The Oregon Symphony’s Sounds Like Portland Festival is under way, and David Danzmayr will be conducting this weekend’s performance of The Seven Deadly Sins with Storm Large. The concert features two pieces by local composers and one world premiere: David Schiff’s Uptown/Downtown piano concerto for Darrell Grant, and Ostinato by Alejandro Belgique. 

I spoke with Danzmayr on a frigid Tuesday morning. He arrived in Portland late the night before from working with the Pro Musica ensemble in Columbus. He showed up just in time for our ten A.M. interview, already brimming with enthusiasm, and spoke with verve. We discussed the origins of the festival, European and American attitudes towards music, and the Oregon Symphony’s role in the state’s musical culture and economy.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity and flow.

Oregon Arts Watch: What was the impetus behind the Sounds Like Portland Festival, featuring the Oregon Symphony and local ensembles playing music by local musicians? 

David Danzmayr: When I became music director here, a lot of the music that was played was non-Portland-ish. Everyone does things different, so that’s not me criticising things. The way I did programming once I became a music director of American orchestras more than ten years ago was to try and find a balance. 

Let me back track a little bit. I grew up in Salzburg in Austria, in the eighties and nineties. Contemporary music at that time in the German-speaking countries was pretty exclusively hardcore atonal, serialist. No rhythm, no melody, no nothing. It was very much noise. And while there can be some fascinating pieces in that style, I felt it wasn’t very audience-friendly. There was just this one style; if you wrote a melody, it was considered reactionary. When I moved to the United States to join my first orchestra, the Illinois Philharmonic, I was charmed that I was the only European in the music director search – all the rest were I believe Americans. When I got the job, I made a commitment to playing a piece of American music on every program. That got picked up by the Chicago Tribune. 

I discovered that in the US there are modern composers, living composers particularly, that are quite listenable and enjoyable for the audience. I love what we call the war-horses like Tchaikovsky 5 – that’s the music I fell in love with. And I have a huge appreciation for more modern American composers like Andy Akiho – Andy is always the first name to come to mind. If we wanted to play a contemporary piece, we tried to find a more diversified American experience, for lack of a better word.

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Through that process, we discovered that we are living in a period in Portland that is very fortunate. Andy Akiho is here, Gabe Kahane, Kenji Bunch. I started working with Giancarlo Castro and was like, “this is so great!” And Caroline Shaw moved here, who was already a huge name. esperanza spalding is here, and I’m forgetting many names. We also have great singers like China Forbes, Storm Large, Pink Martini, and lots of small groups and bands. There’s a real vibrancy. 

For me, I want to think of a Portland School, like the Viennese Schools. Coming from Austria it’s very logical for me to think that way. In the Pacific Northwest and Portland specifically, we have such a moment that the Oregon Symphony needs to highlight, and it deserves to be highlighted. As one of the biggest arts organizations not just in town, but in the entire state, it’s our obligation and our joy to highlight and feature those voices. And I think in essence that’s how the Sounds Like Portland came to be. 

OAW: So you didn’t have that same inspiration looking at contemporary music in Europe compared with American contemporary music? 

DD: I had a contemporary music ensemble in Salzburg for a couple of years, Ensemble Acrobat. It was a great ensemble, I loved working with them. To be honest, the pieces we performed I didn’t always love. There is an audience there for that in Europe, and it can be interesting. That doesn’t mean that every piece has to be in that style. It’s fringe – and fringe is great, I love fringe! The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is wonderful. But you have to at least recognize when you do something that’s a bit fringe. 

Look, don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying there’s anything inherently wrong with atonal music, but I think there’s something wrong if a certain type of music becomes dogma that dictates how people are supposed to express themselves. In classical music, there were rules of course, but composers broke those rules and were free to express themselves. Beethoven broke a lot of rules, obviously. 

I had this feeling that atonality had run its course in the sixties and seventies, and I didn’t quite understand why everyone was still writing in that style by the eighties and nineties. It felt so insular because I always listened to a wide variety of music, like Metallica and Pink Floyd, and when I was eighteen or so I went to a lot of electronic music parties with drum and bass. It all spoke to me. We are oblivious to the times we are living in, as part of a whole! All musical styles form one whole, it’s not like classical music is its own island. We need to stop looking at it that way. I felt that the living composers in the US were more familiar with that attitude.

Jazz can be a wonderful influence on orchestral music, such as in the Dawson Symphony, or William Grant Still. Then you have film music, and you have young composers who are trained in different styles. Maybe because the US is a younger country; it’s a mix of cultures. That’s what I love about the United States. Blending styles is much more natural to American composers than to German composers. And I think it changes in Europe as well – I notice there’s quite a bit different now, they feel more free to express themselves. 

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OAW: A lot of the great classical composers, like Mahler, incorporated music from the non-classical repertoire: folk music, klezmer, marches. 

DD: Absolutely. And it was particularly shocking when a lot of that got cut off, particularly in my own country. Schubert, Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, Mahler, Brucker, you name it. Every composer you can name has some influence of folk music, of traditional music, as it should be. And Americans started with that, with Gershwin and Grant Still. 

OAW: Classical music can feel like it has a self-contained repertoire of influences you are allowed to have. All music that is not within that is disconnected. I think a lot of Americans, especially younger ones, feel like, “why do I need to say that a composer working in Europe three hundred years ago is more important to my musical language than people who are making music right now, in America?”

DD: The music that has survived is heavily filtered. While Mozart is still played, Wagenseil and Stammitz are not. The reason is that Mozart was a genius, while the others were serviceable, good composers. So I always have a sense of reverence towards music that manages to survive that long out of the inventiveness of the composer. In Mahler, the expression of emotions is cranked up to such a high level. We will see in a hundred years what music will survive from our times. 

It’s a sign of our times that we always want to put things into categories, in every single aspect – not just in music. To me it’s very alien. Why can’t I listen to an album of Pink Floyd one day, a Beethoven symphony the next, go to a drum and bass event, and the next day go to a jazz club? And people get very mad about what belongs in which category. Why can’t somebody just write? When somebody composes a piece, I want to hear something about the composer. I want to be moved, I want to feel something, and feel inspired. It can also be uncomfortable. I want a composer to write something that resembles that composer. When I listen to Andy Akiho’s music I hear something about Andy, it’s all very much Andy. 

OAW: That medium of expression can be anything, not just orchestra or chamber ensemble. 

DD: A symphony orchestra is a unique medium of expression, because how often do you get eighty to a hundred people together on stage, creating something live together? Everyone’s so trained on their instruments. I’m not saying that makes an orchestra a better medium than any other. It makes it very unique. You don’t get a heavy metal band with a hundred people. That human element, eighty people breathing, it’s like a mind link on stage. You only get that with a full orchestra. It’s quite astonishing. 

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OAW: Was there a particular attitude towards American music in Europe while you were growing up? Did they have particular American composers they considered important? 

DD: In the classical world, you had very little of that. I mean you had Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and An American in Paris, the famous stuff. 

OAW: Or the avant-garde would have John Cage and Morton Feldman.

DD: I remember at the Salzburg Festival, they created an extra festival called Zeitfluss. One concert was an evening of only John Cage’s music, two and a half, three hours. It was one of the best concerts I’ve been to in my life. In that sense, yes, the big names made it over. But the orchestras wouldn’t play Piston. William Grant Still was completely unknown, which was unfortunate. 

When I was growing up, the view Europeans had of Americans was very Hollywood-y in some ways. There certainly wasn’t an anti-American sentiment at that time. There was incredible admiration. Everyone thought the whole of America was California, Florida and New York. “In America, there is jazz and beaches! Everyone has a sun tan, and everyone drives a Corvette!” On the other hand, we Europeans felt we were cultured, more mature. It was a weird viewpoint. With the internet it’s become different. 

OAW: Maybe some Cold War influence was there too, because America had a big role in shaping the political and cultural landscape of Western Europe. 

DD: Russian music was always very popular. You look back at the times of Tchaikovsky, there was a lot of cultural exchange. As Vienna was one of the cultural capitals, St. Petersburg was too. Shostakovich got a lot more popular when the Soviet Bloc fell apart. It was exciting times; I was nine years old in ‘89. I visited East Germany for the first time in ‘91 with my father, after the fall of the wall. It was fascinating. Those times lend itself to orchestras playing more Shostakovich. 

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OAW: When you started conducting in America, were there any particular composers that you heard that were eye-opening? You mentioned William Grant Still. 

DD: In my first season here I conducted the Dawson Symphony, and it took me a lot of years to get it on the programs. After the pandemic it was much easier to program things that were lesser-known. When I became a music director in America, I did a deep dive – and thank god for the Internet! I’m still doing this deep-dive. There is great stuff here. We had committed to playing American music on every program, and I discovered music by Grant Still, Piston, all this stuff I didn’t know before. This is really wonderful music! I don’t know why it doesn’t get played more. Then the realization hit, that not just in Europe but also in America that it doesn’t get played as much. 

My teacher in Salzburg, Dennis Russell Davies, is an American, and he brought stuff like Ives, which draws a lot on the folk music of America, and he introduced us to Copland, Bolcolm, and Philip Glass. Through him I discovered that the American style was quite different. Glass was popular in Europe because of films like The Truman Show, and Koyaanisqatsi had a cult following in Europe. I always loved the Star Wars soundtrack too. It was a big moment when I conducted “The Throne Room” from Star Wars at my first concert with the Oregon Symphony on the waterfront. God, it’s such a good feeling to conduct it with an American orchestra. That’s one of the big moments of my life. 

OAW: Do you have other living composers who you would really like to conduct but haven’t had the chance to? 

DD: One person is Roberto Sierra. The Sinfonia no. 4 is really good. Then it’s more pieces; I have yet to conduct the Fourth Symphony of Grant Still, a fascinating piece. When you have a career like me when you have musical directorships and guest conducting, it’s also a time question. You have to find the time to learn the music. I’m sure there are composers out there I haven’t discovered; there are new composers always emerging. We did a short piece by Elena Kats-Chernin, an Australian living composer. I love her music. We did a quite short work of hers, Dance of the Paper Umbrella, and I still have people asking me, “who was the name of that Australian female composer?” 

There are only so many programs and things you can do. You want to find a good balance; I’d be extremely sad if I had a season without a Beethoven symphony. I loved conducting Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony a few weeks ago. By the way, that was a piece I discovered fairly late. His symphonies weren’t played a lot in Europe – the piano concertos of course were constantly performed. The Glass Violin Concerto was new to me; Simone Porter chose that one and I quite enjoyed it. I think it’s a piece the audience also enjoys, a piece of contemporary music that’s quite listenable. 

OAW: Do you find audiences generally receptive to new music? 

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DD: Because there was a phase where contemporary music meant, “this is going to whack me over the head like a hammer,” there can be some apprehension beforehand. So it’s on us as performers to introduce contemporary pieces to the audience that they hopefully like. Some people might be afraid to see the name of a composer they don’t know at all. 

My mom is a visual artist, and she said that with modern art, if you don’t like it, you go to a different room or leave the museum. It’s at your own pace, and you decide. She’s right. If I love an artwork I can stand in front of it for half an hour; if I think it’s rubbish I can just go somewhere else. With contemporary music, if you don’t like the piece and it’s thirty minutes long, you’re stuck there. 

OAW: I mean, you can get up and leave, but it’s highly frowned upon. 

DD: It takes guts. It takes a certain personality – if you’re a polite person you probably don’t do that. I think people will discover there’s a lot of contemporary stuff out there that’s not frightening, that’s actually quite neat. 

OAW: I recently spoke with David Schiff about the upcoming concerto performance. From your perspective as the conductor, what are you finding in the score, and what challenges are there in premiering a new work? 

DD: There are inherent challenges in pieces that are world premiere. The challenge is that you are flying a bit blind. You can’t call someone and ask, “that transition looks complicated, how did you do that?” or have some reference point. You have the score and that’s it. The orchestra’s never seen or heard it before either. Darrell Grant comes from the jazz tradition, so we need to somewhere meet in the middle: let’s be free and relaxed, but also make sure the whole thing works, and know exactly what we’re doing. David put a really good piece together for Grant. 

I always had a great appreciation for the Oregon Symphony. My admiration for the orchestra has only grown over the years. I do love them very much; I think we have not just a good but a great orchestra. It is something Portland should feel extremely proud of. It’s on a level that many cities in America could only dream of. It’s the playing, the real attitude in the best way, and there’s a real sense of community building with this festival. I really hope that people in Portland recognize the jewel they have. It’s not a given for cities. 

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OAW: Coming into the Oregon Symphony, taking over from James DePreist and Carlos Kalmar, how do you balance continuing what they have done with carving out your own identity as the conductor? 

DD: I respect them massively each in their own way. The concert master in my chamber orchestra, ProMusica, who is originally from Oregon, still says to this day one of the best performances she ever played was with Jimmy DePriest when she was twenty, and I hear a lot of people talk like that. Carlos is somewhat of a friend, I know him well. My dad was the head of a jury in a competition where Carlos won first prize when Carlos was nineteen, twenty. Before I even saw Carlos conducting, I had an admiration because my father always spoke highly of him. 

They did an admirable job and made the orchestra what it is today, and I can build on that. Am I as a conductor and a human different from them? Absolutely. When you come in you build on the legacy that is there in a positive way, but you also change course, with programming and playing. My aesthetic ideal is different from Carlos’. I do enjoy personally a bit of grittiness and wraaugh, going like this [makes dramatic conducting motions]. That’s not a comment on how much I like what they did, it’s just a given when a different personality comes in. Continuity and change are both possible at the same time. 

OAW: A festival like this, where you have classical composers, indie rock musicians, jazz musicians, is a different experience for the Oregon Symphony’s audience.

DD: The orchestra is very flexible, they do a great job with all of it. I think the Oregon Symphony is used to skipping between styles quickly. The best part of the US is this melting pot that I admire. It is still, more than ten years living in America, one of the things I enjoy the most. One night you hang out with Koreans, the next, people from Argentina. It’s just great. I embraced it, and with the different styles: one evening you have the Decemberists, then Gabe Kahane, then Kurt Weill, then the next The Goonies. Portland is a bit like that, isn’t it? We like our various styles, restaurants from different backgrounds, that represents what we are as a community. 

OAW: I’m one of the few people among my friends who grew up here – well, I grew up in the suburbs. I think it’s cool that a place that has a lot of things I take for granted has something other people find inspiring and admirable. And then when I go elsewhere, I’m like, what do you mean I can’t drink the tap water? 

DD: I think Portland is spectacular. I led a nomadic life for a long time: I moved away from Salzburg when I was twenty-four, and by the nature of my job I didn’t stay longer than three years anywhere. I never felt quite at home anywhere. And then I arrived in Portland, and somehow felt that I’m no longer a nomad. I feel that my entire family is settled, and that’s a gift. My wife and I just love it here. 

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Could we all do a bit of a better job tackling the issues that are important, yes. I see these videos like “Portland is this and that,” and I think, just spend five minutes here. It’s still one of the best places in America. Compare it to other major cities, the amount of trees, nature, community, the vibe. Is the foot traffic like it was pre-pandemic? No, and we should take that seriously. That’s also part of what we’re trying to do here as the Oregon Symphony. Every week we bring thousands of people downtown who go to restaurants, and I think that should be lauded. That’s part of the pulse of a city. And symphony orchestras are wonderful in that way because you bring the regularity of the foot traffic, bringing thousands of people every Friday, Saturday, Sunday. That being said, you compare that with other cities that are the size of Portland, their downtowns are completely dead. And we still have some life here. 

OAW: Even cities that are much larger. Portland has a much bigger cultural and political influence than it perhaps deserves based on the size of it, because it’s the biggest city in the thousand-or-so miles between San Francisco/Sacramento and Seattle/Tacoma. A lot of my friends joke that “Portland is a town.” It’s not really a city. 

DD: Portland is probably the biggest town in the US. In that way it feels like Salzburg, where people tend to know each other. Just come for a week and you’ll see it’s a great place. 

OAW: The concerts with Resonance, FearNoMusic and ChatterPDX provide a different sort of opportunity: for even more local composers and musicians to get a co-sign from the Oregon Symphony. 

DD: That’s what we want to do. It’s a mix of Oregon Symphony does and Oregon Symphony presents. That was always the plan. Incubate is a bit of a weird word, but we want to be an incubator for the Portland arts scene. At the Seven Deadly Sins concert there will be a piece by Alejandro Belgique, who is fifteen, sixteen. I’ve followed him for two years. I saw a concert from FearNoMusic, this young composer highlight, and I heard a three-, four-minute piece by him. And I’m like, that kid is talented. Even when he was thirteen or so, there was real talent there. And then we highlighted Elena Stuppler, we had one of her pieces at the Gala. She’s such a smart and talented young woman. FearNoMusic is such a great organization, we’re trying to work more closely with them.

OAW: And it’s great to support the really young, emerging composers as well. 

DD: If you remove the Oregon Symphony from Portland, as a thought experiment, people would have no idea how shockingly brutal that would be for this community. They’d see how ingrained the Oregon Symphony is within the community, with projects and teaching at Bravo, MYS, PYP. The support system of the Oregon Symphony is vast, and I always hope we can highlight that so people can see that it’s a huge, positive part of the arts scene here. We also profit vastly from Portland’s arts, which is a win-win for everybody. I hope we can be there for the people of the city.

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