Read Joey Young's blog about his experiences as the BSO/Peabody Conducting Fellow >>

The Monday night conducting seminar at the Peabody Institute is just getting under way. An earnest young man is leading the student orchestra in the opening strains of Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphony when Marin Alsop, music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO), slips in through a side door. As soon as she enters, the orchestra strikes up Happy Birthday, in honor of her 51st birthday a few days earlier.

Alsop confers with Gustav Meier, director of Peabody's graduate conducting program, during a workshop at the Conservatory. The new Peabody-BSO partnership has brought with it the chance for conducting students to assist guest conductors at the BSO.

Clearly pleased, she joins Gustav Meier, director of Peabody's graduate conducting program, in the center of the room and spends the next two hours coaching and critiquing 10 future conductors. She offers praise and encouragement while reminding one student to "stand up, stand up, don't lean so much" and another to "look the winds directly in the eyes. I want to see you invite the clarinets." "The downbeat needs to be sharper," she advises a tentative young woman. To one student whose hair flops wildly during the more forceful passages she exclaims, "You really need to get a haircut!" In the midst of one critique, she turns to a thrilled orchestra member and compliments him on his fine horn solo. On occasion, she strides to the front of the room and stands beside the podium, sometimes just watching intently, other times correcting posture, positioning a wrist, or demonstrating a more appropriate gesture.

One of the students is more familiar than most with Alsop's tutelage; he studies equally at Peabody and with the BSO. Joey Young of Central, South Carolina, is the first recipient of the BSO-Peabody Conducting Fellowship, a pilot program designed to give young conductors both the musical foundations and the leadership skills they will need to take the helm of a major orchestra. Modeled after the Conducting Fellows Program of the American Symphony Orchestra League, the fellowship breaks new ground as the first partnership between a conservatory and a symphony orchestra. Co-directed by Alsop and Meier, it also launches a new era of cooperation between two of Baltimore's most venerable institutions.

For Joey Young, "it's a dream come true to work with high-caliber artists like Marin Alsop and Gustav Meier and have them give so much of their time to help me master my craft." At 25, he stands on the threshold of realizing a long-held ambition to be an orchestra conductor.

As fellowship recipient, Young receives a two-year full-tuition scholarship to Peabody. He will receive an Artist's Diploma in Conducting upon completing the program. As a Peabody student under Meier's guidance, Young attends up to five conducting seminars a week and takes classes in music theory, foreign language, and the works of the major composers, such as Beethoven and Mozart.

Unlike the other students, Young spends half his time immersed in the workings of the BSO. He meets with Alsop for a private conducting lesson once a week when she is in town. In between, they frequently discuss a wide range of topics: music interpretation, musician relations, programming and planning a season, how to run rehearsals.

At BSO rehearsals, Young usually gets 10-minute videotaped sessions on the podium and valuable feedback from Alsop and the orchestra members. He also works with administrative staff on non-musical aspects of orchestra life, such as committee and board meetings, fundraising, and media relations. His practical experience will include regularly serving as "cover" conductor for Alsop, ready to fill in for her if necessary, participating in educational and community events and concerts, and at some point in the season conducting one work on a BSO subscription program.

Young's introduction to conducting came as a teenager. "The first time I touched a baton was at age 16," he recalls. "I was at the South Carolina Governor's School of the Arts for a summer program, and they were giving conducting classes. During the class they slowly weeded out people, but I ended up staying till the very end and got to conduct a small chamber orchestra. That was the first time I knew I wanted to be a conductor."

He went on to study music education at Newberry College and the University of South Carolina and for the past three years taught band at D.W. Daniel High School in Central, South Carolina, where he built an award-winning music program.

Young first met Marin Alsop in 2006 when he attended a conducting workshop at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in California, where she serves as Music Director. After the workshop, she advised him as he pursued plans for graduate study in conducting, and when he applied for the new fellowship, he proved a perfect fit.

"Joey has a natural gift for conducting," Alsop says. "He draws a beautiful sound from the orchestra, and his musical instincts are superb. I also feel that he has the desire and perseverance to succeed in what is an extraordinarily competitive field."

What does he find hardest about learning to conduct at a professional level? "After conducting for three years without being formally trained, breaking bad habits is the hard part," he says. "The good thing about these two teachers is they won't let me continue making music unless it's right."

Another challenge, he adds, is communicating with the orchestra under the time constraints he faces with the BSO. "I'm used to spending a lot of time on music, teaching kids to play it for three months and listening to it many, many times with a high school band to make it work," he says. "Now I'll only have two hours or less in rehearsals to make sure everything is played correctly and to make it my own."

It is those kids in the band back in South Carolina who still give him the encouragement he needs. "They're doing well, and they keep telling me it was because of me pushing them to do well," he says. "They're very inspirational, and they keep me moving."

As for the future, Young says, "I would hope I could make a life as a guest conductor for at least two years. After that, I want to look into being a music director, perhaps for a smaller orchestra. When I leave Peabody and the BSO, I feel like I'm going to have a lot of ideas and a musical vision that is my own, so I hope to have an orchestra of my own where I can be the ambassador and leader. From there, I want to keep moving. I've always been driven, and I like to think bigger and bigger."

The Conducting Fellowship promises a bright future not just for Joey Young but also for a close relationship between Peabody and the BSO.

Alsop, who believes strongly in mentoring, has pledged to work more closely with all Peabody students. Last winter, she conducted the Peabody Symphony Orchestra in a concert at Meyerhoff Hall. Moving forward, she says, "we are identifying ways that the BSO can collaborate with the Peabody students in concert and in rehearsals. The conducting students will all be assigned a week or two to assist guest conductors at the BSO, which will give each of them hands-on experience they can learn from and add to their CVs."

Alsop also has an open invitation to attend conducting seminars at Peabody whenever she can and to assist Meier in coaching the students. "It's extremely helpful," he says. "She has a different view sometimes, or she sees some things that escape us."

The two hope to collaborate for years to come on the BSO-Peabody Conducting Fellowship, which Meier believes will be a much-sought-after prize for young conductors. "It's like winning the lottery, because it almost certainly means a job when they're through," he says. "For most student conductors, when they graduate there are some lean years, because it's difficult to get into an orchestra. But with a degree from Peabody plus having conducted a major orchestra and assisted a major conductor, that puts them on top of the pile."

Looking at the big picture, Alsop concludes: "It is critical that we all get involved in the development of young conductors in order to make a contribution to the future of the field. By participating in their training, we will be in some measure responsible for creating the great conductors of the future."

The appointment of Marin Alsop as a Distinguished Visiting Artist at the Peabody Conservatory is made possible by a gift in honor of Ryda H. Levi from her children Sandra Levi Gerstung, Vicki and Alex Levi, Susan Perry and Richard Levi and all the grandchildren.