A conversation with Maestro Alexander Platt

[gentle orchestral music]

Alexander Platt: I was living in the Twin Cities, and the La Crosse Symphony was looking for guest conductors in 1993, 1994. And I had an absolutely wonderful time, which I just retained in my memory this wistful time discovering this beautiful city nestled on the banks of the Mississippi. And then, so, in 2010, the LSO was doing a music director search. So I was, at that point, I was like the suitor standing at the doorbell with the bouquet and the box of chocolates. ‘Cause I really wanted to come to La Crosse and settle down and do the work I think I’ve always been meant to do.

Alexander Platt: So they blessed me with this wonderful job, and it was the post-2008 world for orchestras and there were profound financial challenges, and we truly met those challenges and through this beautiful community. And to be enabled to give La Crosse the best orchestra it could possibly have, and that’s been our journey together.

[bright orchestral music]

Alexander Platt: This is the last big concert of the season. We start with one of the great, world-class classical music soloists from right here in the Midwest, one of my greatest Chicago colleagues, the great, great American violinist Rachel Barton Pine, with whom I was very privileged to make, many years ago, 20 years ago it was, what remains a rather famous recording of a piece called the Scottish Fantasy by Max Bruch. So we celebrate that great partnership that Rachel and I have had, and also not only the personal partnership, but again, this truly world-class musician who is right here, in our own neighborhood of the upper Midwest. And she’s gonna be playing the eternally beautiful Violin Concerto of Brahms. So that’s gonna be a real honor to work with her on that.

[bright orchestral music]

Alexander Platt: Then after the intermission, we wrap up the concert and wrap up the season celebrating one of my great personal loves in the repertoire, which is the French repertoire. The gorgeous, glorious music of Maurice Ravel, one of the masters of French Impressionism.

[bright orchestral music]

Alexander Platt: And we’ve put together a beautiful montage of three works, three of the greatest orchestral works of Maurice Ravel that all center on the dance. And I think it sums up everything we wanna do as classical musicians, to give people this, you know, I know it’s an old-fashioned phrase, but truth and beauty, beauty and truth. To give people an ideal beauty that they, now more than ever, cannot find anywhere else in our world. But to do so in a way that makes us all as individuals treasure what we have.

Alexander Platt: I’ve spent my whole life with music, being a student of music. I’m not a scholar, but a student of music, and I like to think, a student of history and culture and the arts, and I love sharing with people what I do know by this point of the journey about what makes this music great and what makes it so relevant, absolutely relevant to our lives, and it’s always a pleasure to share what I know. And people seem to enjoy it, or else they’re just being even nicer than I think.

Alexander Platt: I’m now a man of 60, and I’ve been plugging away at this conducting racket for a good 40 years. And I want to do everything I can to continue what I’ve been doing to bring to La Crosse the finest symphony experience they can possibly have. To explore new and forgotten paths in this great repertoire we have, and also to, you know, to venerate the great familiar works that we all know and love.

Alexander Platt: And I do like to think, I hope I’ll be forgiven for saying that I think, for me, the La Crosse Symphony is the crown jewel of the cultural scene in this Coulee region. If that is a reflection on what we’ve been able to do together for the last 15 years, then I’ll take the compliment.