Trailblazer

When JoAnn Falletta was a young conductor, she was engaged by one of the bigger symphony orchestras. She recalls that “a person who seemed very advanced in years, playing the English horn, came up to me to say—before I conducted—‘I wish I had died before they let women conduct!’ ”

Falletta laughs as she remembers this incident while we chat in the office of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, where she’s been music director for the past 25 years. “He was just against the whole idea of it,” she says. “And that was probably true—that people were [saying] ‘What’s happening? Women?’ ”

Before Marin Alsop was engaged as music director by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, or Nathalie Stutzman by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Falletta was the first woman to lead a major American orchestra. Her tenure in Buffalo is most likely the longest for a woman music director as well. She was music director of the Virginia Symphony Orchestra even longer—for 29 years. The Buffalo Philharmonic celebrated her anniversary with a gala opening night concert on September 28, with Joshua Bell playing the Wieniawski Violin Concerto No. 2 and a world premiere, “City of Light,” by Daron Hagen.

Even though Falletta has been crashing through glass ceilings for decades, Daniel Hart, the Buffalo Philharmonic’s executive director, says, “She doesn’t get enough credit for it. She was on the vanguard, so to speak. She’s not thinking that ‘I’m a woman and doing this.’ She wants to make music. That’s what it’s all about.”

Still, the BPO’s assistant conductor, Argentinean-born Fernanda Lastra, says, “Having the opportunity to work with JoAnn is a dream come true because she has opened so many doors for us women conductors.”

“Having the opportunity to work with JoAnn is a dream come true because she has opened so many doors for us women conductors,” says Buffalo Philharmonic Assistant Conductor Fernanda Lastra.

An Unconventional Path

Becoming a well-regarded maestro—no one at the BPO refers to her as “maestra”—is a dream Falletta had from grade school. She grew up in an immigrant family in Astoria, Queens, and didn’t follow a conventional path. For her seventh birthday, her parents, neither of whom was a musician, bought her a guitar. “The next day, a teacher came,” Falletta remembers. “That was when teachers would come to your house. The teacher taught only classical guitar. I fell totally in love with that instrument, and I was devoted to it.”

Recognizing her musical interests, her parents took her to see the American Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski at Carnegie Hall when she was eleven. Beethoven’s Sixth, the Pastoral, was on the program. When it was over, Falletta remembers, “I said to my father, that’s what I want to do, because it seemed to me that he was helping the musicians be wonderful. So, my guitar teacher started to help me. He had been teaching me harmony and ear training all along because that was the European way.”

When Falletta enrolled in the Mannes School of Music, she asked to be a double degree major, in guitar and conducting, but was gently discouraged by an administrator, who said, “This is a kind of thing that’s going to be very challenging for you.” Nevertheless, she persisted. “I said, ‘Well, I still want to study,’ ” she recalls. “They said, ‘Okay, audit all the conducting classes in the first year while you’re concentrating on guitar. And let’s see what happens.’ Then after that, I studied with Carl Bamberger.”

Falletta graduated with a double degree and moved on to Juilliard, where she had three deeply influential teachers: Swedish conductor Sixten Ehrling, who emphasized detailed score study; Mexican conductor Jorge Mester, who gave her a strong technical training; and Leonard Bernstein, who helped her conduct with passion. At one particular masterclass, Falletta recalls, “We were studying Carmen and Bernstein said, ‘You are worrying about, should I subdivide this beat? Or how should I place the upbeat?’ He said, ‘You’re in the bull ring and the sun is beating down on you in Seville. And the crowd is screaming at you. And you smell the blood of the bull. What are you doing? Worrying about subdividing? It’s about emotion. It’s about where you are and how you’re feeling and how the audience listening to you is going to feel.’ ”

While at Juilliard, Falletta got her feet wet conducting a community group, the Jamaica Symphony (which later became the Queens Symphony)—her first program included Beethoven’s Sixth—and served as Lukas Foss’s associate conductor at the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. “Lukas was an amazing, amazing person,” she says. “His head was always in the clouds. You got a feeling that while he was talking to you, he was writing a piece of music in his head. He was a genius.”

Her time in Milwaukee was invaluable to her development as a conductor, even if it meant missing classes at Juilliard. At one point, she apologized to composer Milton Babbitt for being absent for two weeks at Juilliard and he replied, “Listen, there is no better place for you to learn about music than with Lukas Foss.”

When I point out that all the people Falletta mentions as teachers and mentors are men, she says, “When I was conducting these orchestras, I was learning from them. I felt so grateful for it. But I have to say, I’m sure there were many situations where audiences or people in the orchestra said, ‘Should women be conducting?’ Because it was still very rare.”

Looking back, Falletta says, “I’m sure there were many situations where audiences or people in the orchestra said, ‘Should women be conducting?’ Because it was still very rare.”

One of the most profound developmental experiences Falletta had was a ten-year association with the now-defunct Women’s Philharmonic in San Francisco. While she was at Juilliard, she got a call from one of the group’s founders, Miriam Abrams, who said, “We’re all women, and we play pieces by women.’ And I said—this is embarrassing—‘What? Music by women?’ Can you imagine?”

Falletta flew out and conducted a program that included Amy Beach’s Symphony in E minor (Gaelic). “I’d never heard of Amy Beach, and it was a wonderful symphony,” she recalls. “The women of this orchestra were so dedicated to playing this music that no one knew. They asked me to be music director, and I said yes. It was the most incredible period of learning and exploration.” Part of the mission was to uncover and play older pieces, like works of Fanny Mendelssohn, but also new pieces by up-and-coming composers such as Joan Tower and Libby Larsen. Since everything the orchestra did was, in some way, new, Falletta says she applies that approach to every piece, well-known or not, which she conducts: “allowing the piece to speak to the audience is what it’s all about, you know? Those ten years with the Women’s Philharmonic, every piece was new to me, every single piece.”

After Juilliard, Falletta was engaged by the Denver Chamber Orchestra, became music director of the Long Beach Symphony Orchestra, and helmed the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, where she was music director for 29 years and is now music director laureate. Under her direction, the orchestra, which plays in three cities in southeastern Virginia, made several recordings and traveled to the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., as well as Carnegie Hall. Starting in 2011, she served as artistic advisor to the Hawai’i Symphony Orchestra, where she’s currently conductor emeritus, and has appeared as a guest conductor with orchestras across the United States and abroad. She served as principal guest conductor of the Brevard Music Center, the training center in North Carolina. In the middle of all that, Falletta was principal conductor of the Ulster Orchestra in Belfast, Ireland, for several years, and was the first American and the first woman to lead that orchestra. But it was with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, where she became music director in 1999, that she made her mark.

Welcome to Buffalo, New York

When Falletta arrived, the BPO was in rough financial shape, and although it had some distinguished former music directors—among them William Steinberg, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Semyon Bychkov—it had a reputation for being contentious. “I remember one of my conductor friends said, ‘Do you really want to take that orchestra?,’ ”Falletta recalls. “And I said, ‘Yes, I do. I feel like I can grow so much with an orchestra like that.’ And he said, ‘But they’re in terrible shape, and it’s a very quarrelsome orchestra.’ ”

Things have been quite different for some time, and today the Buffalo Philharmonic has a $14 million budget and 40-week playing season. Falletta says Buffalo’s sometimes fearsome winter storms can’t keep audiences away: “Sometimes the city will say no driving, but otherwise people tromp through the snow,” she laughs. The BPO’s home is Kleinhans Music Hall, a landmarked building designed by the father/son Finnish architects Eliel and Eero Saarinen and opened in 1940. With blonde wood interiors, the 2441-seat hall has clean views of the stage and clear acoustics.

The Buffalo Philharmonic has a slightly different history than many American orchestras. It was established in 1935 by the Works Project Administration—the WPA—during the Depression. “They actually created the orchestra to give people jobs,” Falletta explains, “and also to help people find enjoyment and inspiration in going to concerts. It wasn’t formed by a wealthy board. It wasn’t formed by a big grant from somebody. It was formed by the government. So, the city of Buffalo and I think the musicians like that feeling that we’re a people’s orchestra.”

Falletta admits that it took four or five years to feel truly comfortable leading the BPO. “It took time to earn trust from them and for them to trust me,” she says. “For me to trust that they would always be willing to stretch. And I had to be careful in asking them to take risks, that there were no consequences of risks. They were playing music they never played before. And doing things they had never done.”

A cornerstone of Falletta’s tenure has been playing new and lesser-known music alongside the classical canon. Early on, Klaus Heyman of the Naxos label entered into an agreement with the BPO. And they weren’t interested in recording war horses. “They were looking for pieces, essentially, that were forgotten,” Falletta says. “And that turned out to be exactly a niche for us: late 19th-century or 20th-century music that was forgotten.” So, Falletta and the BPO have an extensive and eclectic catalog of recordings—recent CDs feature work by Adolphus Hailstork, Richard Danielpour, and Lukas Foss—and all the pieces are programmed as part of the subscription season.

Falletta and the BPO have won a pair of Grammys. And, because of the Naxos contract, the symphony’s own record label, Beau Fleuve, and live recordings broadcast on local station WNED and nationally on Performance Today, the symphony has earned a large audience beyond Western New York and Ontario (many concertgoers come from Toronto). The orchestra has played at Carnegie Hall several times, toured in Florida and to Poland. According to Executive Director Daniel Hart, “I guess people say we punch above our weight.”

Over her quarter of a century with the orchestra, Falletta estimates that about 75% of the BPO’s 73 musicians have been her hires. And she’s strived to create an open culture within the BPO. “The orchestra’s playing is the best they’ve ever played, for sure,” says Henry Ward, who’s been principal oboe since 2016, “Working with her is just really fun. It’s so collaborative. One of the great things about JoAnn is that she’s flexible. It’s not her stamp on everything. She lets the people around her do their jobs and do their work.”

Assistant Principal Cello Feng Hew amplifies the point: “What I enjoy the most playing with JoAnn is how she is able to take control and yet gives the musicians freedom to be expressive. It is very difficult to find a balance. If a conductor is like a dictator, it might be very easy to put together a concert. But it could sound very rigid, predictable, and boring. JoAnn takes charge overall.”

Falletta is petite and speaks softly, but she carries a big baton, says Anna Mattix, the BPO’s English horn player. “When she stands on the podium, you really do not have any sense of what a small person she is because she has this commanding presence,” Mattix explains. “Her gestures are just wide open, and she doesn’t hold anything back at all.”

Over the years, Falletta has found ways to highlight many of the orchestra members with pieces either written for them, or older pieces that feature them. During the pandemic, Mattix discovered Pietà, a piece for English horn and strings by composer Ulysses Kay. She contacted the publisher and “I played through it and said to myself, ‘This is really lovely, I wonder why this hasn’t been done?,’ ” Mattix recalls. “So, I emailed JoAnn and, in typical JoAnn fashion, five minutes later—literally, not kidding—she emailed me back and said she’d be interested to hear this. She’s always been open that way.” The BPO performed the work on a livestream during the pandemic and released it on a recording.

Many BPO musicians point to Falletta’s personal touch. “I have played with a lot of conductors. I think she is just a genuinely nice person,” says Principal Cello Roman Mekinulov. “She’s actually caring. A lot of conductors have these big egos and they seem like they care, but they really don’t. JoAnn is just, deep down, a sweetheart of a person.”

Which means that Falletta remembers birthdays and anniversaries. “She remembers everything about everybody,” says Principal French Horn Jacek Muzyk. “She’s a friend to everybody.” The Polish-born player adds: “She conducted in Poland many times. Every time she brings something Polish for me, as a gift.”

Falletta has embedded herself in the Buffalo community as well. Daniel Hart says she’s an icon. “From the get-go, she saw herself as part of the community and not a jet-setting maestro,” he explains, “but someone who was going to be here and come in, even though she had other gigs.”

Falletta moved to Buffalo with her husband, Robert Alemany, as soon as she got the gig. “It was very easy to embrace the community because the community was so happy to embrace me,” she says. “I bought a townhouse, and I live in Buffalo, and they saw me in restaurants and the supermarket. I was invited to every club or civic organization to speak. People came to concerts and stayed afterwards. As long as I was willing to talk to them, they were very happy to talk to me.”

Over the years, as the field has opened more to women conductors, Falletta has been a mentor to many of them, and spoken on panels. “I never really thought of myself as a woman conductor because I just wanted to conduct,” she says. “But I started to get phone calls from women saying, ‘Could I talk to you? I feel silly asking anybody else, but I’m not sure what I should wear on the podium.’ Even something as simple as that.” Falletta recalls that sometimes women conductors ask her: “ ‘Could I talk to you about more serious things?’, where they say, ‘I don’t feel my board really respects my opinions, and I don’t know how to work around that. They’re all men, and they seem to like me, but they just don’t listen to me.’ ” Or if a personnel change is needed in the orchestra: “How do I handle that?”

Like many arts organizations, the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra is figuring out how to bring audiences back, after the pandemic. “COVID recovery is a long process,” says Hart. “We lost 50% of our subscribers.” But he adds that this will be a banner year for single ticket sales.

Falletta thinks audiences will return, pointing out the enthusiasm she felt from the Buffalo public “when we played our first concert for an audience after the pandemic, to have the audience stand up for the musicians, before they played a note, just giving them a standing ovation.”

As she heads into her 25th anniversary, Falletta is bullish about Buffalo, offering new and different programs. “We’re doing an awful lot here,” she says. “We tend to fly under the radar, which is not always bad. We do our own things. We can take risks and that’s what’s important to me.”