta’s life. In November, she conducts the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Colin Currie in Danny Elfman’s Percussion Concerto. Earlier this year, Sony released their all-Elfman disc, including Wunderkammer, a piece commissioned by the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain that premiered at the 2022 BBC Proms. ‘I think he felt he had licence to do anything,’ she smiles. ‘There’s so much going on, with stunning colours and a sense of drama that never flags. And it’s really fun!’
Falletta, who celebrated her 70th birthday in February this year, is clearly raring to go, planning tours and looking to commission new works for Buffalo. ‘There’s so much music to do, so much to discover,’ she enthuses. ‘There’s an appetite here, and because we’ve gained the trust of the audience, we can do almost anything.
‘I feel I’ve learned a lot but there’s a lot more to learn,’ she says with typical humility. ‘Musicians are your teachers. Being in the middle of a great orchestra you learn a lot, very fast, every single day, from listening to how they shape the music to how comfortable they feel. Because if an orchestra is comfortable, we can go anywhere.’