First of all, congratulations on yet another successful season with RVS. I thought we'd kick off the interview with a clip from your season finale from April of this year. This is from Dvorak's "Cello Concerto" that the Rogue Valley Symphony played as part of their Masterworks 6 series in April. The soloist is Tommy Mesa.
[clip of music]
…..and we had to cut it off just when it was getting really robust — that’s timing in radio! Martin, you concluded the 2024 2025 season with that concerto, and you're already back at work. So, tell us about what the symphony is doing at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival starting this Sunday.
Majkut: Well, actually, that is my initiative that is apart from the RVS. I'll be conducting “Into the Woods” this summer, all the way until October. But what's interesting about it is the musicians in the orchestra are local professionals and also mentees, so talented local youngsters. And they get an opportunity to grow as musicians next to the professionals. So I was able to squeeze that in between my Rogue Valley Symphony work and Coast work.
Fantastic. So that's part of Sondheim's “Into The Woods” that runs through October. Have you had the opportunity to work with Sondheim's music before?
Yes, actually, this musical, I know very well, because it's actually a repeat. This was a very successful production back in 2014. It was so successful, in fact, that after performing it at OSF, we took it to Wallis Annenberg Center in Beverly Hills, California, and played it there for a month. So it's a reunion, and it's going really well.
What collaborations does the Rogue Valley Symphony have with OSF?
Majkut: We started such a fruitful collaboration coming out of the pandemic. OSF regularly hosts the RVS at the Bowmer Theatre, and we did a number of programs there. Last December, we hosted a gospel choir from Florida. This time, we're doing a Judy Garland Show, which is going to be absolutely phenomenal, and the featured soloist actually wears Judy Garland's clothes, so it's going to be real fun.
But we also collaborated with OSF more closely. We did a Shakespeare-focused project when we had music and Shakespeare's scenes and poetry interwoven between, and so those kinds of projects you can expect to see in (the) future as well.
You've led the Rogue Valley Symphony since 2010, and you've shepherded the organization through a lot of growth during that time. What are you most proud of during your tenure so far?
Majkut: I'm so proud that we are able to offer very high-quality music in a rural setting. That benefits our audiences, and it benefits the school children because we do a lot in the educational realm. And well, our musicians have way more of a (higher standard of) living...because we do many more concerts, and the pay has gone up. I'm very proud of it. I'm not a numbers guy, but when I joined the symphony, the budget was $450,000 and now it's $1.8 million. So it's, I'm very, very proud of what we accomplished. And it takes a village. It takes a team, of course.
I understand you have a brand-new grand piano, which is going to figure prominently in your 2025-2026 season. How did that come about?
Majkut: Well, we were in need of a concert instrument. We're actually renting, and that piano was already nearing the end of its life as a primo instrument for soloists, so I was tasked with finding a new instrument, and I found this piano nicknamed Raven. It belonged to a legendary architect and lived on the top floor of a Manhattan skyscraper, which is where I met it.
And it is incredible - even among concert Steinways, this is a very special and rare find. I was able to secure it through this legendary piano technician, Tali Mahanor. And after it was delivered here to Ashland, I talked to her, and she emphasized, “Martin, you now have the best piano in the Pacific Northwest.”
Wow.
Majkut: Yeah. So we built the entire season around it. We're starting with a very ambitious festival, a week-long festival called Pianopalooza, where we do three concerts, we bring six soloists, and you will hear some of the greatest piano concertos ever written, along with classical concertos that will feature not only the pianist but also a violinist. And you will also hear our amazing soloist playing that piano solo, playing Raven solo. So this is a great opportunity to get introduced to this very, very special instrument.
And that's all starting in July. How can people order tickets?
Majkut: So, Pianopalooza actually starts in August. I believe the third week of August, and tickets can be found at RVsymphony.org. If I may, just for our Ashland listeners: people usually give up trying to get season subscriptions in Ashland because we're always hopelessly sold out. Now this time, the first time in 10 years, we have some openings in Ashland because there are people who have aged out. So if you're interested in securing that seat you've been clamoring for, now's the time.
Martin, until recently, you were also the music director of the Queens Symphony Orchestra in New York. I believe you just led your last performance with them earlier this month. So, congratulations on your long tenure there.
Majkut: Thank you. I have so many beautiful memories. It was nine years of wonderful music making in a thrilling community, very diverse community of Queens and with fantastic musicians. So my heart is full.
I'm sure it is, and it's very common for successful conductors to hold multiple positions in different states and even countries, but the travel can take a toll, especially if you have a family. You're a resident of the Rogue Valley, you live here in Talent. Did the distance play a role in letting Queens go, especially once you were appointed to the Oregon Coast?
Majkut: Yes, that has definitely been a part of my calculus there. It was so nice when I didn't have a family. Traveling didn't bother me, and I was glad to just have a completely different experience with the different musicians, different communities.
Then I got married, and it got (to be) a little bit more of a schlep, and now I have a kid, and it has become much more difficult to leave the family to go elsewhere. So I'm sort of consolidating, and Queens is now in the past, and Oregon Coast is in the future.
That festival is the longest-running music festival on the coast, and it's sort of an all-star organization, is that right? It brings together musicians from leading orchestras across the country for a summer series. How did you become involved?
Majkut: So this actually has to do with the RVS. The leadership of the [Oregon Coast] festival took note of the incredible growth that the RVS experienced, and they started talking to me, and so I'm very happy.
This is my very first year. And yes, the culmination of the festival is this orchestral festival, sort of not unlike the Britt orchestra. You know, these are incredible musicians from all over the country. A lot of them come from the Oregon coast, from the Oregon Symphony, and that's in the third week of July.
I would love to talk some more about it, but the festival is more than that. It also presents jazz acts, bluegrass, folk music and band music. So it's a very rich palette of music that enriches the south coast.
This festival has deep roots in the community, obviously; the previous conductor was there for a long time. What is your vision? What are your goals?
Majkut: I would love to one: help the area grow musically. I have to be a little vague, but I'm really hoping to add several more weeks of music entertainment on the coast, maybe in a very, very near future, already. And this is not necessarily just classical music. I'm thinking about music and just in all shapes and forms.
The other thing that I'm excited about is that because of the geographical closeness to the Rogue Valley that there could be some project that we would participate in together, either in the orchestral realm or in educational activities, so I think we can sort of combine our resources to do something wonderful.
Sure, they're both fairly rural areas, not major metropolises, so they have some commonalities, some opportunities to collaborate.
Majkut: Which is also why the leadership on the coast were interested in my perspective, because I know this community is rural and it's very different. It's very different from leading an orchestra in New York, you know, it just has a different set of challenges, the different pace, and so they were interested in that experience. And I think there is a great, great opportunity to grow and to grow along with each other, these two organizations.
And just for the more immediate view - we have a couple minutes left - tell us about the programming that you'll be leading starting July 22 at Marshfield Auditorium in Coos Bay.
Majkut: So what I love is that on top of these musicians, fantastic professionals from all over the country, there's also a focus on local acts, both in terms of the festival at large. For example, there's a wonderful folk band, The Sugar Beets, that has roots there. The orchestra will feature Aaron Johnson, a phenomenal woodwind player, a flute, clarinet and saxophone player at our Pops concert.
And then I discovered that a fabulous cellist just moved to the south coast recently by the name of Dace Gregory. She's a Moscow Conservatory graduate, and so I invited her to play with me in my opening concert. So it's like the best of the local scene, and the best of the national scene.
Then my finale concert features Nancy Zhou, whom the audience in Rogue Valley knows is an international superstar violinist, and she's going to do a beautiful Chinese concerto called “The Butterfly Lovers.”
And I know from talking to you before that you love curating. It's a chance to use all that musical education. And you'll be doing Bernstein’s West Side Story Symphonic Dances and “Four Love Scenes,” so you've brought together “Bickering Love,” “Forbidden Love,” “Love Beyond the Grave,” and “Love Conquers All.”
Majkut: You can tell I used to live in Ashland, right? Yes, I'm very proud of that program. The first program is three composers that wrote in America in three different time periods. And the second concert I called “Four Love Scenes.” It's sort of a cinematographic image. And there are four different takes on love, just like what you said, and a lot of beautiful music. It culminates with Stravinsky's Firebird Suite.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
