Conversations with Conductors: Part II - Daniel Meyer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

The Symphony was also an early performer of Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra: The Healer by Lucas Richman, music director of the Knoxville Symphony. “We were probably only the second or third orchestra to play The Healer,” Daniel says. “That was a thrill.”

Dream Works

As he looks ahead for the Symphony, Daniel sees more collaborations with other artists, similar to the Attack Theatre El Amor Brujo and a performance of Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring which featured projected images by Asheville area photographers.

He starts thinking about future concerts many years in advance. “I’m already starting to think of Season 51 and Season 52,” he says. As ideas occur to him, he writes them into his calendar or on yellow Post-It Notes which he sticks near his computer. One category of notes he calls “Dream Works,” performances that may stretch everyone—orchestra, conductor and audiences—in new directions. Among his Dream Works: “I would love to do some concert operas,” he says. “I would love to mount a concert performance of Tosca or Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex, works that for some reason or other we can’t do on an Asheville stage except in a concert performance with the Asheville Symphony. Britten’s War Requiem is another such work. Incredible in every way conceivable.”

He may not have seen the runway before he landed in Asheville for his audition concert, but Daniel Meyer has a clear flight path for his years ahead with the Asheville Symphony.

GREAT MUSIC o o o o

Photo courtesy of The Biltmore Company