Maestro Michael Palmer will be stepping down from his position as artistic director and conductor of the Bellingham Festival of Music at the conclusion of this season’s series of classical music concerts taking place July 1–24, but that doesn’t mean he’s putting down his baton anytime soon.
“Conductors are like soldiers,” Palmer, 77, said. “We don’t die, we just fade away.”
He explained that conducting is one of the pursuits in life in which age is an advantage, not only because it takes a long time to master the craft in front of many different orchestras, but also because the position requires being able to perform from a number of different repertoires. He pointed out that one of his mentors, Herbert Blomstedt, currently has the distinction of being the oldest living conductor in the world — he’s almost 95 years old, and is still leading orchestras on occasion.
“I feel as a conductor that I’m in the prime of my time right now,” Palmer said, noting he has many projects in the works and his new position as Conductor Laureate will see him returning to the Bellingham Festival of Music in 2025 to conduct a concert annually.
Next summer, candidates chosen by the festival’s board and a special committee will come and conduct to audition for the position, and the 2024 season will see Palmer’s successor at the podium.
The Calidore String Quartet, Bellingham Festival of Music’s chamber ensemble in residence, will kick things off Friday, July 1 with a program at Western Washington University Performing Arts Center. (Photo courtesy of Michael Hershkowitz)
When Palmer co-founded the festival in 1993 with Robert Sylvester — who was the dean of the music department at Western Washington University at the time — he’d already been conducting professionally for nearly 30 years. At just 21 years old, he was hired to become the assistant (eventually associate) conductor of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.
“I had a fairy tale beginning as a conductor,” Palmer said, “and have lived a wonderful life in music ever since.”
A number of events will pay homage to the maestro’s three decades of bringing professional-level classical music to Whatcom County. Among them are concerts celebrating the 250th birthday of German composer and pianist Ludwig van Beethoven — retrospectives that were canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The centerpiece of 2022’s season will be performances of the five Beethoven piano concertos, featuring acclaimed pianist Garrick Ohlsson, July 15–17 at WWU’s Performing Arts Center. Ohlsson first led the concerto marathon at the 2000 Bellingham Festival of Music, leading to a CD recording of the event.
Other returning festival musicians will bring Beethoven’s Triple Concerto to life, and the festival chorus — along with soloists Katie van Kooten, Ellen Graham, Eric Barry and Clayton Brainerd — will conclude the season with the Ninth Symphony, Beethoven’s paean to brotherhood.
Palmer said Beethoven has been a major part of his repertoire over the years, and for good reason.
“With Beethoven, the symphony as a form went from being basically an evening’s lovely entertainment to being suddenly about the human condition,” Palmer said. “He injected all kinds of meaning into the symphony. Most of his symphonies begin in struggle and end in triumph — especially the odd-numbered ones. There’s an important message in them.”
Selections from other composers will also be on the musical menu during the nine concerts that comprise Palmer’s final season at the helm of the Bellingham Festival of Music. The Calidore String Quartet, the festival’s chamber ensemble in residence, will kick things off Friday, July 1 with a program featuring works by Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Jorg Widmann and Johannes Brahms. Works by Richard Strauss, Max Bruch and Franz Schubert can also be heard over the course of the month.
The lineup of composers is impressive, but so are the musicians. The Bellingham Festival of Music orchestra and soloists are comprised of professionals from across the U.S. and Canada, principles in such orchestras as the New York Philharmonic and the Boston, Chicago and Atlanta symphonies. Many have been a part of the Bellingham Festival of Music for 15 or 20 years, and Palmer said their return each season has made them a kind of a family.
Palmer acknowledged the Bellingham Festival of Music wouldn’t have been possible without the support of those who’ve purchased tickets to the shows, volunteered or offered financial support. He considers the audience to be partners in helping the festival succeed and encourages those who’ve never attended a concert to try one out.
“Come without expectations of any kind, and open yourself completely to the experience,”
he said. “There will be some things that you like, and some things you won’t like. And that’s just like everything else in life.
“The music we play covers three or four hundred centuries of time and has lasted all of this time, and so there must be a reason. You might want to give yourself the opportunity to be exposed to that and, over time, develop a kind of understanding of what that reason might be.”
The Bellingham Festival of Music takes place July 1–24 at Western’s Performing Arts Center, with one concert at the Bellingham Cruise Terminal, 355 Harris Ave. Individual tickets are $12–$65. Info: bellinghamfestival.org.
