Wesley Schulz is The Juneau Symphony’s second candidate conductor this concert season.
The symphony is trying out three conductors to replace Kyle Wiley Pickett, who was musical director for 14 years.
Schulz will lead the orchestra this weekend through a program called “American Brilliance.”
Wesley Schulz began his musical life at the age of 3 when he started playing the cello. Later on he picked up percussion and went to Ball State University in Indiana to pursue a career in music.
“It was sort of a moment in the middle of my undergraduate career where I was a performance major and I happened to be in Vienna and I was taking lessons with the timpanist of the Vienna Symphony and I was sitting on stage behind him at a concert and listening and watching and just feeling what it was like to be there,” says Schulz.
“And it just sort of hit me, like, you know what, I want to conduct. I want to be the guy with the stick.”
Schulz got a doctorate degree in orchestral conducting from the University of Texas at Austin. Now, he’s based in Seattle and is the music director of the Bainbridge Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Festival Orchestra and the Bainbridge Island Youth Orchestra. He’s also the conducting fellow at the Seattle Symphony.
“Part of that job allows me to sit in the seats during the rehearsals of the Seattle Symphony and see all these guest conductors come through the door,” Schulz explains. “They’re doing music sometimes that’s familiar but what’s different is their view on it and how they work with the orchestra and how they inspire them and what they unlock within the music, and for me that’s the greatest inspiration.”
The Juneau Symphony performs at Juneau-Douglas High School Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. There will be a concert conversation with Wesley Schulz an hour before each performance.
He says his job is leading an orchestra in a way that breathes life into the sheet music. He says the Juneau Symphony has been engaged and receptive to feedback.
“What I always try to convey, first to the orchestra and then beyond that to the audience, is what is the composer’s intent – what message is trying to come across in the music, where is this piece going, what is the overall mood of the piece, how can we begin it and end it and take the audience on a journey?”
This weekend, Schulz will guide the Juneau Symphony through five pieces starting with Kevin Puts’ “Millennium Canons” and ending with Tchaikovsky’s “Capriccio Italian.”
