Recently, we had the chance to chat with renowned pop conductor Steven Reineke about his career in music, conducting, and all things John Williams while in Toronto conducting the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in the concert The Best of John Williams. It was an incredible two hours strolling through some of the collected works from Williams during his career.
Horror Geek Life: Can you tell us where your interest in music began?
Steven Reineke: I would have to say I’d credit that to my father. He was a banker by trade but a folk guitar player for fun. My earliest memories of music were him sitting on the edge of my bed, playing and singing songs to put me to sleep. That’s where my interest began, and I just took to it. I had a natural aptitude for it.
Horror Geek Life: How did that interest in music morph into a career in conducting?
Steven Reineke: That was quite a journey (laughs). When I was in fifth grade, I entered a music program, and they put a saxophone in my hands. It didn’t take; it was terrible, but then they shoved a trumpet in my hands, and I took to it like a fish out of water, loved it. I then started playing piano in junior high school, never had a lesson, would practice at my friend’s house as we didn’t have a piano, and I found myself playing a lot by ear, at least in the beginning. That led me to begin to write music, arrange and compose music, which continued in high school, writing music, playing trumpet and piano. I went to college and thought playing trumpet was the path I was on, but I was also becoming more and more interested in composing music as well.
After getting a grant to move to LA to study film music, I wanted to be the next John Williams, but conducting was not on the radar at this point. It was fun. I was learning a lot, making a lot of connections, but after two years in LA, I got a call to come back to Cincinnati, Ohio, where I was born and raised, as my college orchestra conductor, the music director for the Cinncinati ballet company, also a fine composer was writing a full-length ballet of Peter Pan, asked me to come back and orchestrate the whole thing for him. That led to me being invited by Erich Kunzel to move back from LA and be the principal arranger and composer for the Cinncinati Pops.
The conducting started one time when the orchestra would go every year from Cinncinati to Cleveland to play in an outdoor summer festival. We were in Erich’s car, just him and me, driving up there, and of course, he was listening to Cinncinati Pop recordings he made, and I’m in the passenger seat conducting to the music, and he looks at me and says, “So you want my job now?” That was actually the impetus that turned into him putting me on the podium for things I had arranged and composed to see what I could do, but more than that, it was official lessons with him.
It was very intense and really wonderful. That was when I was about twenty-five or twenty-six, working/training with him, and I first conducted the Toronto Symphony Orchestra when I was twenty-seven. I had to fill in for Erich, who was sick, so I have a very long-standing relationship with this orchestra. Looking back, I remember as a teenager conducting along in a mirror to everything from classical composers to the band Chicago. I loved all kinds of music, and back then, I always thought, what if I could lead an orchestra playing pop music? I didn’t even know a pop orchestra was a thing, so it’s funny looking back at those moments now.
Horror Geek Life: When did the idea of doing a John Williams concert come about?
Steven Reineke: Well, I’ve always been a fan of John Williams since my early days. He’s probably one of the inspirations that made me want to be in music as well; I loved the film scores. I would steal my dad’s fedora and robe belt and run around the backyard whipping things and singing that song. I remember my parents took me to see Jaws, which came out in ’75. I don’t know if I was five or six years old, but I remember the movie house being packed and my brothers and I sitting on the steps in the aisle. Definitely a different time then (laughs).
I was terrified, and when we went to visit relatives by the beach, I wouldn’t go in the water, so yeah, his music did have a subconscious influence on me in the very early days. As I got older, I obviously learned more about who he was, I mean, he really didn’t have a hit film score until he was in his forties, so it was kind of nice to know you didn’t all have to get it done in your twenties!
I’ve done a lot of John Wiliams concerts over the years with all of my orchestras. They are really fun to do, the orchestras love to play them, and they sell. People love to come, and they are always a hit with the audience.
Horror Geek Life: How do you decide what to do at these concerts? He has so much content to draw on. And as a conductor, do you try and put your own stamp on it as well, or is it all about him?
Steven Reineke: It’s all about him, and the only stamp I put on it as a conductor is to try and do the music the best justice I can. This is music that has real meat on its bones, that ebbs and flows, it’s incredibly musical, lush and romantic, alien landscapes, and to just find the little details and pull them out, I mean, I conduct John William’s music like I would Mozart or Beethoven.
But yeah, it’s all in service to the music. It’s not like I’m going out there to do something so special and different with it. It’s about taking the best shaping, the best version of the music, and getting the most out of the players as possible.
Horror Geek Life: These shows bring such an eclectic group of people together for the love of both film and orchestras alike. As the conductor, what is the thrill you get from these shows?
Steven Reineke: It’s standing in front of the power of the orchestra because John Williams is able to use the orchestra in all of its sweeping Majesties. Also great tender moments as well. But when you’re conducting the main theme of Star Wars up there, it is kind of a feeling like no other, like you’ve jumped onto a speeding locomotive and you’re just going along for the ride. The music, even though it’s really, really hard, he challenges every section of the orchestra. It’s written so well, I don’t want to say it plays itself…but it almost plays itself (laughs). It’s written so well it’s just a lot of fun to conduct, and it usually goes very smoothly. The players really dig in.
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Horror Geek Life: Do you have a particular piece of music or score that you can go back to time and time again?
Steven Reineke: One of my favorites is Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I would love to do it, live film to orchestra, and I believe it is available. My understanding is because it’s a one-off from a certain kind of generation, it just doesn’t sell a ton of tickets. Oddly enough, E.T. doesn’t sell a ton of tickets either because there is no sequel to it, no franchise, and you have to be a certain age to appreciate and remember it. But when I do it, I do see generations there, people bringing their young kids, which is really cool, and it sells well but not like a Star Wars movie. Not that every barometer of what we should be doing is about ticket sales, but it is a reality of what we do.
But yeah, Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a very underrated score. We simply don’t hear it as much. The movie doesn’t get played as much, but it’s an incredibly gorgeous and also experimental score. He really went deep on that one. I really like the score for E.T. too, and it’s not just for all the big moments, like the bicycle chase, those things are great, but he wrote so much tender music in that, it’s so beautiful and a fun one to conduct to film, too.
Horror Geek Life: So, what are your future plans? Are you going to continue the pop concerts or do you have some other things planned?
Steven Reineke: I work with four orchestras, so we are planning on doing all sorts of things. We’ve been doing great work at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., with the National Symphony Orchestra, developing new shows with different types of artists you wouldn’t normally think of playing with an orchestra.
As a matter of fact, we’ve done a lot of shows with rap and hip-hop artists, something I’ve invested in over the last seven or eight years. It’s been amazing to mold this incredibly popular genre of music, that being rap and hip-hip, together with an orchestra and opening up music for a different kind of fan and audience. It’s great to continue to dispel the idea that orchestral symphonies are just an old, rich white guy kind of experience, and it was amazing for me to see how well this genre fits with an orchestra, too.
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Horror Geek Life: I remember when I first heard Metallica play with an orchestra, and I was just amazed at what a great music collaboration it was. It’s great to hear people like yourself breaking down these barriers, showing symphony music is not just a snobbish, elite kind of entertainment. It can be for everyone.
Steven Reineke: I absolutely agree. We don’t live in an ivory tower. The orchestra is not just a living museum piece that is only there to keep playing, again and again, music by two-hundred-year-old dead white guys. There is a time and place for that, but there is so much more than just that, and that’s where we need to continue to be creative and innovative and relevant because if you only did that music, what would the relevance be?
I tell you, picking the score for a John Wiliams concert is something else. There are some interesting things in the show, and people keep sending me ideas that had me doing a real deep dive into John Williams. So there are some things we’re doing that aren’t normally done, along with the big hits.
Next month at the Kennedy Center, we’re doing a three-day birthday festival since this is John Wiliams’ 90th birthday year, which I’ll be a part of. The first night I’ll be conducting E.T., live orchestra to film, the second night is a big gala concert, and the third night I’m conducting Jurassic Park, which will have a pre-concert talk between Steven Speilberg and John Williams, they are both going to be there. I’ll be conducting these movies in front of both of them, so I’m really excited about that.
I want to thank Steven for taking the time to talk with us!
