Baton-ed down in Gisborne

GOOD CONDUCT: Unable to return to Boston University to continue his studies in music, flute player Matthew Lee has made the most of his time back in his hometown of Gisborne. Along with undertaking lessons in Wellington and Auckland, he is now conductor for the Gisborne Concert Band's upcoming lunchtime concert. Picture by Liam Clayton

After months of practice, the Gisborne Concert Band (GCB) was disappointed to hear the New Zealand Concert Bands Association's festival had been cancelled this year.

But because the global pandemic also means former band member and flute player, Matthew Lee, is unable to return to Boston just yet to continue his post-graduate study, he will conduct the GCB in a performance of those works.

“I've been lucky in being able to pick all the pieces for the concert,” he says.

“A lot of the music is from when I was a member of the concert band as a teenager. A lot of it is very special to me. I get to explore music I know so well from my childhood. There are all sorts of layers in music and I understand a lot better now why I have a special attachment to them. I can now explain why I want things done in a certain way.”

Matthew brings to the baton not only years of experience as a teenager with the GCB, but what he has learned over the years including from his time at Boston University.

As a high school student he began to get conducting experience when he picked up the baton for a junior concert band performance.

Conducting was put on the back-burner while he was at university but he picked up the art again at the Christchurch School of Music where he conducted a junior orchestra.

“In my third year at university I took up a conducting course and started conducting seriously, and playing in various orchestras, in my fourth year.”

Having studied music in New Zealand and overseas, Lee brings new ideas to the Gisborne Concert Band.

“This is something you don't normally get in a community concert band. I hope everyone in the band is learning something new from this.”

Asked about what might appear to the untrained eye as dramatic flourishes on the part of the conductor, Lee says a professional conductor might be a bit more theatrical in concert but much of the conductor's work has happened already happened in rehearsals. A conductor can also — mid-performance — have a section speed up or slow down, play more loudly or more quietly.

Conductor inspiration aside, the role of the hand behind the baton is to unify the ideas of 30 to 100 people.

“Each musician brings his or her own personality to rehearsals and performance and the conductor might use that,” he says.

“In concert, musicians bring all those ideas and excitement and energy to live performance. The conductor is the one musician with his or her back to the audience.

“You have to feel the energy. It is a bit weird but you get used to it. It increases your sense of energy in the room.”