“I am an artist, not a conductor”

When we meet in the conductor’s room at the Zurich Tonhalle, she comes straight from the afternoon rehearsal and the rehearsed music echoes in her ears. Alondra de la Parra is conducting the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich for the fourth time. After she brought a purely Spanish program two years ago, this time there is a typical New Year’s Eve concert with works by six composers. The usual cabbage-and-beet program, then? “No,” she says, “there is an idea that connects all the pieces.”

The first, serious part, so to speak, aims to recall the early days of the Tonhalle Orchestra with the “Academic Festival Overture” by Johannes Brahms and two Schubert songs in orchestral versions by Richard Strauss and Max Reger. The second, more popular part, on the other hand, features works by Bernstein, Gershwin and Ginastera, in which the folk mixes with the symphonic. Ravel’s “Cinq mélodies populaires grecques” build a bridge to Gershwin’s “An American in Paris”. The songs by Schubert and Ravel are sung by the tenor Julian Prégardien, de la Parra’s life partner. Once again, the conductor is very impressed by the quality of the Tonhalle Orchestra: “This is a world-class orchestra,” she says, “a very intelligent and sensitive ensemble that plays in the spirit of chamber music.”

“From Patagonia to Canada”

“An American in Europe” – somewhat modified, the Gershwin title also reflects the biographical situation of Alondra de la Parra. She was born in New York and grew up in Mexico; she has been living in Berlin for three years. Accordingly, their musical preferences apply to South and North American as well as European music. In European symphonic music, her heart beats for the first two decades of the 20th century, especially for Debussy, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Mahler.

In order to raise awareness of the American repertoire, she founded the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas in 2004 and performed composers “from Patagonia to Canada” with them. One of the fruits of this work is the CD “Mi alma mexicana” with music by various Mexican composers from the last hundred years.

De la Parra, whose parents showed great enthusiasm for classical music, first studied theory and composition in Mexico City, then piano and orchestral direction in New York. As a 13-year-old she already knew that she wanted to become a conductor. But she also felt that it would not be easy. «Conductors are usually German, very old and have white hair. And I am Mexican, young and a woman »- this is how she describes her starting position at the time in a documentary from 2019.

She made it anyway. To date she has conducted over a hundred orchestras in 27 different countries. Her only job as chief conductor to date has been with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra in Brisbane, Australia, not exactly at the center of the musical world. She worked there from 2017 to the end of 2019, and the collaboration was artistically very fruitful; she learned a lot there. She quit the job after three years for private reasons: commuting between Mexico, where she lived with her two children, and Australia had become physically and mentally too strenuous over time.

Alondra de la Parra is currently working as a freelancer, but would like to take up a position as chief conductor again. You have already checked a few offers, but “the right match” has not yet arrived. She has since turned her back on life as a jet set conductor and, for family and artistic reasons, she now wants a long-term position where she can build something up.

Give up fixed role models

At the beginning of her career, de la Parra had a certain cliché about the role of the conductor in mind, which she emulated: “He has to mark the boss, mime meaning, control everything and be the smartest.” In recent years, not least due to the pandemic, she has developed a different view of the profession: “I’m not a conductor, I’m an artist,” she says, quite surprisingly. Behind this is a holistic view in which conducting – the craft of beating the beat – forms only one, albeit very important, aspect of the artist’s life. She compares the conducting profession aptly with that of a director or a visual artist, whose horizons must also be very broad.

Alondra de la Parra criticizes the fact that the conducting profession is still predominantly performed by men. What would have to happen so that more women would also devote themselves to this task? She mentions three points: “Firstly, the young women have to find out that the job is a real possibility for them. Second, they have to want him. And thirdly, the job description has to change. ” By the latter, she means that thinking in fixed role models must be given up. “Man or woman, white or black, young or old – that should no longer play a role.”

For several years, de la Parra has been working with a team of women on a multimedia project called “The silence of sound”. It is to be premiered in Mexico next summer and then go on tour in Europe. The main character of the spectacular show is a clown who embarks on a journey through time in an imaginary space, accompanied by an orchestra that leads her to the desired goal with music by Debussy, Prokofiev and Stravinsky.

New Year’s Eve concerts: Zurich, Grosse Tonhalle, December 30th and 31st.