The New York City Symphony

David Eaton
June 1987
Musical director
Interviewed by Angelika Selle

David Eaton conducts the New York City Symphony at the Manhattan Center on God's Day, 1987.

Question: The New York City Symphony just finished this year's season of performances at Lincoln Center. Would you say it was a success?

Answer: There were many pluses and some minuses, but I think the pluses outweigh the minuses. Of course there are things we'd like to do better, both artistically and in developing a larger audience in New York, but I think we also have to look at our progress from the spiritual point of view. I am always mindful that there is a spiritual purpose behind this orchestra and that Father has a certain vision for the arts.

The Symphony is on a completely different level now in terms of our relationship with the musicians. Last June on the Day of All Things, when the orchestra performed at the Manhattan Center, Father met with Rev. Kwak, Kevin Pickard, Joe Longo, and myself after the performance, and he said that the attitude of the members in the orchestra who are not church members had changed for the better. I feel that's because we've been working to develop a deeper connection to them. That has created conditions for a higher spirit world to work with us.

From the artistic point of view, I would say we've done well, but we're not as good as we need to become. In terms of public response, we've got a lot of work to do to build up our audience. We haven't been as successful as we'd like to be in generating ticket sales to the public. The competition in New York is very stiff. We always have to keep in mind the three aspects of our work: spiritual success, artistic success, and commercial success.

Violinist Aaron Rosand performs with the Symphony on God's Day 1987.

Question: Do you see a difference in quality between this season and the one in 1985?

Answer: Definitely. Our public visibility within the city and the artistic community is greater now. I know I have grown as a musician and a conductor with each concert. And there is much more trust between myself and the musicians.

One big difference this season was that we did a program with a professional chorus, the New York City Symphony Chorus. I would like to develop a chorus as a permanent adjunct to the Symphony, one that would perform with the orchestra in various programs. Most of the famous orchestras have a relationship with a chorus.

In our last performance we did Song Cycle for Soprano and Orchestra. I commissioned Kevin Pickard to write a cycle of songs with a theme centered on the ideal, the fall, and restoration. We asked Randolph Remmel to write the words and Jamie Louise Baer to sing. Jamie was spiritually part of the whole development of the work. It turned out beautifully -- the perfect combination of text, music, and vocal realization. Real energy came out of it because the four of us were spiritually united in prayer. Many people, as well as a lot of the orchestra members, were very moved by the piece.

Question: By what criteria do you choose the music for your performances?

Answer: First, I choose music that I can relate to, that I have some affinity for. As a conductor you don't want to conduct music you don't like. There is very little music I don't like, so I have a great deal to choose from! But that's only one criterion. Another consideration is how much rehearsal time is required. Some pieces are very difficult and require a lot of rehearsal time, and the more rehearsals we do, the more we have to pay our musicians. That's a budgetary concern.

We also consider the kind of music the public would like to hear. In New York there are concerts every night of the week, and orchestras come to this city from all over the world. We have to program music that concertgoers might not hear on a regular basis. Certain composers like Beethoven and Tchaikovsky are played by almost every orchestra all the time. So I try to do music by less well known composers such as Paul Hindemith, Arvo Paert -- the Estonian composer, Shostakovitch, and Gustav Holst. In this last concert we did Samuel Barber. These are composers that are a little more obscure, but their music definitely deserves to be performed. All my life as a musician I have been interested in these minor composers as well as the major composers. Next year we are going to do some wonderful pieces that are fairly unknown by composers like Lalo and Smetana.

Dr. Bo Hi Pak and Rev. Chung Hwan Kwak meet with David Eaton and violinist Boris Belkin after the performance on October 28.

Question: Who are the members of the New York City Symphony?

Answer: New York is really the classical music headquarters of America, and there is a large talent pool of musicians in this city. Musicians come here from all over -- from Germany, Russia, France, China, Japan, Korea -- both to study and to work. These young professional musicians are the people who play with us. They may someday go to other cities and become part of other orchestras, but now they live here, so we choose from that group. I feel it's important to make some effort to promote young and unknown musicians. It may also help us to get corporate or government funding in the future.

Question: How does classical music fit into God's providence at this time?

Answer: Well, there are 12 gates to the Kingdom of Heaven, and art and culture will definitely be one of those gates. Music is a wonderful way to bring people to God and True Parents. It doesn't matter if you are a communist or a capitalist, a Democrat or a Republican, a conservative or a liberal -- all people love music and art. Music is able to transcend a lot of barriers. In fact, we've already been invited to play this summer in a number of South American countries -- Venezuela, Brazil, Panama, Colombia, and Guatemala.

Question: What is Father's vision for the Symphony?

Answer: I've heard Father say at least a dozen times that at some point the New York City Symphony will become the greatest orchestra in the world, and I believe this is going to happen. I'm hoping the Symphony will follow the Adamic way, through slow, steady growth. Rev. Kwak once told me, "We have to have faith that we will be internationally known 20 years from now" Father has indicated that the orchestra should aspire to world-class status.

Going in the Adamic tradition does not bring quick success. The great orchestras of the world, such as the Boston Symphony or the Berlin Philharmonic, didn't become major institutions overnight. It took years of development and growth -- getting better musicians and more financial support and trying to maintain high artistic standards over a long period of time.

Question: When Father says the "greatest" orchestra, does he mean in musical quality and conducting?

Answer: Yes. But for us it also means to be able to infuse heart and emotion and purpose into the actual performance of the art. Father said that while many artists today have great technique, technical perfection can never be subject. What always separates a great artist from the technically perfect artist, he said, is a heartistic awareness that allows a higher spirit world to work. This will bring the art to a new level. Therefore, part of our growth as artists is to work as hard at our spiritual development as we do on our technical development.

Question: Can you speak about orchestras today and, connected with that, the restoration of the orchestra world?

Answer: Traditionally, there have always been problems between musicians and their central figure, whether it be the management or the conductor. For many years we have seen autocratic conductors like Arturo Toscanini, Fritz Reiner, and George Szell, who were literally dictators of their orchestras. Their orchestras were great, but the musicians played almost out of fear of being fired. The motivation that propelled them to greatness wasn't necessarily of the highest kind. There has been a real change of attitude about this. Today a conductor realizes that his musicians will play with greater artistic integrity if they love him instead of fear him. If they respect the conductor as a person and as a musician, they will want to give their best. That's an important philosophical change that has taken place in orchestras over the last 20 years.

From the spiritual point of view, an orchestra, if it is run well, is actually a beautiful substantiation of the Principle of Creation. The subject-object relationship is manifested between the conductor and the musicians, between the musician's mind and his body, between the musician and his instrument. The key is developing the proper relationship or balance of heart.

Music is a wonderful manifestation of this balance, especially in an orchestra, where so many people are working together. It's thrilling to see 80 or 90 people playing as one. When you hear the great orchestras that have achieved this oneness even while doing the most difficult pieces of music, it is spiritually overwhelming and powerful. Whether they know the Principle or not, they are embodying it.

Father mentioned that one of the hardest things for a conductor to do is to be emotionally involved in the music while at the same time maintaining physical dominion. If the spirit world starts taking over, you can easily get out of control; you can lose your objectivity. Then if you start giving wrong directions or wrong cues, the ensemble will start to fall apart. The proper relationship between the physical and spiritual is of paramount importance.

The Symphony performs the "Alhambra Suite" at the Assembly of the World's Religions in 1985.

Question: How did you become involved in music?

Answer: Before I joined the church, music was the most fulfilling and emotionally rewarding experience for me. When I was in high school, I played the trombone and also started composing music. Actually, I was torn between going into music or into sports. I wanted to become a professional athlete. But it was the experience of listening to Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony that changed my whole attitude.

When I was 16 years old, I went to hear the Cleveland Orchestra perform Tchaikovsky's Fourth. I bought the record and played it over and over. The last movement always made me cry, without fail. And I said to myself, "If music can do this to people, I want to be able to write or conduct such music." That's when I made my decision.

I studied musical composition at college, but I realized I didn't have enough of a natural gift for composition. My real affinity was for conducting.

The irony is that when I joined the Unification Church, I gave up music completely. In 1975, Father held a talent contest at Belvedere and asked people from all over the country to audition on their instruments. I purposely didn't go, as an offering to give up music. Abraham had to put Isaac on the altar so he could be purified and so God could use him again. I can relate very deeply to that story because I did put my music on the altar. I was willing to give it up forever. But then I realized that God had a purpose for me to use my music. I've been in the performing arts field now for 10 years.

Question: What makes a good conductor?

Answer: A good conductor has to have a good ear. He has to rely on his hearing and musical instincts to know instantly what is going wrong or right. And he has to know how to achieve the proper tonal balances within the ensemble. A good conductor must also give clear and incisive directions with his baton.

Intimate familiarity with the different traditions of music is essential. A conductor should know the difference between, say, eighteenth-century French music and eighteenth-century German music. He's got to have an understanding of the composers and music history -- the legacy of the past. He also has to know how certain performance practices are done.

I think (and this is my personal philosophy) that 51 percent of being a conductor is relating to your musicians well -- as people and as fellow artists. If you berate them or yell at them, they're not going to play well for you. If they like you, they'll play well for you, and they'll help you all they can. So I think 51 percent falls on the side of heartistically winning over the people you are working with.

Question: You wrote the 'Alhambra Suite" for the Assembly of the World's Religions, trying to combine and harmonize Eastern and Western music. How can this unity be achieved?

Answer: Father has always said to me: "Classical music is your foundation:" He said that once you learn the classical tradition, you can branch out to other forms. And the reason Father gives us that advice is, I believe, because Western classical music, and all Western classical art, is the fruit of European Christianity. After thousands of years of development of God's central dispensation, Christianity just blossomed around the 14th and 15th centuries. Europe as a continent embraced Christianity totally, and we saw the emergence of great art. The Flemish artists Van Dyke and Vermeer flourished at the same time as the great Flemish composers like Obrecht, Okegam, and Josquin Desprez. The Franco-Flemish composers took musical composition to a new level. We had geniuses like Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, and the great Italian painters Michelangelo and Da Vinci -- all coming out of Christianity. The heartistic impulses of that religion created the highest forms of man's artistic expression at that time.

Father once told us, "Once you learn the Western classical tradition, then you can take the best elements from other music -- rock, jazz, folk music, Eastern music, or whatever -- and combine them with the classical tradition. That's new age art. When you synthesize the different cultures into a new style that transcends the individual styles, that's new age culture

Actually, Father emphasizes Western artistic tradition and Eastern values, such as filial piety, loyalty, and obedience. When we fully manifest both traditions in our art, we will be successful in expressing the highest ideals through our cultural endeavors.