For Austin Chanu, the baton bug bit early.
“When I was in high school playing clarinet, I used to double on a lot of woodwind
instruments – flute, oboe, bassoon, saxophone – so by my senior year of high school, I
was working full–time as a pit orchestra musician in professional musical theatres,” he
recalled, “playing in the orchestras under the stage for ‘Sweeney Todd,’ all kinds of
shows.
“And I got into conducting little musicals here and there, and I loved doing that kind of
theatre. It was really fun and it got me more engaged in working as a conductor and a
music director. Giving notes to singers and to musicians in the pit – I kind of fell into it
that way.”
Yet he enrolled at the University of Southern California for a Bachelor’s Degree in Music
Composition and Clarinet.
“I was actually wanting to WRITE music at first,” he said. “But while I was there, I started
getting opportunities to conduct my colleagues’ performances and premieres. We could
never find a conductor for all their pieces, so I started doing it and I started really falling
in love with it. I love this process of getting to work with a living composer and bringing
their music to life, so I really kind of took that and ran.”
Maestro Chanu spent some time freelancing in the Los Angeles area, including a stint
as Music Director of the youth orchestra at the Los Angeles Music and Arts School, a
non-profit after-school program in east LA, before heading to the Eastman School of
Music to pursue a Masters and Doctorate in Orchestral Conducting. About two years
ago, he snagged an audition with The Philadelphia Orchestra and today is one of two
Assistant Conductors there (along with PIMF Guest Faculty Tristan Rais-Sherman.)
He’s very much in touch with his inner music student even though he regularly guides
one of the world’s greatest orchestras from the conductor’s podium, and particularly
enjoys his time at PIMF.
“It’s so exciting to show them musical ideas I have, or to illuminate their thoughts on
what Tchaikovsky or Beethoven or Price could sound like,” he told us. “And I don’t think
of it as ‘teaching’ all the time because some of these students are such incredible
musicians that it’s more to encourage them to feel comfortable in showcasing their
musical ideas, and that they have great musical ideas, and that they should feel
confident and play and express that.”
Maestro Chanu conducted a sightreading session at PIMF in June that included
Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake Suite, a work that the same students were able to watch
under his baton the next day with The Philadelphia Orchestra at The Mann Center.
“I think he really treated us the same as a professional orchestra in rehearsal,” 17-year-
old Mallory Bliss opined. “Like, going back and fixing things and making them the way
he’d want it with The Philadelphia Orchestra. It was really cool to see the concert the
next night, and hear all the things he wanted to happen, go well.”
Horn player Aaron Alter, 16, perceived a timing difference that he attributes to a simple
(and not inconsiderable!) difference in the musicians’ expertise.
“With The Philadelphia Orchestra, there was a big delay in his conducting and what the
orchestra did, which was different from when he conducted us,“ Aaron recalled. “I think
it was an intentional stylistic decision that conductors make of really good orchestras,
that the orchestras play behind the conductor but are still waaaaaayyy more together
than less experienced ensembles.”
Eleven-year-old violinist Veronica Tartak noticed more bounce under Maestro’s baton at
the concert: “It seems like he was feeling the music more. He was jumping and
signaling the orchestra more. When he came here and we were sightreading, it wasn’t
so much. So, it was really great to see it and hear it done really perfectly.”
PIMF is fortunate to be able to host The Philadelphia Orchestra’s conducting stars!
July’s session will see the return of Assistant Conductor Tristan Rais-Sherman to teach
sightreading to our young musicians before the camp field trip to the Mann Center.
