When he talks about what it’s like conducting the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, music director Alexander Mickelthwate uses sports language.

“If I’m in the zone and get all the musicians in the zone, that is when something new happens,” he said.

And if everything clicks on stage, the audience becomes a part of it, too.

“It becomes a completely concentrated group consciousness. It’s just really amazing, actually.”

Mickelthwate will lead the 65-plus members of the WSO (and hopefully the audience) into the zone this weekend (Friday, Sept. 25 and Saturday, Sept. 26) when they open their season with performances of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4.

Speaking by phone from his River Heights home early last Friday morning, the 39-year-old maestro said that people who have never been to the symphony don’t know what they’re missing.

“Live classical music is the purest way to get to somebody’s heart, I feel,” Mickelthwate said in a light German accent. “Music itself is simply pure emotion put into sound. … It’s the strangest thing to have 80 people playing together, creating sounds together in unison – it’s highly unique. No other art form takes you in like that.”

And to think he almost became a stock broker.

Growing up in Frankfurt, Germany as one of three sons, Mickelthwate studied piano, cello and voice as a youth. In his teens, he never imagined being a professional musician because he thought it was only musical geniuses like Beethoven who could make it in the world of music.

At 17, he was considering a career in finance when a teacher asked him during recess if he’d ever considered becoming a conductor.

“The lightbulb went on,” Mickelthwate said. “I remember where I was standing when this happened.”

After training in Germany for a time, Mickelthwate’s studies brought him to the U.S. Various conducting gigs across North America and in Germany followed.

“ Live classical music is the purest way to get to somebody’s heart, I feel.

Alexander Mickelthwate,  WSO conductor

Prior to being named music director of the WSO in February 2006, Mickelthwate was the associate conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, where he was praised for his “splendid, richly idiomatic readings” (LA Weekly) as well as his “fearless” approach and “first-rate technique” (Los Angeles Times).

When he isn’t rehearsing with the WSO, Mickelthwate is in meetings, helping plan the 2010-2011 season. He’s also studying the scores for upcoming concerts, often for five hours at a time.

During the week of a performance, Mickelthwate and the symphony will rehearse for two-and-a-half hours on Wednesday and Thursday, do a dress rehearsal on Friday and then perform that evening as well as the next.

It’s easy to get sucked into work completely and forget everything about home life, he said. That’s why he’s clear with his calendar on when it’s time to work and when it’s time to be with his wife, California-born fashion designer Abigail Camp, and their two young sons, Jack and Jake.

Mickelthwate once told the Winnipeg Free Press that there’s always a golden era for orchestras and he wants to make that happen in Winnipeg. Are we there yet?

“It’s going really well. We’re creating new festivals, we’re balancing the budget, we’re connecting with different communities – it’s just gelling right now. Everything is very inspiring and satisfying,” he said.

“I don’t know if this is the golden era, but it feels good.”

Published in Volume 64, Number 4 of The Uniter (September 24, 2009)