Q&A with OKCPHIL’s Alexander Mickelthwate

We sat down with the Music Director of OKC Philharmonic Alexander Mickelthwate, who has been with OKC PHIL for three seasons now. Mickelthwate is not only a talented musician and leader, he’s a genuinely kind person. His humility and dedication to his profession are huge assets to our community. In this interview, learn more about his roots, how he decided to move to Oklahoma City, and exciting things that are coming in future months for the Philharmonic.

VeloCityOKC: We want to know your story; will you share with us a little bit about your background and journey that brought you here today?

Mickelthwate: I grew up lower middle class in Frankfurt, Germany. It's kinda interesting -- we didn't have a car, you know. I had two brothers and we all played two instruments. This was the passion of my parents that they never could accomplish themselves because they grew up after the war, so they put all their enthusiasm for classical music into their kids.

I played piano and cello and that was my whole life, really. In some sense, my parents were very traditional. I watched my first movie as a teenager. It is amazingly different from anything now, you know? Every six weeks we were allowed to watch a TV show. In other words, I had a very non-American childhood.

How interesting! Did you feel like you were missing out at that time or was it just how it was?

Not really, it was just my experience, and I was okay with that. Though I spent a lot of time focused on music, I wasn’t any sort of a “wonder child.” My brother won some competitions, but I never did. I never thought of becoming a professional until I was 17. I had a conversation with my music teacher, and he simply asked me if I ever thought of becoming a conductor. That moment and the trust of an authority figure completely lit the light bulb in my head. It was exactly what I wanted to do, so from that point on, I tried everything to become a conductor.

To become a conductor in Germany, you have to start as a pianist in the opera house. So, I tried that track for a while, but realized that's not really my thing, so I had to literally move countries. To become a conductor in the United States, you go through the assistant conductor positions of a symphony orchestra, and that’s what I tried to do. So, I moved to Baltimore to do my graduate studies in conducting.

So, you finished your studies in Baltimore and then what did you do after?

One of the reasons I went to the United States was that I was dating an American girl, and she’s now my wife. It's a very long story, but it's a great story. After my two years of studies in Baltimore, I moved to New York City, and we finally moved in together.

There, I didn't know anybody except my wife, and I tried everything to find a job. I went to every orchestra in the tri-state area. I was an usher at the New York Philharmonic for a summer--I opened the doors for the audiences. I started my own opera company in New York City. I mean it sounds big, but it was tiny. We did Mozart’s Figaro. It was fun, like all those kind of things one does when you're young.

Absolutely, and New York City is both the best and the worst place to be a creative. So, wow. That's so inspiring and awesome. Eventually you ended up finding this position in Oklahoma City. Can you tell a little bit more about that and sort of how that process worked?

Well, the interview is a week with the orchestra where you have four or five rehearsals and then one or two concerts. I had been the music director in Canada with the Winnipeg symphony for 12 years, which was a very creative place, I must say. I was looking for a new job and was one of six candidates for the Oklahoma City Philharmonic.

In this case, it's like having a blind date with 80 musicians. Which was a first for me because in Germany, we don’t date. Anyway, the interview was like dating 80 musicians, but also the committee, the audience, and the board had a say. It was fun. I really hoped it would work out and I guess the Philharmonic organization felt the same. So, when I got the position, it felt like everything had been aligned.

That’s such a gift whenever it's just a mutual fit and all people are happy, and of course we are so lucky to have you! Do you mind sharing a little bit more about what a typical week in your life is like at the Philharmonic?

It takes time to study a score, a lot of work flows into the preparation and it’s really fun. There are two or three aspects to this process. I buy a score, which is essentially a book filled with tons of little dots, the language of music, not your regular English or German. So, I have to start to decipher what it means.

On a page of a score, the composer writes a line for each instrument from the flute down to the double base. I have to find patterns and discover the beginning and the end of a musical sentence. I use colored pencils to help make sense of it all.

And the other part is from the historical side. Beethoven wrote, let's say the fifth symphony sometime at the beginning of the 19th century. So, the question then is, what was this person's life like? What did people read at the time? How did people write? Or how did people think? Maybe there's stuff that the composer wrote that is more unconscious, so it’s easy to go down a huge rabbit hole of discoveries.

I know that in your time at the philharmonic a lot of it has been during the pandemic. Can you speak a little bit about that, and what the experience has been like for you?

On the one hand, it's difficult to reprogram the season, to postpone concerts and to not know if you will have an audience for a while or not. On the other hand, I was lucky we were able to create a lot of virtual concerts. I recorded myself playing the piano and posted on Facebook. I also started a podcast, things that I never thought I would do personally. It was quite creative and I never would have expected it.

Have you had a favorite moment from your time so far, and would you talk a little bit about it?

One of the things that I try to do here is to create moments where we really dig into or celebrate Oklahoma or things about Oklahoma. Things that are worthwhile telling the world.

In this case, we did a 25th anniversary concert to commemorate the Oklahoma City bombing where we commissioned two new composers to write works and that was, at least for me, really inspiring. The other one was last year. We did this bizarre concert that was, at least in the classical worlds, unprecedented. I combined a piece created for orchestra and contemporary dance, by a living female composer from England, Anna Clyne, with the work of Anton Bruckner, a famous romantic composer from Austria. It turned out amazing.

It sounds like you've done many wonderful things in such a short time, which is super impressive. Thank you, Alexander. Do you have any advice for other professionals of any field, who are considering a move to Oklahoma?

Oklahoma City is in this amazing Renaissance right now. It's not so expensive that artists, and other creative folks cannot find a place to live and prosper. In a lot of big cities it's harder. Here in OKC, things are happening. The business world is supporting the creative world and it's very exciting.

Is there anything you'd like to plug about what's coming for the Philharmonic or anything else you feel like you wanted to share?

With the Philharmonic we are, fingers crossed, back at the beginning of March. At the beginning of March there is this big concert of a romantic composer, Gustav Mahler. The soloist of that concert is the concert master of the Berlin Philharmonic, which is a big deal. Then, two weeks later, in the middle of March, is our next concert, Music of Rachmaninoff. It is extremely lush, like a bath in chocolate--so extremely rich and beautiful. I’m very excited for that.

This conversation has been so wonderful, Alexander. Thank you so much for everything you're doing for our city and, and for the music scene, in general.

Get more info about upcoming concerts at https://www.okcphil.org/.