Järvi at Home in Cincinnati
Where in the world is Paavo Järvi?
Late on a Wednesday afternoon, the Cincinnati Symphony music director is at his desk at Music Hall, between meetings with CSO staff and an evening fund-raising event.
Ask him where he’d like to be in September, 2009, and the answer is the same.
"Here. I see this as home." (Järvi’s CSO contract expires in August, 2009).
Though his name has appeared on the wish list of orchestras like the Chicago Symphony, traditionally ranked among the nation’s "Big Five" with Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Cleveland, Cincinnati matches Järvi’s aspirations perfectly.
"For me, empty fame, which is not sort of earned, is not really worth anything. It is important to me that I achieve some sort of result by doing the work. This orchestra is already one of the best orchestras in America, and I think that with enough work and perseverance, it will be seen as such, as well.
"If I feel that we can develop here and there are enough resources and enough support, then I haven’t any reason to go anywhere."
The key word in Järvi’s comment is "work."
Take a look at how he’ll spend his summer.
After this weekend’s concerts – the last ones of the CSO season, at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday at Music Hall – he goes to Paris, then to Tallinn in his native Estonia and on to Japan, where he will spend a month guest conducting Tokyo’s NHK Symphony.
In June, he returns to the U.S. to conduct the Detroit Symphony in its final concert of the season, a tribute to his father Neeme Järvi, Detroit’s music director for 15 years, who is leaving to become music director of the New Jersey Symphony.
Järvi, his father and younger brother Kristjan will conduct in St. Petersburg, Russia in June as part of a "Järvi Marathon" during the city’s annual White Nights Festival. In July and August, he tours with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, of which he is artistic director, including a stop at the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York City.
In 2005 alone, Järvi is booked for 91 concerts, an average of one every four days. For details, visit www.paavojarvi.com or www.paavoproject.com.
Since becoming CSO music director in Sept. 2001, Järvi, 42, has raised the orchestra’s profile markedly. They have made eight CDs for Telarc – the two recorded this season will be released in 2005-06. He has taken the orchestra on two international and two domestic tours (Japan, Europe, the East Coast and Florida) and they have performed twice together at Carnegie Hall to flattering reviews.
"I think we are much better recognized in the world now," he said. "We are certainly receiving a lot of important attention. And I’m not talking about just media attention, but also in the business, in the inner circles of the musical world. People are noticing that something is going on. Everybody who comes to us - soloists, even guest conductors and people who occasionally play with us as extra players or substitutes - they are coming in and saying, ‘my god, I heard this is a good orchestra, but I never expected this.’"
Part of the reason is Järvi’s extremely high standards.
"There is always a way of doing better. That’s why the most important thing for me is to come here in the morning and start working again. It’s never ready."
There are no shortcuts, he said. "If you don’t work something out, it’s not going to work. So either I let it go and it’s not going to work, or I work it out. And they know I’ll work it out."
Part of making the CSO better is making its environment better and Järvi has committed to that by tackling the reconfiguration of Music Hall (at 3,416 seats, the largest concert hall in the U.S.).
The plan, he said, is to move the stage out into the hall to create a more intimate environment for the players and the audience (for plans to do the same thing at New York’s Avery Fisher Hall, see the New York Times, May 3, 2005).
Work is in progress, he said, on a "mock stage" or platform where he and the orchestra can test the acoustics and "try out different positions and set ups."
"Nobody should be concerned," he said. "There is going to be no quick ‘let’s demolish something,’ only to find out that it didn’t work."
Järvi takes his fund-raising responsibilities very seriously, too. With the decline of the stock market, the CSO needs to replenish its endowment and he meets with donors and potential donors constantly. "You have no idea how many," he said.
The time Järvi spends in Cincinnati is "very intense," he said, but "I’m at home. At night, for example, I don’t go to a hotel, I go home, and for me, that’s very relaxing."
Home is a condominium in East Walnut Hills, where he lives with his partner, violinist Tatiana Berman, and their 15-month-old daughter Lea.
"She is starting to say some words. She says papa and bye-bye and cuckoo and a lot of little words which are not really words, but are very nice."
She also says "aitäh," Estonian for "thank you," he said, demonstrating the toddler’s little whisper on the final "h" and the funny faces father and daughter make at each other.
Järvi fits in vacation time when he can, usually at the Järvi family compound in West Palm Beach, Florida.
"I try to plan for vacation," he said, "but there are so many projects I want to do and I need to do."
He also likes to go to new places, like Portugal, where he will guest conduct Lisbon’s Gulbenkian Orchestra in November for the first time. "I’m dying to go to New Zealand," he said.
But always with his baton.
"I don’t really know how to do anything else, so I have to sort of stick to conducting."
He returns to Cincinnati to open the CSO season with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony Sept. 16 at Music Hall.
Paavo Järvi leads his final CSO concerts of the season at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday at Music Hall. On the program are Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4, Shostakovich’s Concerto No. 1 for Piano, Trumpet and Strings with Alexander Toradze, pianist, and Philip Collins, trumpet, and "Fanfare Ritmico" by Jennifer Higdon. Tickets: (513) 381-3300.
(first published in The Cincinnati Post May 5, 2005)