Alexander Mickelthwate

1) MUSIC SCORE
This particular music score was for composer George Crumb’s Star-Child, performed at the 2007 New Music Festival, but Mickelthwate has one just like it for every piece he conducts. A bit like a puzzle—and intensely complicated to a layman who only passed Grade Two piano—each score has within it layers of musical direction for every instrument. While each musician learns his or her own part, Mickelthwate must know all of the parts, and how to properly fit them all together.

2) BOSE HEADPHONES
These noise reduction headphones are great for air travel, which Mickelthwate does a lot of. Having not yet officially moved to Winnipeg, he is back and forth between his soon-to-be home and his actual home in LA, where his fashion designer wife and young son are. “We’re usually booked one to two years in advance in the music world,” he explains. Which is why the WSO’s young music director is living out of a suitcase at Fort Garry Place and jetting back and forth to other jobs. That will all change this fall when Mickelthwate and his family settle full time in Winnipeg.

3) MAIL
Michelthwate is always receiving CDs and press packages from composers, musicians and their agents. One who he has met with
is Jim Hiscott, a local composer.

4) COFFEE
A hot drink is always at hand, especially during the cold winter, be it coffee, tea or hot chocolate.

5) BATON
Just a $20 piece of plastic (wood breaks too easily for Mickelthwate), the baton holds a lot of power in the orchestral world.

6) ORCHESTRAL MUSIC: A HANDBOOK BY DAVID DANIELS
A conductor’s bible, this book lists the work of every major composer of the last 500 years, and the instrumentation of each work. This lets a conductor know, for example, if he needs four or 14 horns for a particular work. “It’s important,” says Mickelthwate, “because you have to pay each musician and there’s only so often that you can afford a really big piece.”

7) CDS
Much of what is in this office is there from previous tenants, although Mickelthwate does have CDs of music he is currently working on or considering working on in the future. What does the maestro listen to in his off time? “My favourite thing is driving in my car in LA with no music on,” he says. “I have music in my head all day and sometimes I just like the silence.” That said, he does have a weakness for ‘80s pop music, like Madonna and Phil Collins, as well as more modern indie acts, like Belle and Sebastian, who he collaborated with for a full orchestral concert at the Hollywood Bowl last July. “I also totally like techno,” he says. “It’s minimal music in a way, and then it just crescendos.”

8) COMPUTER
Used for e-mail, of course, the Frankfurt native also goes online to read German newspapers, and to find and listen to new music, and research information for pre-show chats.

9) SCHEDULES
If there’s a typical day, Mickelthwate says he hasn’t had it yet, as his schedule is, literally, all over the map, from meetings to rehearsals, to research to travel time.

10) METRONOME
This lets him keep time as he’s reading a score, helping him sound out the pace of the piece. “I use it a lot for contemporary music,” he says.