Friday (4/6) on the homepage of the New York Times online, a video feature breaks down New York Philharmonic Music Director Alan Gilbert’s conducting technique through motion-capture imagery and an interview with Gilbert. “There is no way to really put your finger on what makes conducting great, even what makes conducting work,” Gilbert says in the article. “Essentially what conducting is about is getting the players to play their best and to be able to use their energy and to access their point of view about the music. There is a connection between the gesture, the physical presence, the aura that a conductor can project, and what the musicians produce. … The way you let go of a note, the shape of the tail of the note, if you will, has to be managed and thought about and felt together. … One of the ways to make your sound better is to make it really obvious that you’re really listening and that it really matters to you what it sounds like. That’s not actually conducting. It’s kind of embodying or representing a kind of aspiration, if you will, and it’s uncanny how that actually can make a difference.”
Motion Capture Data By: New York University Movement Lab
Posted April 6, 2012
