It's an odd, yet necessary profession, musical conducting. One guy (or woman) with a stick in front of all those musicians/singers/dancers, not making a sound and yet keeping everything glued together. The one person in the room with the complete score, the overview.
The good ones, and there are precious few, understand they are there as a servant of the music and the performers. (The bad ones, and there are plenty of them, are just deadly...)
Colin Davis understands it:
"The less ego you have, the more influence you have as a conductor. And the result is that you can concentrate on the only things that really matter: the music and the people who are playing it. You are of no account whatever. But if you can help people to feel free to play as well as they can, that's as good as it gets."
It's actually a good leadership model in general. Orchestras are important for no other reason than reminding us what is possible when about eighty disparate people, doing all sorts of contradictory things, under wise leadership, work together. There is nothing like hearing a symphony orchestra running on all cylinders, live in the room.
The interview with Davis is here.
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