Mischa Santora at Home in Cincinnati

   Conductor Mischa Santora is arrestingly tall and lanky (six-feet-five inches), with a firm handshake, a warm smile and a boyish shock of brown hair. His voice has a hint of Transylvania traceable to his Hungarian heritage.
   He looked more relaxed than usual last week in his Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra office on Elm Street jovial even, having just returned from his first vacation in over four years.
   "It was both conducting and vacation, so it was an ideal combination. I have not spent this much time in Europe for a very long time," he said.
   Santora, music director of the CCO, opens its 2002-03 season this weekend. Concerts are 3 p.m. September 29 in Corbett Auditorium at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and 7:30 p.m. Monday at Northern Kentucky University’s Greaves Hall. The program comprises Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 4 ("Italian") and Wagner’s "Siegfried Idyll." Guest artist is soprano Lauren Flanigan in Mozart’s "Exsultate Jubilate" and "Songs of the Auvergne" by Canteloube.
   Santora, just 30 (young for a conductor), is happy to be back in Cincinnati. "It really feels good to be back. More importantly, it feels like I’m back home. I’ve got a wonderful place to stay (in Hyde Park). It’s great to know that this has become really an important place to me, artistically and professionally, but personally, too."
   Santora already has an impressive resume. He just retired from two orchestras, where he led numerous world premieres at Carnegie Hall. How many 30-year-old conductors have been regularly reviewed in the New York Times, photograph and all?
   Of course, it was just local news to New Yorkers. Santora was music director of the top flight New York Youth Symphony for five years. He also led the Juilliard Pre-College Orchestra.
   A 1997 graduate of Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music, Santora was tapped to lead the NYYS and Juilliard orchestras virtually right out of music school.
   It was an intense period, he said, his hours and days filled with making music. And not only that.
   "That’s where I got exposed to all the things you need to do as a music director in this country. And that starts with auditions, rehearsing, putting together programs for a whole season, selecting soloists, selecting composers for the First Music program (the Youth Symphony’s new music series), going to board meetings, making presentations, making your case for this and that.
   "You know, when you come out of school, you don’t learn any of this. There’s no way you can. I mean it’s hard enough in school to focus on some of the main repertoire and learn the physical and artistic aspect of conducting."
   Santora is happy to return to what he calls "a more normal activity level. Before it was too much." His activities are likely to pick up, however, for the talented and experienced Santora has become one of the world’s "most eligible" young conductors. He has been selected to take part in the American Symphony Orchestra League’s National Conductor Preview next spring, a showcase for young conductors (eight) who will perform for orchestra representatives and artist managers. He has also been guest conducting. During the summer, he conducted Zurich’s Tonhalle Orchestra, the Lucerne Symphony and at an opera festival in Hungary. He returns to Hungary in December for a concert with the Hungarian National Philharmonic.
   Born in the Netherlands to Hungarian parents, Santora was an aspiring violinist until a hand injury "pushed" him into conducting, he said. He studied in Berlin, where his violin teacher was the concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic, and at the Academy for School and Church Music in Lucerne. He had the same conducting teacher at Curtis (Otto-Werner Mueller) as Cincinnati Symphony music director Paavo Järvi.
   Santora has not put away his violin completely, however. For the past two seasons, he has performed for a special CCO benefit concert. And not just a light ditty or two, but a full-fledged recital. In May, he performed two movements of Bach’s Unaccompanied Sonata in C Major, plus sonatas by Handel and Mozart and two of Brahms’ Hungarian Dances with pianist Frank Weinstock.
   "The most awful moment is always about a week and a half before the event, when I unpack the fiddle for the first time in a long time," he said. "You start playing and it sounds awful. In the back of your mind (is) a week and a half later you have to play for all these people who are paying hundreds of dollars to listen to your awful playing. But it usually falls into place."
   As successor to former CCO music director/now Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockhart (who returns to guest conduct the CCO in January), Santora had a hard act to follow. But he has embraced it with remarkable energy and commitment. One of his first projects was to move CCO concerts from Memorial Hall into new venues.
   "It (Memorial Hall) is a lovely, quaint little hall with tremendous problems in terms of performing there with an orchestra. There are acoustical problems, logistical problems. People complain about the seats. I would have a hard time listening to a concert in the parquet because it’s so narrow and there’s a lot of street noise. Ever since I came, I’ve tried to seek out alternative venues."
   All but three of this season’s CCO concerts will take place at either Corbett Auditorium or Greaves Hall. All of the Monday evening repeats will be at Greaves.
   Santora is especially pleased by the CCO’s new relationship with NKU. "I think it’s such an ideal collaboration between two organizations that can mutually benefit from each other. We get a wonderful concert venue and an organization that’s very committed to supporting us in promotion and otherwise. They’re happy we’re there because we enrich their cultural life. People from the academic environment get exposed to something different. Sometimes our soloists have held master classes there."
   Santora said he is "very happy" about the CCO itself. "I feel the organization is moving in the right direction. We’re having a lot of talks about artistic long term planning." The orchestra made a CD last season (for Arabesque), with works by Benjamin Britten and Huw Watkins featuring French hornist David Jolley and tenor John Aler (release date to be announced).
   While "it feels good" to be a prime candidate for orchestras looking for a new music director, Santora said he doesn’t want to pick up the pace again just yet. "I feel that I did so many things at once, and while that was good, I feel like it’s very important to focus now on fewer things. And also do things that got cut short in the last couple of years. There’s actually sometimes time now to read a book (John dos Passos’ "Manhattan Transfer" currently), or read the newspaper more often."
   As for the future, "If anything else comes up, it has to be the right thing."

The CCO 2002-03 season.

• Sunday, Monday. Wagner, "Siegfried Idyll." Mozart, "Exsultate Jubilate." Canteloube, "Songs of the Auvergne." Mendelssohn, Symphony No. 4 ("Italian"). Lauren Flanigan, soprano.

• Oct. 20, 21. Ives, "Washington’s Birthday," "The Unanswered Question." Saint-Saens, Piano Concerto No. 2. Beethoven, Symphony No. 1. Anna Polusmiak, piano.

• Nov. 17. Copland, "Appalachian Spring Suite" (original version). Mozart, Violin Concerto No. 5 ("Turkish"). Carter, Elegy for Strings. Beethoven, Symphony No. 2. Elmar Oliveira, violin.

• Jan. 26, 27. Faure, "Masques et Bergamasques," Op. 112. Haydn, Symphony No. 70. Bolcom, "Commedia for (almost) 18th-Century Orchestra." Ravel, "Mother Goose." Keith Lockhart, guest conductor.

• March 23. Josef Kost, commission for chamber orchestra. Mozart, Piano Concerto No. 26 in D Major ("Coronation"). Dvorak, Wind Serenade. Kodaly, "Galanta Dances." Orion Weiss, piano.

• April 13, 14. Bach, St. John Passion. Vocal Arts Ensemble, Earl Rivers, music director.