Another morning, another job audition

In the past week or so, Susan Haig has gotten a crash course in the peripatetic, ever-changing days and nights of the Florida Orchestra. She has conducted a wide variety of programs, from a children's concert to the orchestra's first performance of the Bax tone poem Tintagel, in venues spread across the Tampa Bay area.

It's all part of being considered as a candidate for resident conductor.

"I've very interested in it," Haig said. "It's an excellent orchestra, and it's a very exciting environment. Playing in different communities has challenges, but it also brings opportunities."

On Thursday morning, she leads a coffee concert at the Mahaffey Theater at Bayfront Center, featuring the orchestra's principal flute, Demarre McGill, in Vivaldi's Goldfinch Concerto.

Haig is the last of five conductors to appear with the orchestra as a potential successor to Thomas Wilkins, the popular resident conductor who left after last season to take a similar position with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

The others are Crafton Beck, music director of the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra and the Lima, Ohio, Symphony; Scott Speck, music director of the Mobile, Ala., Symphony and co-author of Classical Music for Dummies and Opera for Dummies; Chelsea Tipton II, associate conductor of the Savannah, Ga., Symphony; and Richard Zielinski, artistic director of the Master Chorale of Tampa Bay.

All have led a variety of coffee, blue jeans classics and educational concerts, the stock in trade for a resident conductor. Several will return for more time on the podium as the season continues. Beck, for example, will conduct this weekend's pops program with the Kingston Trio.

Haig received her bachelor's degree from Princeton in 1976 and went on to earn master's and doctoral degrees in piano and conducting from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. She was a pianist, coach and assistant conductor with the New York City Opera and other opera companies before embarking on an orchestral conducting career in Canada, first as resident conductor of the Calgary Philharmonic, then artistic director of the Windsor Symphony Orchestra in Ontario.

In November, Haig stepped down as music director of the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra in Sioux Falls after less than a year in the post. She and the board cited philosophical differences in programming, spending and expanding as reasons for the split.

"It's a classic case of organizational change happening a little too quickly for the organization," said Haig, who has a loft apartment in Sioux Falls. "My mandate was to bring the orchestra to the next level, develop touring (in South Dakota) and to really move things ahead, which I was very prepared to do. It proved to be more change than they were ready for."

Friday, in a coffee concert at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, Haig drew an assured performance from the orchestra in a program of nature-themed music, including movements of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony and Grofe's Grand Canyon Suite. She seemed comfortable making brief comments before each piece.

"I think you have to do it very carefully," she said of speaking to the audience. "You can't upstage your musicmaking. You have to be succinct. But most people can't study up on the music beforehand, and I've found they're very appreciative of a little help."

PREVIEW: The Florida Orchestra under Susan Haig performs works of Beethoven, Smetana, Vivaldi, Grofe and Bax; with Demarre McGill, flute; 11 a.m. Thursday, Mahaffey Theater at Bayfront Center, St. Petersburg. $17-$28. (813) 286-2403 or toll-free 1-800-662-7286.

© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • Tampa Bay Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111

Contact the Times | Privacy Policy
Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright