This Brabander has lived and worked in France for almost nineteen years and has no intention of coming back to the Netherlands. Conductor, pianist and organist Pieter-Jelle de Boer (44) will be in the country this week as guest conductor of the North Netherlands Orchestra. They play concerts in Meppel and Stadskanaal on Wednesday and Friday.
How did he end up in France? “Well, it was a coincidence, but not quite.” He will imply that more often; that it happened to him. De Boer has now conducted an orchestra in almost every department. He is the permanent conductor of the Orchester des Pays de Savoie.
With his wife, organist and teacher, he lives near the northern French city of Compiègne. If his schedule allows, he gives organ recitals in the summer. ‘No, not in the winter. You’re not going to sit in a cold church, of course.’ His Brabant accent – he comes from Geldrop – is sometimes subtly overshadowed by a French accent.
‘I never wanted to specialize. I played organ and piano before going to the conservatory. There I wanted to do piano and conducting, but they thought I was too young. I had to become a good musician first. Then I added the organ too.’
When they are on exchange with their organ class in Lyon for three months, they happen to be teaching choral conducting students at the conservatory there. ‘Some of them hadn’t prepared properly, there was time left, so I was allowed to. The reactions and my feeling were so good that I knew: I’m going to focus on management.’
After seven years of study in Amsterdam, De Boer makes the choice to study at the Paris Conservatoire for another four years. ‘In my second year I was in a dip, I felt lonely. What am I doing here, I wondered. I was blocked: what do I want musically and how do I convey that? My teacher taught me a lot technically, after which it was mainly about conducting from that technique and closing yourself off completely. I found that difficult. I also had to get used to the fact that France was my new home country.’ Time, the music, embracing his new life and a new love (now his wife) led to De Boer being able to crawl out of that valley again.
After his studies, which he completed with honors, Laurence Equilbey, founder and conductor of the French choir Accentus, asked him to be his assistant. ‘My first job. In the beginning it was mainly soaping (rehearsing, red.† I was already happy because I thought, I can wave my arms now, but who is waiting for me? Later I conducted them in concerts and recordings.’
Conducting an orchestra is different from a choir, explains De Boer: ‘You realize that there is a relationship between the vocal sound and the music: how the rhythm works and how you place vowels and consonants. For example, where do you put the letter ‘t’? Is it on the phone, or next to it? It is about pronunciation, about vowels that should be more closed or more open. With an orchestra you look more for the common denominators. Strings play and sound different from winds, you have to get that together as a conductor.’
And then there is the difference between French and Dutch orchestras. ‘The French, albeit loudly protesting, follow the authoritarian rules. The Dutch just keep meeting and poldering. That’s how it is in orchestras. French musicians think: let the conductor have his way, because he will eventually do that anyway. In the meantime they want him ‘fair chier’ (literally ‘to shit’, to bully, red†
‘They do not yet dare to say that they are dissatisfied with something,’ says De Boer. ‘I made it clear to them that they can contact me if there is something wrong. I am not an authoritarian conductor, I lead a chamber orchestra for which I make arrangements and where I sometimes sit among the orchestra members as a pianist.’
Pieter-Jelle de Boer will conduct the Noord Nederlands Orkest on 23 and 25/3 in music by Ravel, Mozart and Mendelssohn.
Another Dutchman in France
Before Rotterdam born Arie van Beek (71) became chief conductor of the Orchester de Picardie, he worked as a percussionist in broadcasting orchestras. Since 2013, he has also been musical director of the Orchester de Chambre de Genève. In the Netherlands, Van Beek is a permanent conductor of the Doelen Ensemble in Rotterdam. He specializes in contemporary music, but his repertoire reaches as far as the Baroque. In May, Van Beek and De Boer will join forces with their chamber orchestras in a program of major orchestral works, in which they take turns conducting.