University conductor to complete 35th year with concerts
By Pat Summers, Special Writer
Two players were tuning up 20 minutes before start time. Others arrived, all casually dressed and carrying instruments. Conductor Michael Pratt roamed around the stage, chatting here and there.
Shortly after 7 p.m. on a Sunday earlier this month, Princeton University Orchestra rehearsal began in Richardson Auditorium in Alexander Hall. Perched at the podium, the maestro spoke briefly about Arnold Schoenberg, atonality and expressionism in the arts before focusing on Alban Berg’s opera, Wozzeck, one of two works programmed for their next concert.
”This was (the orchestra’s) first encounter with the piece, and, as it’s in a musical language that most of them have never played, I took extra time to prepare them,” Mr. Pratt said. “We made our way slowly through the entire work so they understood how it was to be conducted. Digging the foundation.”After a week’s immersion in one-act operas, he easily switched gears to orchestral music. Those myriad involvements began decades ago when he was named conductor of the Princeton University Orchestra. This season marks his 35th year in that position.
Asked how he stays fresh and enthusiastic after all these years, Mr. Pratt says, “It’s easy. Number one, the music is so extraordinary. One never stops learning. I’m lucky enough to have done some major repertory more than once. Each time you do that, it’s like you’re peeling an onion — you learn more and more about it. You can’t get it all the first pass through; you need to keep digging.
”And then, every four years it’s a whole new generation of students. And just to be working with students at this level of talent and brilliance and curiosity…”
The maestro muses about differences between Princeton music students and those at music conservatories. Here, participation in orchestra and other ensembles is extra-curricular and must be balanced with academics, the priority. Conservatory students don’t take six courses and three labs on top of music-making.
Scheduling concerts every two to two and a half weeks is typical for conservatories, while here, concerts occur every five weeks “just so the work is amortized over a longer period of time. Princeton students are under tremendous pressure, all the time,” and there are days when “they can’t take the instrument out of the case,” he says.
Alluding to the sacrifices Princeton’s student musicians must make to play in the orchestra, he notes, “Nobody’s here who doesn’t want to be here.” That combination of challenge and reward is why he prefers being right here.
As his students make time for the music they love, their conductor does, too. During his tenure at Princeton, he co-founded the Opera Festival of New Jersey and is now director of the Princeton University Opera Theater. He has directed the university’s certificate program in musical performance, which he helped create, for more than 20 years.
He also established Princeton’s collaborative program with the Royal College of Music, London. Through it, students spend junior year fall term in Great Britain, studying music exclusively. Graduate work later is a possibility built into the program — 4 years old this fall, with about a dozen participants to date.
Being the co-director of the Composers Ensemble and Richardson Chamber Players, along with serving as music director of the Delaware Valley Philharmonic and principal conductor of American Repertory Ballet has allowed Mr. Pratt to conduct the orchestras of at least half a dozen cities.
The maestro also has led numerous premieres and performances of works by Princeton faculty and student composers. “This is Contemporary Music Central right here,” he says. He also has led the Princeton University Orchestra on eight European tours, performing in music centers en route.
”Michael’s contribution to the artistic life at Princeton over the past 35 years is incalculable,” said Wendy Heller, professor and acting chair, Princeton University Department of Music. “Uncompromising in his standards while sensitive to the intense academic demands on our students, Michael has not only conducted hundreds of memorable performances of symphonic repertory, ballet, and opera, he has also mentored countless students, creating what is arguably the finest program in music performance at any liberal arts university.
”It is in no small part through Michael’s leadership that Princeton has begun to realize its potential in the performing arts.”
Born in Atlanta in 1949, the conductor was raised in Covington, Ga., a small town nearby. His mother and sister played piano and his sister, also played clarinet, while he played trumpet.
As for his early career aspirations, he says, “Hardcore music from day one. My earliest memories are of music and wanting to be in it, around it. Music is all I ever wanted to do (besides being a baseball player, which didn’t last past my first Little League season). The older I get, the deeper the love and the stronger music’s effect on me.”
A 1971 Eastman School of Music graduate, Mr. Pratt observed and conducted in Rochester until becoming a conducting fellow at Tanglewood. There, he assisted Leonard Bernstein and Gunther Schuller (artistic director of Tanglewood and President of the New England Conservatory), who hired him as conducting assistant the year before he successfully auditioned for his present position in May 1977.
”Tanglewood was just massive in my life,” he says, and tells enthralling stories about Mr. Bernstein (“one of the greatest conductors of all time”) and Mr. Schuller (“the greatest ear in the business”), both “larger than life” and yet extremely generous with him.
Married to soprano and author Martha Elliott (Princeton ‘82), “one of the best musicians I’ve ever worked with,” the maestro says of his wife. “No one has influenced me more, either musically or personally, and performing with her is always a time of happiness for me.”
They live in Skillman, and have a daughter, who lives in Philadelphia.
Conducting the band at commencement is the last thing he will do before a summer off to read and “do things (from baseball games to biking and hiking) with my wonderful wife” before returning to campus for his 36th year. Decades of bravos can only foreshadow Mr. Pratt’s encores.
”In his 35 years as the director of the program in Music Performance, Michael Pratt has not only increased the number of opportunities for students to perform music of all kinds on campus, his leadership has brought an astonishing increase in the quality of those performances,” says Princeton University President Shirley M. Tilghman.
She adds, “Unlike 35 years ago, Princeton is now a destination for academically gifted students with musical ambitions who wish to receive a world-class education in the liberal arts. With our partnership with the Royal College of Music in London — a partnership which Michael created — students are able to have both rigorous conservatory and academic experiences as undergraduates.”
Programmed for the Princeton University Orchestra’s final concerts of the season — April 27, 28 — are Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and Three Scenes from Alban Berg’s Wozzeck, featuring soprano Sarah Pelletier. Tickets cost $15 general, $13 senior, $5 student. To order by phone: 609-258-9220; online: Princeton.edu/Utickets