CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story stated Aram Demirjian’s age as 29. He is 30.
In September 2013, when Lucas Richman announced he would be ending his tenure as Knoxville Symphony Orchestra music director and conductor, a process of wishing, hoping, planning, and dreaming began for both the orchestra and for those interested in competing for the position. Last week, almost three full years later, KSO introduced 30-year-old Aram Demirjian as the eighth music director in the orchestra’s history. The anxiety of the selection process is over, but the anxiety of a new era is just beginning—a lot of strategic wishing, hoping, and planning still remains as the orchestra charts a course into its future.
Demirjian was, by far, the youngest of the finalists for the job. Haling from Boston, with a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and a master’s degree from the New England Conservatory, he’s been with the Kansas City Symphony since 2012, first as an assistant conductor and then as associate conductor.
Selected from a field of approximately 200 applicants, Demirjian was one of nine finalists who appeared as guest conductor of a KSO Masterworks concert between 2014 and 2016. Demirjian was probably the least familiar of the finalists with the KSO audience; his concert appearance came in January of this year, when a snowstorm scare reduced attendance to a few hundred on each night.
In my review of that concert, I noted my admiration for Demirjian’s courageous programming choice: a 1990s work by John Adams and an early György Ligeti work from the 1950s, along with works by Bruch and Beethoven. While most of the candidates included a token contemporary work on their programs, Demirjian’s choices made his position clear on the importance of nudging a changing audience into broadened musical territories. His willingness to simultaneously embrace history and modernity is essential if orchestras are to attract new audiences.
Demirjian also seemed to embrace the energy of the weather-induced crisis of that January evening, turning the anxiety of the situation into an exuberant performance that bristled with danger and excitement. Whether the orchestra members shared in that exuberance or whether such a thing would have happened on another evening with a full house is anyone’s guess.
What, then, can we expect from the Demirjian era with the KSO?
Clearly, youth is a factor. With the orchestra’s new music director and its concertmaster, Gabriel Lefkowitz, both 30 or younger, the Knoxville audience can expect—and demand—energetic performances, bold programming, and an evolving orchestra that satisfies traditional listeners but also excites new ones. It’s important to remember that the bulk of KSO’s activities are not in the concert hall but in educational and outreach programs. Demirjian’s youthful presence at those events will be key in creating excitement and enthusiasm for classical and new music in future players and potential audiences.
Jeffery Whaley, KSO’s principal horn and one of the orchestra members on the selection committee, stresses the need to consider the future, not just of the orchestra but of Knoxville’s diverse music scene and its audience.
“There is certainly talk of how to bring the KSO, with its history of fine music-making, into more modern relevance,” Whaley says. “Our current audience knows the KSO is the group to hear, but we want to grow our audience and make it perfectly clear that the KSO, with its many musical offerings, has something for every single member of our community. A change in leadership is a perfect time to adjust and renew our vision as an organization.
“Aram is a great musician, is highly intelligent, and is a very nice guy. An enthusiastic ambassador for classical and orchestral music, his will be a welcoming face for our audiences both old and new, and he has a personality and temperament that will serve the KSO very well.”
Alan Sherrod has been writing about Knoxville’s vibrant classical music scene since 2007. In 2010, he won a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts—the Arts Journalism Institute in Classical Music and Opera—under the auspices of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He also operates his own blogs, Classical Journal and Arts Knoxville.
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