In May 2023, the Boston Symphony announced that its next President and CEO would be Chad Smith. As Chief Executive of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, he had the opportunity to find that orchestra’s next artistic leader with the imminent departure of Music Director Gustavo Dudamel. So, for Smith, leaving that behind to come to Boston was a bold, perhaps even counter-intuitive move.
To learn more about his decision and what Smith sees in the future for the BSO, I talked with him about his own origin story, the animating forces of his thinking about music, and how all of that informs the context of running a major orchestra in 2024 and beyond.
To hear our conversation, use the player above, and read a transcript below.
TRANSCRIPT (lightly edited for clarity):
Brian McCreath I'm Brian McCreath from WCRB with Chad Smith. He's the President and CEO of the Boston Symphony. And Chad, you've been here, I guess, almost a year now.
Chad Smith Ten months.
Brian McCreath It's great to have a chance to sit down with you and really talk about a lot of things. Thanks for your time today.
Chad Smith It's my pleasure. It's great to spend time with you, Brian.
Beginnings
Brian McCreath I'm interested in your background, where you're coming from. What was your musical life as you were growing up? Did you grow up in a house filled with music, or was it more of an individual discovery for you?
Chad Smith It wasn't a particularly musical family. My mom was a schoolteacher. She played the piano. I grew up with church music at the Presbyterian Church in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. My dad worked at Gettysburg College and was the swimming coach. So I had this kind of duality of growing up in a really, really athletic family, but also a family that really was grounded in the liberal arts and education.
My interest in music was from a really young age. So, as I said, I used to sing in the church and I played in the handbell choir, and I studied trumpet in high school and in my junior high. But it was really when I got to be a teenager, and I found my singing voice essentially, that I really found this deep passion for music. And I was able to explore that because I had some really good teachers. My dad had this poker club with a bunch of the professors and administrators from Gettysburg College, and I don't know, I was probably 10 or 11. And my dad at one point, as they were playing poker, said, you know, my kid's pretty good at music. One of the people who was playing poker was a professor of music at the college, and he said, well, why don't you have him come and take some lessons with me? And that was really my start, and I totally fell in love with it. I loved the deep and rigorous study that was necessary to be a musician. I loved this sense of that 10,000 hours, this idea of excellence, that it takes time, and it takes real effort.
I used to, after school, go into the college library. It was called the Musselman Library at Gettysburg College, and I would take out all of these old LPs and CDs – new CDs at that time – and just listen to Schubert and then listen to Stravinsky at the same time that I was studying, you know, Doc Severinsen and books on music for a young trumpet player. So, it was really a journey of self-discovery. But then when I was deciding to go to college, this duality continued. I was still a runner and a tennis player. I was also deeply interested in history. It's kind of hard to grow up in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, without being interested in history. So, I didn't really know what I wanted to do.
Studying in Boston
Ultimately, I decided to come to Boston. There was a joint double degree program between Tufts and New England Conservatory, and I was able to study European history at Tufts at the same time that I was studying singing and opera at NEC. And it was exactly the right program for me. In many ways, it was an indicator of the life ahead. So much of the work that I do now is this combination of rigor in this pursuit of excellence in our art form that reminds me of those early days studying in the practice room over and over, going over these pieces of music until you just got past that last barrier to what you wanted it to sound like, while at the same time thinking about context and how the music that I was studying fit into a broader context, a socio-political context, a historical context, all of these things that I was really beginning to understand at Tufts. Now, 30 years later, this kind of thinking, this kind of approach to presenting music at the highest levels but contextualized within a framework that brings current experiences into this music that might be 200 years old, is absolutely a center of the work that we do.
Brian McCreath We'll get back to even more of that and how that's playing out in your professional life now. But what's interesting about the way you describe that is that, at that time especially, I think maybe things have changed somewhat in conservatories, but places like NEC, Juilliard, Eastman, they weren't really known for giving that kind of context to their students. The kind of context you're talking about at that time could have only really come through a dual degree program like that you got through Tufts.
Chad Smith That's absolutely right. Now, I will say I'm also a trustee at NEC now. So, 25 years later after I graduated, I'm so privileged to continue to serve that school of music, which I love so much. You know, education has changed significantly. I think there is a tremendous value in contextual learning in the sense that students, music students have this wide set of interests and that music conservatories will really do everyone a favor by allowing students to explore all of these different possibilities. And there's a multiplicity of outcomes that comes from rigorous study at a conservatory, so that has changed. And that's all amazing. But then it was very different. My exploration was going to the MFA and trying to understand these paintings and how they connected to Beethoven or how they connected to Copland or whomever. One of the great things about Boston is that the density of cultural resources allows for this tremendous interplay, and so much of the work that we're doing here at the BSO is about creating that framework for interplay between cultural institutions with the BSO in many ways programing collaboratively.
Early Influences of the BSO
Brian McCreath Along that path from your early discovery of singing in Pennsylvania through your time in Boston as a student, where did the BSO enter your consciousness? Was it in those CDs you were pulling out from the library, like the Munch and the Ozawa CDs?
Chad Smith Absolutely. I can tell you, because I just moved from L.A. to Boston and I moved all of my CDs – all 6000 of my CDs – out of the garage in L.A. and moved into the space here in Boston. But I was going through them a couple of days ago, and I found this recording that I used to play over and over, and it was of the Boston Symphony conducted by Aaron Copland. And he was conducting his Appalachian Spring, recorded here in Symphony Hall. And interestingly, I remember, again as a student at NEC, I had the great fortune at that point of meeting Tony Fogg. I was a late fill at a dinner party because it was a snowy night, and there were 12 seats at the table, and I had a tuxedo, I guess. But we struck up a friendship, and he asked if I ever wanted to come to the BSO, and I did. And I went to see a performance. And then I came back the next night, and I came back the next night, and it just became this space where all of these incredible pieces of music I heard for the first time with this orchestra, and it burned the sound of these pieces into my mind.
It was great to actually have an invitation to come to the BSO, because for years before that I was sneaking in, by any means necessary. I remember when I was being hired by the BSO, I said, you know, I'm sure I owe you a lot of money because I snuck into so many concerts. Our head of security, who's a great guy, said to me, when he heard that story, he said, "That would not happen on my watch," but it happened. And a lot of my, learning was just osmosis and being in the hall and hearing this orchestra play this repertoire.
Brian McCreath That's such a valuable part of what does happen at NEC if you're a student.
Chad Smith And we formalized it to make it a lot easier now. So, for students to come and there there's so many opportunities for us to welcome students in at a cost that is really, really less than a movie, and free ways to come and hear a concert. So, that's a big, important work. I mean, I think about my experience of just wanting to be in this space, and I want to be able to support students who are in this town who have that desire. We're an organization, we're an orchestra that plays at the very highest level. And we also exist in an ecosystem of learning. And the Boston Symphony itself is an organization that has embedded learning in our DNA. When Koussevitzky founded the Tanglewood Music Center, it was the first orchestra in the world to embed true pre-professional training and education into our work. And so, for whatever it is now - I'm doing the math here - 85 years, 84 seasons, over half of the existence of the Boston Symphony, education, learning, and the next generation of musical leadership is coming across our campus and interacting with not just our players and the great guest artists who are working at Tanglewood every summer, but also with audiences. It's an amazing laboratory of what's next in our world.
Studying at Tanglewood
Brian McCreath And you yourself were part of that.
Chad Smith I was there two times. So, it was funny. The first time I went was in 1994. It was called the Seminar Program for singers, and it was run by Phyllis Curtin, who was an incredible, incredible performer. And then I came back in 1997 as a Fellow, and that's when I met so many amazing people. I mean, I did an opera with Seiji Ozawa, the Poulenc Les Mamelles de Tirésias, a little role called Monsieur Lacouf. And it was this magical moment that I carry with me and changed me in a fundamental way was being conducted by Seiji in the old theater, and this intensity of Seiji is something everyone talks about. I felt it. He conducted in a piano rehearsal, and his hands were maybe 18 inches from my face, and I cherish that moment. I cherish that time with him, particularly as we lost Seiji this year. I have that personal connection, again, back to this institution and the artists that have made it special.
Brian McCreath One of the things about the time that you were going through school with the deep experience you were getting both at Tufts and at NEC, is that this is also when conservatories began doing a lot more professional training as a business. Eastman and then NEC and Juilliard began taking on that curriculum of, well, yeah, you can play your instrument, but now here's how you make a living. Did that have anything to do with your veering off into pursuing orchestral administration?
Chad Smith I think it did. You're right. It was just that nascent work in professional training outside of the artistic training. How does a young musician navigate getting a manager or, at that point it wasn't even building websites. Right? Because this is the mid-nineties.
Brian McCreath How do you get a headshot?
Chad Smith How do you get a headshot, right? How do you present yourself at auditions outside of the auditions? What do you say? What do you not say? All of that stuff was really, really early. But I'd say the even bigger thing was that I became very lucky in being able to be backstage at Symphony Hall. And I learned how to talk about music. I knew how to sing music, but I learned how to talk about it. I learned how to interact with artists at the very highest level, and I began to understand how to take this ephemeral thing, this in many ways, abstract and esoteric thing that exists as a collection of sounds and begin to put words around it and begin to put ideas around it. I was able to express myself in phrases that essentially translated for the non-listener and the non-musician as well. And that's a big part of the work that we do now.
How do we take this art form, which goes directly to the root of your emotional core. You have these emotional responses to it. But how do we explain that? Sometimes it's not necessary to explain it. If you go and you hear Beethoven['s] Seven[th Symphony] and it just makes you want to jump up and down, great. But sometimes we also need to explain why that happens. Why does the Beethoven, after 200 years, still continue to be the center of our repertoire? And I believe that as a great orchestra, we have to explore that repertoire, and we have to reimagine it for every generation. And we have to expand the repertoire, and we have to make sure that the repertoire that we're performing also represents the artistic ideas and the artistic impulses of contemporary artists.
The Mission of Today's BSO
An arts organization at its core is an organization that amplifies the voices of artists, and it hopefully also advances the art form. Now, when we amplify the voices of artists, we have 106 of the most remarkable artists in the world, and they are the Boston Symphony Orchestra. And those are voices that we need more and more people to hear. But there are composers and there are young violinists, and, you know, there was an incredible tabla player who was present at the Pops two nights ago, right? We need to amplify their voices, too, and we need to use the resources that we have to tell their stories. And that is what makes the work here at the Boston Symphony so exciting. We have so many different ways that we can do that, whether it's through the Boston Pops, whether that's at Tanglewood, whether that's in recitals or whether that is in our Tanglewood Learning Institute and our humanities efforts, or whether that is with the glorious performances of the Boston Symphony that happen night after night across the years.
Brian McCreath Hearing you say all these things, though, you're filling in a lot of the ideas that clearly were brewing in your career in Los Angeles, where you seem to have left a very big imprint on the Los Angeles Philharmonic through the various series that you started, the festivals that you spearheaded, the work with youth and youth orchestras there. You got to this point in the L.A. Phil, that you were president and CEO, and then you decided to come here. These are both historic, some of the best orchestras in the country, if not the world. What was it that you saw in Boston that made you think, yes, I'm actually going to leave this behind and move across the country. What were the main opportunities / challenges, if that's what we need to say, about coming to Boston that made you think that's where I want to go next?
Chad Smith I started at the L.A. Phil in 2001 or 2002, and I think I was there for a total of 22 years, and I never thought I'd leave. It's an amazing city, and it's a remarkable orchestra, and I had the amazing privilege of working with two extraordinary music directors, with Esa-Pekka Salonen and Gustavo Dudamel. I was there when Walt Disney Concert Hall opened and became good friends with Frank Gehry and really felt immersed, so immersed in that community. And I love that community. I love that orchestra. And the Boston Symphony has always had this special place in my heart, and it doesn't diminish anything from before. It's that when this opportunity came up, it felt right to be able to come here, work with these musicians, reengage with this city that played such an important role in not just my musical development, but the development of me as a person and as a creative thinker and as a person who tries to find ways to pull together perhaps divergent ideas or divergent experiences and make sense of them. And that's something that I tried to do in L.A. And thank you for saying that.
I love some of those festivals that we put together and crazy ones, a Fluxus Festival and a minimalism festival and a festival focused on what it means to be an artist in a changing city and all of these things. But many things are the same too, right? My deepest passion has been for advancing our art form. And that is what makes me get up every morning. I love working with composers and I love working with young musicians.
I fundamentally believe that the greatest classical music has yet to be written. As great as the Beethoven Seventh Symphony is, and as incredible as [Stravinsky’s] The Rite of Spring is, I believe that there is even greater music to be written in the centuries ahead. And I want to be a part of it. And we have to believe that. If we don't believe that the greatest music and the greatest performances are still to come, then why are we doing this? Then we're just an organization that is about preservation as opposed to an organization that is about growth. And there's a lot to preserve, right? We know that. There aren't two Boston Symphonies in Boston. There's only one Boston Symphony in Boston. There's only one Boston Symphony in the world. And so we have this responsibility to pull forward the work that we've done. But we also have a responsibility to continually reevaluate who it is that we serve, our audiences, how we can better advance our art form, and how we can continue to make the city of Boston a more vibrant and thoughtful space for creativity and innovation.
Brian McCreath Let's talk about the city of Boston, specifically the audience here, and I want to relate it to your experiences over the last 20 something years in Los Angeles. You did all these projects, but you had to have been responding to what you sensed from what the community of Los Angeles would want, what they maybe wanted that they didn't even know they wanted. And so, you experimented with a lot of things, but you came up with things that I wonder how much they responded specifically to that audience and what you see as the commonalities and differences between the audiences of Los Angeles and Boston.
Audiences in Boston and Los Angeles
Chad Smith It's a great question. So, the one thing that I have really learned is that every orchestra is unique, truly. The personality is unique, but more importantly, the priorities are unique, and they respond to and they also influence what the cultural community of the respective city feels like it is. So, the Boston Symphony can only exist in Boston. The Los Angeles Philharmonic can only exist in Los Angeles, which is great. There are commonalities, of course. So, at our root, there is this 400 years of music that we're not just stewards of. Stewards sounds like we just have to make sure that we keep it in shape, but we are charged with reimagining it every single time that we play it. And we do that for audiences who might be experiencing it for the first time. Or they might be experiencing it for the hundredth time, or for many of our players when they're playing, let's say again, Beethoven Seven, many of our players have played this 150 times over their careers. But each time they play it, and to a person they will say, I discovered something new this time, or I felt something new this time. And that's because we're humans and we exist within a world. And so, to hear Beethoven Seven in 2024 will necessarily trigger responses, internal responses, or allow for connections, that is different when we heard it in 1974.
It's like reading a book over and over as you grow older. I love rereading The Iliad, just over and over, and it is that moment where you land on a phrase, you land on the poetry, and you just go, how did I miss that? And then you begin to see the next part of the poetry differently. The same thing happens when we do this work. When we present new pieces, when we listen to what young composers or old composers doing new works are doing, it is referential. It is always referential. It is either a reinforcement, a rejection, a commentary of work that has come before it, or experiences that they have in their lives. And the more that we understand that, I think, the more deeply we can connect with that work.
For example, Carlos Simon is our new and inaugural Composer Chair. And he has this work, Four Black American Dances, that the BSO commissioned, I think, back in 2021. And the orchestra has played it over and over. And each time it takes on a different quality. It's like seeing a painting in a different light, or it's about kind of seeing a vista in a changing sunset light. It's the same set of mountains, it's the same ocean that you're looking at, but the color is different. The personal resonance that you have with it is different. And that's what I love about our art form. I love paintings on the wall, trust me. But each time we play a piece of music, it exists for exactly that moment, and the players who are playing it will influence the sound. The audience that is experiencing it will influence how it's played and received.
Brian McCreath I'm glad you mentioned that piece, because this is one that you did in Europe, that the orchestra played on tour in Europe, and that must have been amazing to see it go from city to city and hear the responses from all these different places.
Chad Smith And then Carlos will come back and write new works for the orchestra. And I think he's writing five or six over the next couple of years, that will build upon the experience and the sound of the Boston Symphony playing that work. This summer he's going to be with us during the second weekend [of Tanglewood], and we're doing his piece Warmth of Other Suns, and I can't wait for that. That's one of the things this summer that I'm looking forward to. That's an amazing weekend, by the way. We have the Boston Ballet coming and doing the Stravinsky [Apollon musagète], which I love. Yuja Wang playing the Beethoven Fourth Piano Concerto, you have Augustin Hadelich playing. I mean, it's a pretty great weekend.
Brian McCreath That's right. We'll get to some specifics soon. But I also want to ask you, because you're speaking in wonderful terms about the role of an orchestra, the interplay between an orchestra, its music, its composers and its audience. You clearly see this holistic sort of system almost. It's a business, too. And the last few years, like a lot of industries, the pandemic really pulled the rug out from the orchestra business. Where are we now with the orchestra business as a whole? And how do you feel like the BSO should be responding to those challenges?
The Orchestra in the Marketplace
Chad Smith An orchestra is a business, certainly, but we're also a nonprofit. Our existence is not about generating returns for our shareholders. Our existence is about inspiring audiences and being a benefit to our community. And our existence is about continuing to elevate the work of this orchestra in a way which people feel connected to it. The business model has changed, though. So, I'm not trying to under-index on the side that we have to find ways to continue to expand our audiences and sell more tickets and invest in media and touring and all of these things. All of those things are real. That is the suite of activities that a great orchestra does.
But the business was really impacted by the pandemic. But it's also important to remember that, pre-pandemic, arts organizations were still struggling. And I think, in many ways, what happened in the pandemic is that it accelerated a lot of the challenges. It accelerated and deepened a lot of the challenges that arts organizations were struggling with: declining subscriptions. I don't think that that is the fault of arts organizations; it's that our audiences changed. The way that they think about engaging with arts organizations is, "I don't want you curating and telling me which eight shows you're going to come to. I want to choose that. I want to choose my own adventure in music." People's lives changed. There are more choices that we have. So, we have to be more intentional about elevating the experience that we have so that it becomes a stronger choice. And we have to be better about talking about what we do as deeply impactful and as having these opportunities for people to have a transformative experience in the hall.
That sounds really elevated. But there is something remarkable about 2000 people coming together and quietly experiencing the work of remarkable artists on stage. And the response can be different, right? The response could be, "I hated it." You know, we get that. But the response is more likely, like, "How do they do that? Why does it make me feel this way?" And that's the difference, I think, between nonprofit and commercial music. Our goal is to elevate communities, and it is to inspire audiences. It is to support audiences when they need to be supported and comfort them when they need to be comforted, sometimes challenge our audiences with ideas or works that are provocative. But ultimately, every time that we perform, and this is something that the BSO just does so inherently, we have to inspire people. That's our reason for being.
Brian McCreath I don't want to ask you to have to choose amongst your children, so to speak, but I'm just really curious, especially when you talk about those first composers that drew you in as you were beginning to find, literally, your voice as a singer. And so there must be some things coming up at Tanglewood that you have a special eye on, that personally you feel like, oh, I saw that coming up and I can't wait to be there for it. Is there anything like that?
Highlights of Tanglewood 2024
Chad Smith There are lots. There are pieces. There are artists. There are also things that are a little bit more personal. As a young student, there was a singer I idolized, Dawn Upshaw. And I remember being a student, I was probably in my second year at Tufts/NEC, and I got my first CD player. So, this is what, 1990? And two of the first recordings I bought were Dawn Upshaw. One was a recording where she sang [the character of] Anne Trulove [from Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress] and then some of [John Harbison's] Mirabai Songs. And then there was a recording that she did called, The Girl with Orange Lips. These are both Nonesuch recordings, and I played those recordings over and over. And she's on faculty at NEC, and she is a part of the history of Tanglewood. And so there are recitals, like the vocal recitals. I can't wait to go to the vocal recitals of the students, because I remember that moment of walking on stage and singing Benjamin Britten's On This Island on Ozawa Hall stage and what it meant to me. So, I'm looking forward to that. Anytime Yo-Yo Ma performs is special at Tanglewood and this is home in many ways. Jon Batiste and Brandi Carlile are doing concerts on the Popular Artist series at the beginning. I love Brandi Carlile. I remember when I was in L.A., I went to hear her perform the Joni Mitchell album Blue, which she sang start to finish.
Brian McCreath Oh my goodness.
Chad Smith And it was honestly one of the greatest performances I've ever heard. It was Brandi Carlile singing the complete album, and then Joni Mitchell was in the hall. So, I'm super excited to hear her.
And then, some artists that I truly love, like Yuja [Wang]. Yuja playing Beethoven['s] Four[th Piano Concerto]. Yuja playing anything, frankly. She's doing a recital. There's a Koussevitzky weekend where the repertoire is all repertoire that relates back to the BSO. And that history, for me, is so special. Koussevitzky was Music Director from 1924 to 1949. So, it is the 100th anniversary of his music directorship, it's the 150th anniversary of his birth. It's the 75th anniversary of his last season. I mean, it's all of these things. And he was foundational to this institution. So, we're celebrating Koussevitzky and his commissions.
The commissions of the Boston Symphony are singular, whether it's [Stravinksy's] Symphony of Psalms or whether it's Prokofiev, these are staples of the repertoire that we're going to be playing over the course of the summer. So that's pretty great. And then, of course, anything Andris does. A lot of the things that I did talk about are with Andris. But, you know, we're going to have Wagner, and Andris is a remarkable opera conductor, and he particularly loves doing opera in concert. And to hear this orchestra and the great singers that have been assembled with Andris is going to be a super, super highlight.
Andris Nelsons
Brian McCreath Did you know Andris before you came to Boston?
Chad Smith You know, he came to L.A. once. And so, we obviously knew each other, but not really. And so that was something that when I was interviewing for the job, we spent time together and I was really compelled by how quickly we moved to music. Within, I don't know, five minutes of meeting each other, it was like, "Hi, I'm Chad Smith. I grew up in Gettysburg." And then we started talking about music, and that's what we talked about for a couple of hours. And then we had a meal later, and I just thought, this is something I can do. This is a person for whom music is so essential, and there's a humility in the way that he approaches music making that is really generous.
Brian McCreath We've gotten to know Andris so well. We're so fortunate to now be a decade into his work here in Boston, and I've talked to so many of the players about working with Andris and a lot of the guest soloists. You have this perspective that you might offer at this moment that I can't resist asking you about, because you've perceived him from afar and within the landscape of orchestras across the country and across the world. What does the rest of the world see going on in Boston from your perspective?
Chad Smith It's funny, I was just in Vienna last week, and I was lucky enough to – not lucky enough; that's the reason I went is to be there – and he was conducting the Vienna Philharmonic. He was conducting Sibelius['s] Second [Symphony] on the second half. He conducted Shostakovich's Cello Concerto [No. 1] With Gautier [Capuçon] on the first off, which was amazing. It's awesome, it's Gautier, right? But he was conducting Sibelius Second, and it was blisteringly good. And the audience wouldn't let him leave. I was backstage with some of the players from the Vienna Philharmonic, and they said, you know, you've got quite a chief conductor. And I was like, yes, we do. You know, he's a quiet guy. In many ways our audiences don't often have that opportunity to know him, but the music making is innate.
Brian McCreath And he has this relationship with almost any ensemble that he conducts. I mean, I remember when he came here, we heard from musicians at the City of Birmingham Symphony who are so sad to lose him. (They're doing fine.) But they were so sad to lose him. And we hear from the players in the [Leipzig] Gewandhaus Orchestra when they're on the exchange program that goes on. We hear from them about his work there. And there is some kind of relationship that he has with musicians that, I don't know, it seems to allow the musicians to be their best selves when he's conducting them.
Chad Smith It's a generosity. It's a generosity in music-making. So, I will say, it's always a privilege to hear your music director outside of your orchestra. And to recognize it's the same thing with an orchestra, right? I love hearing the Boston Symphony in Symphony Hall. There's also something remarkable about hearing an orchestra outside of the hall, and whether that's Carnegie Hall or whether that's the [Berlin] Philharmonie or whether that is the Musikverein [in Vienna] or whether that is Teatro Colón [in Buenos Aires], there is something very special about the glow and the way that an orchestra, as I've said earlier in this conversation, doesn't just represent the city from which it comes, but it's in the DNA. And to hear Boston in another city, the Boston Symphony, it's a reminder of how special and unique the music making is and essential.
Brian McCreath Chad, it's so good to talk with you. I so appreciate all your time today and your thoughts, your comments. It's really great to talk with you. Thank you.
Chad Smith Well thank you. Thank you for having me. Anytime.