Conductor Jonathon Heyward keeps breaking classical music barriers

Lara Downes | Aug 29, 2024

In September 2023, Jonathon Heyward began a 5-year term as the music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. The appointment made him, at 31, the youngest conductor of any major American orchestra, and the first Black music director in the organization’s 107-year history. He stepped into trailblazing shoes; his predecessor, Marin Alsop, had become the first woman to lead a major American orchestra when she took the job 16 years earlier.

I have this theory, which I shared with Jonathon during this conversation. I think that any of us who have ever gone first -- who’ve ever had to break any barrier or glass ceiling, ever felt uninvited or unseen -- has an innate and intense need to create a more inclusive world. As a boy in South Carolina, Jonathon first encountered classical music via his public elementary school’s music program, and he’s picked up the work of public education and engagement with a wholehearted energy. In Baltimore, he’s embraced the OrchKids program, which Alsop founded early in her tenure, inviting underserved youth across the city to experience music as a vehicle for developing creative – and life — skills. He’s committed not only to opening the doors of the symphony hall to new and diverse audiences, but also to physically meeting those audiences where they are. The orchestra performs in multiple community spaces throughout a city that struggles with severe socioeconomic disparities and racial divisions.

It might seem unrealistic to think that music can play a role in healing the troubles of our cities, our nation and our world. But if you believe it, and if you work hard to prove it, the more clearly you realize how very true it is. Music, which echoes creative expression through centuries of human troubles, can ignite a flame of wonder, imagination and emotional well-being that just might have the power to heal people and their communities.

This summer, Jonathon started another new job: music director of New York’s Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center, formerly known (since 1973) as the orchestra of the Mostly Mozart Festival. The rebranding is part of a radical transformation at Lincoln Center, driven by a mission to create programming and policies that make the arts accessible to the city’s diverse population. Jonathon’s first concerts with the orchestra were focused on invitation and inclusion. A “Symphony of Choice” concert let audience members vote on which pieces the orchestra should play. “City of Floating Sounds,” by the Chinese-born composer Huang Ruo, came with an app that allowed people to hear musical fragments all over the city before they came to the live performance.

Jonathon is full of ideas about how to change the way people perceive and experience music and what it means. When you go first, you can carve a new path. And when you’re the youngest, there’s a long path ahead. It will be thrilling to watch Jonathon Heyward move forward.

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