Bismarck Tribune

By VIRGINIABy VIRGINIAGRANTIER

There are 80-plus symphony conductor applicants for the vacant Bismarck-Mandan Symphony Orchestra job.

And now the hope is to pick a new conductor by the end of February, Karen daSilva, symphony operation manager, said Friday.

February 2008, that is.

The symphony, which hasn't had a full-time conductor since Tom Wellin's 2005 resignation, has a candidate pool now that the Thursday deadline for applications has passed. But there's much more to be done.

DaSilva said the candidates, mostly men and only two North Dakotans - the rest from many states and abroad - now will have their resume information scrutinized by a committee starting next week.

The goal is to whittle down the pile to 15, do telephone interviews with them, request videos, and then, by May, come up with three finalists.

She said each finalist will need to come up with a program and then will conduct a concert on the symphony's 2007-08 season: specifically, the October, November and February concerts.

The applicant pool includes the two in-state candidates - Dennis Simons, a former concertmaster of the London Philharmonic who is Minot's conductor and who served as Bismarck's interim conductor this season, and Brad Lambrecht, who has a master's in conducting and teaches conducting lessons at North Dakota State University as well as being employed as Cass County Public Schools' instrumental director.

The rest of the candidates are from outside North Dakota and include a a good number of musicians that daSilva thinks are "obviously over-qualified,"people who have conducted all over the world, studied at the conservatory in Paris and so on.

And there are rookies, such as Matthew Busse, of South Carolina, who has the educational credentials, but who is just at the beginning of his conducting career.

There are candidates who have included pictures worthy of model-of-the-year competitions, such as the oceanside pic of young conductor Peyman Farzinpour, featuring his long dark wind-blown locks. Farzinpour, of Los Angeles, formerly associated with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, is now employed as director of new music for Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He also created the L.A.-based Erato Philharmonic described on its Web site as a "provocative (senusal) multimedia orchestral experience."

DaSilva isn't so sure that many of the candidates are truly willing to relocate to Bismarck and then work for just $35,000 a year and health benefits.

She said the length of time being taken to find a conductor for Bismarck is typical.

She said that according to information from the American Orchestral League, it typically takes two or three years for a symphony orchestra to hire someone.

In Bismarck's case, when Wellin resigned, the symphony took its time, not knowing what it wanted at that point - part-time, full-time, live-in or live out of Bismarck and so on. But after a year of guest conductors and a year of an interim conductor, it's been decided that the symphony needs someone who lives here, and thus has time to get to know the symphony and musicians and develop relationships.

She said during the year of guest conductors, there were some not-fun moments with some of them - such as when the symphony didn't meet the guest conductor's expectation of having a contrabassoon and he was quite aghast.

The symphony expected the conductor would have known that. "There's not a contrabassoon in all of North Dakota,"daSilva said.

Another guest conductor's quirky sense of humor, enjoyed by some, didn't come across well with others, she said.

And when it comes to interim director Simons, the question is, will Simons, tenured associate professor at Minot State University and director of Minot Symphony Orchestra, want to move to Bismarck?

The questions continue, with answers hopefully to follow by early 2008.

(Reach reporter Virginia Grantier at 250-8254 or at virginia.grantier@;bismarcktribune.com.)