Though he’s only conducted a handful of public performances in the Electric City, conductor Glen Cortese is actually in his third season as artistic director of the Schenectady Symphony Orchestra. It’s a story we’re all familiar with by now, how the COVID shutdowns wiped out a season and a half of well-laid plans. The ensemble did manage to produce three virtual concerts in the 2020-21 season and they returned to live performances this past fall. That’s enough time for Cortese to feel comfortable and confident in leading the 87-year-old institution.
“When you have a great garden, it’s easy to have it bear great fruit,” he says. “Charles Schneider (the SSO director for 35 years) left a legacy that deserves to be preserved and built on. The orchestra is at a high level and it’s my job to improve the solidity and keep it going and growing.”
Cortese, 61, lives on Manhattan’s Upper West Side and admits that he knew very little about Schenectady or its orchestra before applying for the position, which he’d heard about from a friend. But he’s no stranger to upstate New York. Since 2005 he’s been artistic director of the Western New York Chamber Orchestra, which performs in Buffalo and surrounding communities. Cortese got his start as an assistant conductor at the New York Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta. He’s also held posts with the Greeley Philharmonic and the Oregon Mozart Players.
Barring any interference from the pandemic, the SSO’s current season has two more concerts coming up, both at Proctors. On Sunday, Feb. 6, the program features Copland’s “Lincoln Portrait” and Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 5 “Reformation,” plus works by Valerie Coleman and Brahms. The lineup on Sunday, May 1 includes a world premiere, “Voyager, a Journey to the Stars,” which was written by Cortese plus Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 “Eroica.”
Cortese started as a pianist and is best known as a conductor, but all of his degrees are in composition. His substantial catalog includes 28 orchestral works, at least a couple dozen chamber pieces and a 40-minute requiem. John Corigliano was one of his principal teachers and remains a good friend.
Corigliano provided the following statement by email: “Glen Cortese is a complete musician. He is a first-rate composer and conductor. I have known him for four decades, and have always marveled at his intense and accomplished work, whether at the composer’s desk or on the podium.”
Among the things Cortese says he learned from Corigliano is that a composer should be self-critical. “He told me, ‘If you like what you’re doing too much it’s probably not very good.’”
Cortese has frequently played a role in bringing to life some of Corigliano’s large undertakings, including his latest opera, “Lord of the Cries,” with a libretto by Mark Adamo, which debuted at the Santa Fe Opera this past summer. Cortese was on hand for the final run-throughs, representing Corigliano’s publisher, G. Schirmer.
Typical of an active freelance musician, Cortese says there’s no regularity to his day-to-day work patterns. Everything depends on when concerts and premieres are taking place. Yet it’s clear that a significant portion of the time he’s doing projects for Schirmer. The work can involve creating new orchestrations of existing pieces, editing and proofing scores, and being the company’s eyes and ears for sundry events, like the Corigliano opera in New Mexico. Two of his current projects are also in the realm of opera: assisting in a new version of Adamo’s “Little Women,” and working with composer Anthony Davis on revisions to “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X,” which is being revived at the Met in 2023.
As for his own compositions, Cortese’s latest is “Voyager, a Journey to the Stars,” which was originally scheduled for the SSO’s February concert. In an effort to avoid any interference from the pandemic or, for that matter, winter weather, the world premiere got bumped to May.
The piece is a tribute to the two Voyager spacecraft, which were launched by NASA in 1977 and are now traveling beyond our galaxy and still sending back pictures and data. Carried in each vessel is a “golden record” containing music (mostly classical and folk) and images of life on Earth. Though it will be 40,000 years, give or take, until either Voyager reaches another planetary system, the discs are onboard just in case.
Cortese speaks about this stuff with the enthusiasm of a space buff. He says that other than Holst’s “The Planets” (plus some recent additions) he knows of no other major concert works dedicated to outer space or space travel in particular.
“I’ve became fascinated with how these little tiny unassuming devices send all these amazing photos. With time and distance in that realm, we’re able to look at times 13 billion years ago,” says Cortese. “Space flight lost its luster gradually after the first moon landing. Money priorities and social priorities change. But the Voyager is an invigorating tale that gives us a glimpse of something never explored before.”
Cortese’s 20-minute piece will go from the raw energy and chaos of a rocket launch to the calm serenity that comes after breaking through Earth’s atmosphere. The composer says he’s using “musique concrete,” which is another way of saying “recorded sounds,” specifically the radio chatter that’s usually heard before a rocket launch.
The piece also features narration from an original script by Cortese. It will be read by Nicole Stott, a retired NASA astronaut who twice visited the International Space Station. A native of Albany, Stott is also a watercolor artist and was the featured speaker at SPAC’s “Out of This World” Festival in 2018.
When “Voyage” is performed in May, it will be the SSO’s first world premiere since Schneider’s farewell concert in 2018. Already under Cortese’s leadership, the orchestra has performed two Mozart operas, one virtual and the other before a live audience. The maestro likely has further ambitions, but for now he wants to see things fully back on track.
“I want us to have regular concerts with audiences. Let’s get there first,” he says. “After that it’s continued growth of the orchestra to get to a good place financially and maybe perform a little more often.”
Joseph Dalton is a freelance writer based in Troy.
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