Heard but not seen: Tucson to finally see conductor at work

Conductor Daniela Candillari is no stranger to Tucson.

But when she makes her Tucson Symphony Orchestra debut this weekend, it will be the first time we get to actually see her conduct.

Two of the three previous times we’ve experienced her working was from the pit with the Arizona Opera orchestra; all we could see were brief glimpses when she peeked up to acknowledge the audience’s applause.

In 2021, we didn’t even get that much. Her work was heard but not seen in Arizona Opera’s ground-breaking film “The Copper Queen.”

Candillari had signed on to do the world premiere staged version of the opera, commissioned from Clint Borzoni, but the company had to pivot courtesy the pandemic.

“Everybody sort of had to think really quickly on their feet during that time and figure out, what can we do and what is the best way to keep projects alive and to shift them,” said Candillari, principal conductor of Opera Theatre of St. Louis. “For all of us, ‘The Copper Queen’ movie was a completely uncharted territory in terms of, you know, how do you make a movie? Or, how do you make an opera that’s a movie? It was just incredible. It’s actually one of my favorite experiences that I’ve had.”

We’ll see her front and center on the Linda Ronstadt Music Hall stage when she leads the orchestra in two performances of TSO’s “Chopin and Prokofiev‘s Romeo & Juliet” at 7:30 p.m. Friday, March 14, and 2 p.m. Sunday, March 16. The concert features Venezuelan pianist Gabriela Martinez making her long-awaited TSO return with Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2.

The concert will mark a few firsts in Candillari’s career; her first time performing Prokofiev’s ballet music from “Romeo and Juliet” and her first time conducting the Chopin.

“I have done Chopin as a pianist,” said the Serbia-born, Slovenia-raised classically-trained pianist, who made her way to the U.S. on a Fulbright scholarship at Indiana University and has lived in New York since 2012. “In my college years, I went through this phase of being just absolutely obsessed with Anton Rubinstein. ... I went on this entire like rabbit hole of listening and reading everything that was written about Rubinstein and that he had recorded.”

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One of the pieces that struck a note with her was Rubinstein’s recording of Chopin’s Second.

“It was one of the pieces that I felt like I had to learn,” she said, recalling how she spent a summer studying the work “to get it under my fingers.”

Although she has played the piece from the keyboard, she’s never conducted it from the podium.

She also has never performed Missy Mazzoli‘s 2006 piece “These Worlds In Us,” which opens the concert.

“Her musical language feels very familiar to me, and (‘These Worlds’) has sort of her signature textures,” said Candillari, who has performed some of Mazzoli’s works. “She also uses melodica instruments to open the piece, which is quite unusual. In one of the previous concerts I did this year there was a piece that opened with a wine glass. ... I always think how a piece starts and how a composer ends the piece is actually really, really fascinating and really interesting, and sort of like what drives that sonic world.”

This is not the first time Arizona has earned a footnote on Candillari’s resume. Last April, in her third appearance with Arizona Opera, she performed her first-ever “Don Giovanni.”

Martinez is making her first Tucson appearance since she debuted with the TSO in 2013 with Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat Major.

Tickets for this weekend’s performances at Music Hall, 260 S. Church Ave., are $14-$95 through tucsonsymphony.org.