Lecce-Chong: ‘My two loves have been music and people’

Francesco Lecce-Chong wraps up his eight-year tenure with the Eugene Symphony after Thursday night’s performance of Wynton Marsalis’ “Swing Symphony.” 

In this question-and-answer session with Lookout Eugene-Springfield, the 38-year-old conductor and music director reflects on his time with the symphony, how he concurrently led the Santa Rosa orchestra, his hopes for the future of the Eugene Symphony and how much he’s worried as the audience for classical music ages. (His answer may be a surprise.)

Here are highlights from the conversation, lightly edited for clarity.

Lookout Eugene-Springfield: Let’s start this exit interview by talking about beginnings. How did you come to Eugene? How did you get into conducting in the first place? 

Francesco Lecce-Chong: I feel like it’s always a roundabout way for conductors.

For me, it was my obsession with youth orchestra. When I was growing up (in Boulder, Colorado), I was all about anything music-related. By the time I was entering high school, I was playing violin, viola, piano, clarinet, I was composing quite a bit. At the time, I actually thought I was going to be a composer. That was my dream. And so youth orchestra at night, once a week, that was my night. You know, the rest of the week, I was the weird kid who spent all of his time practicing, but youth orchestra night was like, that was my night. That’s when all my skills came into play, everything I loved. 

And so my youth orchestra conductor saw that interest in me, and offered to give me conducting lessons if I would help her out, assist her with ensembles. There was a night that there was a snowstorm and she couldn’t get to rehearsal on time, and she said, “You’re up, start the rehearsal.” And you know, that was my first time in front of the orchestra, and I’ll never forget it. it was such an overwhelming feeling to be bringing all these people together. My two loves have been music and people, and for me, I need the two of them together.

So I by the time I went to college, I actually knew then, quite early, that I wanted to somehow figure out how to be a conductor, which mainly involved going to New York and conservatory as a pianist and composer, switching my major to conducting, once I proved to them that I could handle the workload, and I was ready to go. And from then, I had a really smooth trajectory.

Lookout: Before you came to Eugene, you worked with orchestras in Milwaukee and Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh post got you on the radar for folks in Eugene, right? 

Lecce-Chong: I’ve been really lucky. It’s kind of astounding. I was a higher-profile young assistant conductor, and I kind of fit the mold of what a smaller orchestra might look for in a music director. So I was asked to apply, which means that I was one of the 300 that applied. And Lord knows how lucky I feel that I made it down to those final three (finalists).

Lookout: What was the appeal of the Eugene job?

Lecce-Chong: The Eugene Symphony has this amazing reputation in our community (of conductors) because for the past 30 years, it has provided a platform for young, first-time music directors to grow as artists and build their reputation. So even as an outsider, I knew there was something special going on in Eugene when I applied.

Lookout: Eugene was your first job as a music director. What surprised you about the job in those first couple of years?

Lecce-Chong: Everything. There is nothing in music school that teaches you what you’re going to need to do. … You know, I did six years of assistantships, which you would think would get you there. I think the problem is my assistantships were with such big orchestras that that was the only way that I knew how an orchestra ran, when you would have, like, 40 to 60 people on staff, and you know, you’re playing every single week, and it’s a whole machine that you’re a part of. And it makes both incredible things happen, and also means that things change very slowly. 

And what I felt going to Eugene was this, it felt like a startup. You know, you’ve got like a dozen people on staff, and you’re deeply connected to every part of your organization. As a music director, you’re not just coming in there to conduct concerts. You are in the center of everything. And it’s both terrifying but also invigorating, because for the first time in my life I had all of these ideas I developed over the years about how I wanted to do concerts and I think this is really the genius of the Eugene Symphony: They give a music director a little bit of that blank slate, where they want you to imprint your own artistic vision and and be inspiring.

I felt very, very supported from the get-go. I had an incredible team around me right from the very beginning. 

But the first year was everything. The first year I just figured out what it is to be a music director, and I also figured out that I loved it. The truth is, your podium time, like your time in rehearsal and concerts, is maybe 25% of your job. You spend 75% of your time in meetings, writing emails, doing fundraising, working with marketing. And if you really want to make a difference as a music director, you are never short on things that you need to do. 

Lookout: And you were doing this with two orchestras, including the one in Santa Rosa.

Lecce-Chong: Ultimately, what I realized in leaving Eugene, is that if these were my priorities, I needed to only have one orchestra. And that’s really what it came down to, is that I had to choose. My family, my wife, live (in Santa Rosa). So it was a very easy decision for me to say, well, I know I only want one orchestra, because I want to do this right, and I want to do it the way that I’ve learned how to do it in Eugene. And so this (Santa Rosa) is going to be the orchestra that I’m going to do it with.

Lookout: How did you get connected with Santa Rosa in the first place?

Lecce-Chong: It’s such a fluke. I applied for Eugene and Santa Rosa at the same time, actually. And Eugene ended up running its whole process one year faster. So in the end, I auditioned for Eugene and got the position one year ahead of the Santa Rosa audition. After I got the Eugene job, (Santa Rosa) had already made me one of the five finalists, and they asked if I wanted to stay in the search. For me, at that point, I was hunting experience, right? In an odd way, at least for these years that I’ve been in both places, I feel like I’ve been able to learn twice as fast, you know? I feel like I’ve grown twice as fast because I’ve done very different things with both orchestras.  

Lookout: You talked about getting a blank slate when you came to Eugene. Is there a particularly memorable time when you were able to use that blank slate?

Lecce-Chong: I would say launching the “first symphony” project is still the most incredible  thing I’ve done in my career. It was a four-year project between Eugene and Santa Rosa. We had four composers, and each was given a commission to write a full symphony, and they would each come for a double residency, so they would come in the fall to both orchestras and we would give the world premiere of these just massive works that they had written. And the idea behind it was that orchestras are not willing to commit to longer works by composers these days. 

Lookout: Another frequent concern you must hear plenty about is how the audience for classical music is aging.

Lecce-Chong: Everywhere I go around the country, and even when I started in Eugene, one of my interview questions was, how are you going to bring young people to the (symphony). Everybody’s so worried that audiences are getting older. And you know what? The last time that people were worried that audiences were getting older was 40 years ago; 40 years ago, the New York Times said audiences are getting older. And you know what happened? People just kept getting older. And it was OK.

My worry now, and I’m very open about this, (is that) in our desire to get young people to come to the symphony, we fundamentally give up what has made the symphony a very special and wonderful place. So I don’t want the orchestra to dress in jeans. I don’t want people to be using their cellphones the entire concert. You know, I think there are beautiful, beautiful things about the orchestra experience, and I don’t think that we should worry that a young person who is working 40 hours a week, maybe has two kids, can’t subscribe right now. That’s OK. Maybe they can come to our concerts in the park. Maybe they can come to a pops concert. Maybe they come to just one concert a year, right? But we shouldn’t be tailoring our whole experience to try to get them to come all the time to the symphony. What’s sort of happening around the industry that scares me is this willingness to kind of sell the whole house for an issue that I don’t think exists in the way that we think it does. And in the meantime, we’re alienating our core audience, which is people who have retired and who continue to retire every day and who have that disposable income, who have the time to really be a part of every concert. That’s a group that we need to take really good care of. 

Lookout: What parting words of advice do you have for the Eugene Symphony?

Lecce-Chong: Oh, I’ve been thinking about that. I have to say, I’m so excited for the incoming music director (Alex Prior). I really couldn’t have asked for a nicer, better person or or someone who has a real vision behind what he wants to do than Alex. 

You know, we are in this epidemic of loneliness and a polarization (of society). The symphony is a revolutionary concept right now — we are the revolutionaries — because we are saying that you can come to a space and share an experience with other people who you might not even be able to have one conversation with. You might possibly wish they weren’t even in the room. But it doesn’t matter; everyone comes in to be able to share that experience together. And it’s one of the last things in life where we can connect and be reminded of our common humanity. I guess that’s my hope for any orchestra, but especially for Eugene, that the symphony can remain, always remain, that place.