Jonathon Heyward vows to make classical music accessible for everyone

Conductor Jonathon Heyward, who begins his first season as music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra this fall, believes classical music “is for everyone.”

At the BSO, he already is working on expanding the audience for classical music in a city that is more than 60 percent Black. As the successor in Baltimore to Marin Alsop, chief conductor at the Ravinia Festival, he feels honored to follow in her trailblazing path. Alsop, whom he considers as a mentor, was the first female music director of a major U.S. orchestra.

Heyward, 30, the BSO’s first Black music director, also salutes other predecessors in the field. “For me, I’m standing on the shoulders of many fantastically talented African American conductors who came before me,” he said in a recent interview with the Baltimore Banner. “James DePreist [longtime music director of the Oregon Symphony] is one to point out — a great African American conductor who also had quite a life in Europe as well.”

At Ravinia, Heyward will lead the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in a program Aug. 9 featuring Cuban-born composer Tania León’s Pasajes, Bruch’s First Violin Concerto and Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances.

After starting out as a cellist, Heyward became fascinated with conducting while in middle school in his native Charleston, South Carolina. “I fell in love with was the idea of the score. The score is what the conductor reads, and what amazed me — and still amazes me today, really — is seeing so many different parts make one unified sound,” he said. “That our job as a conductor is to make one sound out of many is something that fascinated me. The power behind that. That’s why I think this art form is so powerful. All these musicians are highly trained with years of experience and education, and you get such a caliber of sound and unification when that all comes together. I’ve always loved collaborating and what that means. As a conductor, I’m a facilitator; that’s what my job is.

“What’s amazing is that we’re growing in the field to realize this art form can be for absolutely anyone. To be a part of that narrative is something I hope to really stamp in my tenure here in Baltimore — for everyone to realize that this art form is absolutely for everyone.”