The job of jet-setting superstar symphony conductor is surely among the most glamorous and lucrative occupations in the world. Most conductors, however, don't start at the top. They begin their careers working as assistant conductors — basically, glorified apprentices who must spend years conducting Star Wars marches and Little Mermaid songs at Saturday morning youth concerts. Like everyone else, would-be maestros must pay their dues.
Vinay Parameswaran, the Nashville Symphony Orchestra's newly minted assistant conductor, will certainly lead his fair share of education and outreach performances. Indeed, he'll be on the stage of the Schermerhorn Symphony Center this Saturday morning conducting a concert that features, among other things, juggling and circus antics. For Parameswaran, that's just fine.
"The Nashville Symphony Orchestra devotes a lot of resources to education and outreach," he says. "The orchestra's serious commitment to educational programming is what attracted me to Nashville."
Of course, even assistant conductors get to bask in the limelight of celebrity from time to time. Parameswaran will get that chance on March 18, when he leads the Nashville Symphony in a performance of Beethoven's Violin Concerto with world-renowned violinist Itzhak Perlman.
"It would be an understatement to say I was blown away when I found out I'd be conducting Itzhak Perlman," he says. "That's not the kind of opportunity I'd expect to get this early in my career."
Parameswaran's big chance came after Kelly Corcoran, the NSO's former assistant conductor, became director of the Nashville Symphony Orchestra Chorus. As assistant conductor, Corcoran conducted most of the orchestra's youth concerts. Just as importantly, she served as music director Giancarlo Guerrero's cover conductor, meaning she had to be ready to step in at a moment's notice to conduct the orchestra if Guerrero became ill or incapacitated.
It's probably safe to say that many, if not most, 26-year-old conductors who are fresh out of graduate school are not ready to conduct NSO subscription concerts under any circumstances. Parameswaran is surely one of the few who can.
He finished his graduate studies in conducting last year at Philadelphia's prestigious Curtis Institute of Music, the same school where a young Leonard Bernstein learned his craft. Parameswaran is new to conducting, but his experience working with orchestras dates back more than a decade.
A California native, Parameswaran cut his orchestral teeth as a member of the San Francisco Youth Orchestra, an ensemble he joined at age 11. He remained with the group for six years, traveling with it on two European tours.
"The experience of playing with the San Francisco Youth Orchestra was invaluable," says Parameswaran. "I got the chance to perform such works as the Mahler Second and the Shostakovich 10th before I even turned 18. That's a very unusual experience for a young musician."
Nevertheless, after high school, Parameswaran didn't feel ready to enter a prestigious music conservatory like Juilliard or Eastman, where young artists are expected to arrive with professional chops. So Parameswaran went to Brown University, where he pursued a double major of music and political science.
"My expectation was that I'd go to law school after college," he says. "But then I got the conducting bug."
At Brown, Parameswaran studied conducting with Paul Phillips, a noted pedagogue who made sure his young protégé got plenty of opportunities to conduct the university orchestra. After a few years, Parameswaran was ready to audition for Otto-Werner Mueller, Curtis' renowned professor of conducting.
In addition to his background as a conductor, Parameswaran is also a pianist and a percussionist — in fact, he was the only student to win Brown's concerto competition in two different instruments. And like most percussionists, Parameswaran has an affinity for modern music. That bodes well for his tenure at the Nashville Symphony, given the orchestra's long-standing commitment to contemporary American music.
"The Nashville Symphony's recordings of contemporary music are some of the best ever made," says Parameswaran. "I'm so thrilled to be here, because playing music like that really matters."
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