Interview with Karina Canellakis
by Bethany Tillerson (photo credits: Mathias Bothor)

This week on Preview!, Rob Kennedy discusses Béla Bartok and the Netherlands’ devotion to art with conductor Karina Canellakis. Canellakis has held posts as a Chief Conductor and guest conductor with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Dallas Symphony, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Recently, she led the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra in recording a collection of Bartok’s orchestral pieces, along with his Concerto for Orchestra. 

KENNEDY: Karina, tell us how the Netherlands’ public broadcasting system can afford to subsidize five professional orchestras. 

CANELLAKIS: It’s amazing that the Netherlands has such a vibrant art scene, considering how small the population is. I think there is definitely a huge amount of value placed on culture in the arts. You see that in Amsterdam, where I now live, with the Concertgebouw, which is one of the greatest concert halls in the world. We also have the Van Gogh Museum and the Rijksmuseum and all of these very important cultural institutions in this very small country. So it’s impressive, definitely. I think it’s important that the government of the Netherlands continues to value that and that future generations continue to subsidize as much of the arts and cultural world as possible. 

I personally believe that orchestral music, because of its collaborative nature and because it brings people together without screens, is an incredibly important tool for education and a very important part of every child’s education. That means we have to make it accessible and we have to make sure that young people from all different backgrounds can have access to singing in a choir or playing an instrument. An orchestra doesn’t have to be fancy instruments. It can be banging on pots and pans. But it’s important to instill these values and appreciation for the art form in the next generation. 

KENNEDY: Karina, tell our listeners why you selected the music of Béla Bartok for your first complete commercial recording. 

CANELLAKIS: Bartok is a composer I’ve always felt a huge affinity with ever since I was a student, when I played his Sonata for Solo Violin, which technically is the very last work he ever wrote in 1944. I feel very close to the Concerto for Orchestra, which is the featured piece on this album. 

The concerto was also written at the end of his life. It was written in 1943 and he passed away in ‘45. It’s known as the ultimate pinnacle of twentieth-century music and virtuosity for orchestra. But that’s not the thing that really gets to me, because actually, beneath all of the flashy, rowdy folk-like rhythms, there is an enormous amount of emotional depth to everything that Bartok ever wrote, especially while he was writing the Concerto for Orchestra. We know that he was very sick. He wrote it in the hospital in about two months’ time, which is just unbelievable. The fact that he was able to write something that is so uplifting and really gets the audience off their feet at the end is amazing. But there are many moments of the piece that reveal his true reality at the time, which was a sense of extreme loneliness and longing and homesickness for his native country of Hungary. 

The piece is in five movements. The middle movement is called Elegy, and it is so expressive and so beautiful, so lonely and lost and dreamlike. That’s really what draws me to his music. There are also four other pieces on this album that are not as well-known and not played as often. They were written earlier in his life, right after he wrote the opera Bluebeard’s Castle. They very much have that storytelling, romantic element to them. You hear a lot more of Bartok’s early style, which was a little closer to Debussy than what he came up with later in his life. He’s a very unique, fascinating, beautiful, impressive composer. 

KENNEDY: You are one of the world’s top conductors, but you’re also a mother who is expecting her second child later this year. Can you tell our listeners how you balance the demands inherent in both roles? 

CANELLAKIS: It’s hopefully going to become more and more normal to see orchestra conductors and women in leadership roles who have also chosen to have a family. I have a two-year-old son and I’m expecting another child, and I often travel with my whole family when I go on the road. My husband is extremely supportive, and I think that’s a big part of it. You have to have somebody helping you out and a sense of support, not only from the people that are close to you, but also from society in general. I think now it’s really important that we all give a little extra attention and support to young working mothers. It is difficult and you have to find ways to work very efficiently so that you can have time to spend with your kids. I feel very, very fortunate that I am able to lead this privileged lifestyle where I’m able to do what I love and make music and also enjoy being a mom and having a personal life. I’m very happy that I didn’t choose to give that up in order to be a workaholic. 

KENNEDY: Maestra, thank you so much for sharing your life and music with us here at The Classical Station in North Carolina. Thank you so much. 

Join us for Karina Canellakis’ interview at 7 p.m. on Sunday, June 4th! Stream online on TheClassicalStation.org, tune your radio to 89.7 FM, or download our App!