For ‘Up’ conductor Anthony Parnther, ‘all good music is interesting’

Most conductors follow the classic symphonic and operatic repertory, some focus on a specialty like choral music or orchestral pops. But Anthony Parnther is a kind of conducting Renaissance man, who has cut a wide swath across the musical landscape, from helming the San Bernadino Symphony Orchestra, to working with vocal sensations like Rihanna, Common and Jon Batiste, to leading myriad film soundtracks. The busy conductor quipped: “Disney in the morning, Dvořák in the evening.” 

“He is, in his exceptional musical reach, the quintessential L.A. musician of our day,” wrote Los Angeles Times classical music critic Mark Swed in a recent review.

Alongside an Aug. 17 screening of the Disney/Pixar film “Up” at the Ravinia Festival, Parnther will lead the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in a live performance of Michael Giacchino’s Oscar-winning score. The concert marks the 15th anniversary of the box-office hit, which also won the best animated feature Oscar and was nominated for three other Academy Awards.

“Up” recounts the story of Carl Fredericksen (voiced by actor Edward Asner) who, in his late 70s, embarks on a fantastical flight to South America by attaching thousands of balloons to his house. A neighborhood boy named Russell becomes an accidental stowaway and eventually a partner in what becomes a grand adventure.

The event holds special significance for Parnther, not only because it will represent his CSO and Ravinia debuts but also because “Up” was the first movie he worked on as a studio musician after arriving in Los Angeles nearly 20 years ago. “I have worked with Michael Giacchino as his bassoonist and contrabassoonist for many years now, and this particular film takes me back to the very beginning as a Hollywood studio musician. So I am really looking forward to that.”

As a conductor, he got his start on small independent films and then began collaborating on video games, including the hugely popular “League of Legends,” which was released in 2009. He later progressed to television and studio films, including leading last year’s Oscar-winning score for “Oppenheimer.” “It was a very gradual thing over a period of 10 years, working my way up the tentpole, so to speak,” he said.

In the “Star Wars” realm, he performed as a musician on the soundtracks of seventh, eighth and ninth films in the main canon, as well as on the “stories” “Rogue One” (2016) and “Solo” (2018). As a conductor, he has led the music for three seasons of the “Star Wars”-based television series “The Mandalorian” and the mini-series “The Book of Boba Fett.” “It’s been a long and fruitful journey with all those,” he said.

In addition to his studio work, Parnther often conducts live performances of scores, as he will at Ravinia. For such presentations, he typically chooses films on which he worked as a musician or conductor, or ones where he has had a long relationship with the composer. The latter will be the case Sept. 26–28 when he marks the 50th anniversary of “Jaws” in three dates with the New York Philharmonic. “I may have a different perception of how some of these John Williams’ scores go, which may be unusual for most conductors, because most conductors have not played under his baton,” he said.

At the same time, Parnther conducts a wide range of classical music with the San Bernadino Symphony and Los Angeles’ Southeast Symphony Orchestra, where he has been music director since 2019 and 2009, respectively. He also frequently guest conducts, including an appearance last year with the Atlanta Symphony and upcoming dates with the Charlotte and Virginia symphonies. He has also taken over as artistic director of the just-christened Civic Orchestra of Los Angeles, a pre-professional training orchestra.

Since 2022, he has also served as conductor for the Gateways Music Festival, which brings together top Black musicians for a concentrated series of presentations in a different community each year. This year’s edition occurred in April at locations around Chicago, including Orchestra Hall. 

“I wouldn’t say that I’m a classical conductor. I’m just a conductor, a musician, and all good music is interesting to me.” — Anthony Parnther

And if all that wasn’t enough, Parnther works with a range of pop-music performers. He is conducting a series of concerts this summer and fall with Billboard-topping singer John Legend, including Aug. 7 with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Sept. 10 with the Cincinnati Pops. The two men first collaborated about two years ago at the Hollywood Bowl. “Eventually, John’s team reached out to me to see if I would like to go tour as his conductor for his orchestra dates, and I was very excited and happy to oblige,” he said.

Unlike some classical conductors who spurn film or pop music, he relishes such opportunities. “I’ve always tried to be as open to all of these experiences as I possibly could,” he said, “because classical music is not my only love. It is the area in which I work the most, but I just love great music, and I want to share that passion with as many people as I can. So I wouldn’t say that I’m a classical conductor. I’m just a conductor, a musician, and all good music is interesting to me.”

Born in Norfolk, Va., Parnther moved to the Washington, D.C., area as a child, dividing his time between there and New York City and ultimately graduating from high school in Virginia. Growing up, he not only played cello, bassoon and tuba, but he “became obsessed” with learning how to play other instruments as well. He studied music performance at Northwestern University and then went on to obtain his master’s degree in conducting from Yale University.

After working with several ensembles at East Tennessee State University in 2004–07, Parnther decided to try his luck in California. Now, there is hardly a minute when he is not busy. “It’s wonderful going to work each day and having a new adventure each week,” he said. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” 

Drawing on some of the challenges he has faced, Parnther has made a point of championing music by under-represented composers, including Zenobia Powell Perry and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor from the past and current musical voices such as Kris Bowers, Chanda Dancy and Gary Powell Nash. Parnther led Long Beach Opera’s 2022 revival of Anthony Davis’ The Central Park Five, which won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Music, as well as a soon-to-be-released disc spawned from that production.

“It’s not been uncommon in my career to be the only Black person in the room,” Parnther said. “It’s also been wildly apparent to me that some institutions have done a really poor job of opening up the playing field to people they normally wouldn’t hire. Honestly, to me, if you’re not actively recruiting diverse talent, you are actively prohibiting it. I don’t think there is a gray area in between.”

Excerpted from Ravinia’s Backstage magazine. To read the complete version online, click here.