Alexandra Arrieche

Rock Star Conductor Alexandra Arrieche

BY KENDALL HARDIN

If you’ve never met Alexandra Arrieche, you’d swear she was a model or film star – with her long gleaming tresses, dazzling dark eyes, and sexy Brazilian accent. Can she help it that she is undeniably drop-dead gorgeous? That she’s fun, charming, and totally approachable? Or that she shines as one of the world’s next-gen orchestra conductors who just happen to be uber-talented women?

Working with today’s icons in both classical music and pop entertainment, Alexandra summons her unique talents and international skills to switch gears between genres in what she calls the “crossover universe.”

How did the São Paulo native become a conductor? She started composing music when she was 11 years old and studied piano. She wrote her first orchestral work at 16, and to perform it with her assemblage of teenage musicians, she needed a conductor, so she stepped up and grabbed the baton herself.
“I really hadn’t considered conducting because I had heard people say, ‘If conducting is hard for a man, just imagine what it’s like for a woman.’” So, she continued to concentrate on writing music and studying piano. In her early 20’s while majoring in music in Brazil, her composition professor encouraged her to consider a career in conducting. He kept insisting, “Try it. You can always come back if it doesn’t work out for you.”

Once she shifted her focus, her career took off like a hot rocket. In 2010 she received a full scholarship to be part of Maestro Harold Farberman’s studio at Bard College. The next year she won the Taki Concordia Conducting Fellowship, followed by the Baltimore Symphony Conducting Fellowship in 2012. Since then, she has been working with Maestra Marin Alsop (one of the first women to conduct a major American orchestra) as Alsop’s assistant in Baltimore, São Paulo, and the insanely popular Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in California.

In Cabrillo, Alexandra reconnected with her early roots as a composer and became an advocate of new music, working with some of the most innovative composers of her generation, such as Jennifer Higdon, Mason Bates, John Corigliano, John Adams, Anna Clyne and Jennifer Bellor (who also resides in Las Vegas), to name but a few.

Alexandra Arrieche

In 2015, she was invited to conduct the prestigious European Emmy Award-winning spectacle Night of the Proms (see the sidebar on The Proms). Since then she has been part of NOTP productions as the Principal Conductor, performing side by side with such stellar icons as the Pointer Sisters, Bryan Ferry, Simple Minds, Al Mckay (Earth, Wind & Fire), Natasha Bedingfield, Chaka Kahn, Suzanne Vega, Roger Hodson (Supertramp), Peter Cetera (Chicago), Alan Parsons, The Hooters and John Miles.

She spends November and December each year, traveling through Belgium, Germany, Holland, Poland, and Luxembourg for non-stop performances on tour. Imagine sold-out concerts for up to 20,000 audience members with jumbotron screens, massive sound and special effects equipment, a huge orchestra, and a rock star conductor who comes out in black lace and leather, brandishing the baton that will direct the entire night’s electric line-up of entertainment. All hail this woman in charge!

In 2016, Alexandra was selected as Music Director of the Henderson Symphony Orchestra (HSO), a community orchestra founded in 1986 by musicians from across the Vegas Valley. Since then, Alexandra has elevated both HSO and the entire arts scene in Las Vegas with her fresh and exhilarating concerts- collaborating with an array of other art forms, including the visual arts, dance, opera, and even the culinary arts. Under her leadership, the Henderson Symphony Orchestra has blossomed into one of the few orchestras in the country that offers a complete season of free concerts in a variety of venues, as well as innovative outreach programs for families, students, and young artists.
Inspired by the lack of opportunities for young conductors in Brazil, Alexandra also started a Conducting Studio in Brazil in 2015. This summer, with funding support from the National Endowment for the Arts, she adapted and directed NSO’s inaugural Conducting Camp here in Las Vegas, which attracted aspiring conductors nationally and internationally – concluding with a young Polish conductor winning the conducting rights to Henderson Symphony Orchestra’s winter concert.

Alexandra Arrieche

When I inquired what young audiences ask about her conducting skills, she mused, “They are more mystified in how conducting is done . . . as if my baton is more of a magic wand out of a Harry Potter book.” The recipe for a good conductor calls for a profound understanding of music and instruments through the ages, creative insight into crafting novel concerts, the ability to coach and coax a bevy of individual orchestra musicians into producing the finest ensemble performance possible, plus that inexplicable “it” factor of star appeal. With today’s generation, there’s simply no appetite for the egotistical, tyrannical behavior that characterized so many of the legendary male conductors of the last century. “We love her!” one HSO violinist gleefully volunteered. “She pulls the best out of every one of us in the orchestra, and we always come through for her.”

What distinguishes Maestra Arrieche? “I think being a composer helps me understand other composers, and I am certainly passionate about the music. But I see my job more as helping and guiding the musicians to deliver their personal best in order to bring something amazing to audiences of all ages. I am totally into collaborating with other artists and turning community needs into opportunities.” She is also upbeat about becoming a lecturer at UNLV this semester and guest conducting at other prestigious symphony orchestras around the country.

When I asked Alexandra where she’ll be in another decade, she grinned. “When the door of opportunity opens, I’ll be ready.” For our sake, let’s hope Las Vegas remains her home base forever. Rock on, Alexandra!

Sidebar on The Proms

Not to be confused with the celebrated dances American high schoolers attend every spring, Night of the Proms (NOTP) is the biggest annually organized event in Europe.

Night of the Proms was created by two Belgian students, Jan Vereecke and Jan Van Esbroeck, in 1985. The concerts consist of pop music and popular classical music (often combined), highlighting celebrated musicians and groups in global entertainment. Over the last 35 years, the list of over 300 participating artists reads like an iconic Who’s Who in pop, jazz, country, and classical music. The extravaganza concerts have grown in scale and geographic reach, with shows traveling outside Belgium to France, Austria, Switzerland, Poland, Denmark, and Sweden. Future plans include bringing the Night of the Proms to America at venues on the East Coast.

Night of the Proms was based on concerts of the BBC-broadcasted Proms, a series of 70 or so classical concerts held yearly in the Royal Albert Hall in London going back to 1895. The Proms, short for “promenade concert,” referred to outdoor concerts in London’s pleasure gardens, where the audience was free to stroll while the orchestra played. With the BBC Proms, “promming” referred to the standing areas inside the hall where tickets were lower than for seating. Proms concert-goers are sometimes referred to as “Prommers” or “Promenaders.”