Wisconsin conductor John DeMain talks about his legacy, new memoir

Even in fourth grade John DeMain, the retiring music director for the Madison Symphony Orchestra, found himself at the podium conducting a group of musicians. 

The band teacher at the time, Michael Ficocelli, was also the symphony conductor in Youngstown, Ohio. So when Ficocelli was out, DeMain would step up to the podium and guide the musicians based on instinct. 

But it wasn’t until his senior year in high school that he cemented his plans for a musical career.  

“I looked in the mirror and said, ‘What is it you do when you don’t have to do anything? You’re always making music of some kind or another. So maybe that’s who you are and that’s what you should do,’” he told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today.”

That career has taken him around the United States and the globe working with famed conductors like Leonard Bernstein. He also garnered Grammy and Tony awards. 

At age 82, DeMain, is in his last season with the Madison Symphony Orchestra where he’s been for more than three decades. As he closes his career, DeMain has published a memoir, “Working with My Heroes: A Life in Music.”

Co-written with the late music journalist Greg Hettmansberger, the memoir walks the reader through DeMain’s musical journey and his road to Wisconsin.

DeMain will give a presentation on the book on March 24 at the Wisconsin Book Festival in Madison. He spoke with “Wisconsin Today” about his career and memoir.

The following conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity. 

Rob Ferret: I want to zoom in on your decision to come to the Madison Symphony Orchestra. You had a successful career prior to coming to Wisconsin in the 1990s. You worked with big names in Houston and elsewhere. What appealed to you about Madison? 

John DeMain: Well, I was frustrated because when I first got into conducting one of my first jobs was with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra with the Norwalk Symphony, so I was doing orchestral conducting. 

Then I got this incredible opportunity in Houston, and Houston Grand Opera was a major company which had a lot of publicity around it. So I did John Adams’ first opera, “Nixon in China.” I did Leonard Bernstein’s first opera, “A Quiet Place,” and other pieces like that, world premieres. 

In America, we have separate organizations raising money to keep these various arts organizations alive, whereas in Europe it’s all under one umbrella. So in America, I got pigeonholed as an opera conductor.

The longer I was doing opera the less I was getting the opportunity to do anything orchestral and that frustrated me because I remember how much I loved my time with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and how much I loved orchestral music.

I really wanted to have a symphony orchestra but I was in my 40s and there was just no way I was going to get a major orchestra without having years of experience behind me in symphonic repertoire. The years of experience at opera was great, but it didn’t equate over to symphonic repertoire. 

I knew I would have to go to an orchestra that was not a major orchestra but an orchestra that was professional. It was important to me that it be a professional orchestra. The agent that I had at the time, Scott George in New York, mentioned to me that the Madison Symphony was looking for a new music director and that it was in healthy shape financially, which of course, was very important as well. 

I came up and I heard the orchestra play for the world premiere of the Frank Lloyd Wright opera, “Shining Brow.” And that made me feel like I could make a difference and I could bring something to the orchestra. 

I liked the community right away and I had a 2-year-old daughter and I thought, “What a great place for her to grow up.” And that’s, of course, exactly what happened. I auditioned. I was very fortunate enough to get hired and the rest is history for the last 32 years.

RF: I would assume that these job titles are music jobs and what I learned from your book is they are also jobs that involve working with people, whether that’s dealing with the musicians, Leonard Bernstein or public outreach. Tell us a little bit about how you approach that side of the job.

JD: As a child conducting bands I was like a faculty person and at the same time I was a classmate and I had to learn how to talk to people in that way. 

There’s lessons to be learned about how to deal with a major orchestra and how to say please and thank you and how to understand people’s behavior. I think that when you’re working with singers, for example, you have to invest them with love. 

First of all, that’s how you get the best performance out of people is to think that you love them rather than hate them. But it’s more sincere than that and it creates a wonderful working atmosphere and also it’s how you get results. 

We know from the era of Toscanini that conductors were like dictators. They could be abusive and horrible but we can’t do that today and if you want to have a career in this business you can’t be abusive. I understand that and I’ve learned that over the lifetime of my own career. 

If I’ve had any kind of success in Madison, it’s because when we go to work, it’s about the work. We don’t pick on personalities or we don’t play games like that. I celebrate my orchestra because every one of them could play their instrument better than I ever could. You come into this room with all these great people from a point of respect.

RF: What do you hope your colleagues in the community remember about the John DeMain era at the Madison Symphony?

JD: First of all, we’ve covered a lot of repertoire that the orchestra hadn’t played before. The orchestra grew into this phenomenal, virtuosic instrument that it is now. I just had rehearsal last night and was blown away at how fast they can play the most difficult music and what they’ve become. 

Of course, it’s during my lifetime that the Overture Center for the Arts was built. I know that I was one of the reasons why they decided to give us a first class hall because we didn’t have one when I came and we didn’t really have a place to perform that was acceptable. Now we have one of the world’s great centers for the arts. 

What I wanted to do during my time here was to make people comfortable coming to a concert. There are people who come to the concert who are so sophisticated in their knowledge of the music and opinionated. And other people who just like to listen to it and don’t know much about what they’re listening to. 

For me, I wanted to make it like you’re going to church and meeting the preacher afterwards. I wanted them to feel comfortable; comfortable with me, comfortable with hearing music. It was OK if you knew a lot about it and it was OK if you didn’t know a lot about it, just come and listen and enjoy it. 

I’ve enjoyed meeting the patrons and donors over these years because this community is a community of a lot of achievers. There’s people with incredible patents and Nobel Prizes and just a tremendous amount of creativity and wealth in the community. 

By our system of working with donors to collect money, to perform and to raise funds, you get to meet all these people. In Europe you don’t because it’s all subsidized by the government. 

So you can live in an ivory tower, go to your concert and go back into your ivory tower but you can’t do that in America. You have to have a relationship. 

I think the relationships that I developed with our audience over the years have been particularly meaningful and wonderful. 

Of course, I love the musicians and that’s the most important thing. The fact that they still laugh at my jokes after 32 years, it’s great for me.