From WHYY in Philadelphia, please welcome Terry Gross and Yannick Nezet Seguin [Music] Well... First of all, thanks for doing this incredibly generous of you.

I know you've had an incredible busy schedule, particularly this weekend.

Well, it's such an honor, Terry, really, to do this.

I'm thrilled and I'm also a tiny teeny bit nervous, to be honest.

And well, thank you for all the friends to join us today and a few musicians of the orchestra.

You know, I've had the pleasure to just now introduce you.

Well, it's true that you, my goal today, I'm not going to talk to you just to finish the preface.

My goal today is to make sure that we stay in the mode that we want to hear more about you and not the opposite.

I do know that maybe you're going to want to sneak in one or two questions for me.

And that's okay.

It's allowed because, you know, I respect you and love you so much.

But at first I received a request and I want to start this way because you wanted it to be a bit more conversational.

And I want to know and I want to ask Terry Gross, the best interviewer in the world.

How does an interview differ from a conversation for you?

Well, when I'm interviewing somebody, I want to put the spotlight on them.

And it's my job to ask questions that will hopefully provoke interesting and revealing answers.

In a conversation, it's about me too.

You know, I want to be an equal in the conversation, not just showing the spotlight on the person I'm talking to.

And I want them to hear what I think and my experiences.

And I want us to share in an equal way.

And do you believe that when you are interviewing your own views?

Do you make a point of not having your own views understood through your questions or it depends on the context?

Well, I'm a different kind of interviewer.

Or if it's political, then if it's about the arts or something personal.

Because there's no point in talking about the arts unless you're really passionate about it.

And you want to create that kind of passion for your listeners too.

You want them to discover new works and to more deeply appreciate works they already love.

In art interviews, I'll tell you what I love about it.

And I'll point to things.

In a political interview, I'm going to try to be neutral.

But ask challenging questions if it's appropriate.

Yeah, yeah.

And that's very clearly apparent.

And I think from all these years at Fresh Air.

And this is, I think this, the fact that you're very fair.

But also pushing is really what I appreciate and so many listeners do.

But there's something always very musical I feel in the way you answer questions.

Even just the difference between the conversation and the interview.

It's a little bit like when I hear I think about an orchestra in the opera, which is submitted in the pit to having the voices, you know, as opposed to when there's moments even in an opera.

But especially in a symphony orchestra where it's actually really a dialogue.

And those are two equal parts.

And I want to go immediately to music because that I've been lucky over the years to I think maybe it's our sixth time.

I'm a lucky one.

No, no, no, I am.

I'm luckier You clearly love music and you're clearly more than I mean you're very musical in your way of approaching things.

And I want to know if what kind of music was playing in your house when you were growing up or how did you come to love music so much?

There were two clashing kinds of music in my house.

My brother was five years, my brother is five years older than me.

So he got a hi - fi Okay, yes.

Good.

Before I was old enough to buy records.

So he was buying the records and that's how through him and through like Dick Clark American band stand and through AM radio.

I got exposed to a lot of rock and roll and I loved it.

My parents listened to anyone who grew up New York might remember W and E W A M and they played this mix of like Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra and how much is that doggy in the window?

And hot diggery dog diggety do I mean it's always a mix of like really great stuff.

And really just like horrible stuff and I hated all of it because it wasn't rock and roll until I was in college maybe and started listening to music on my own and discovering like wow Ella Fitzgerald is really great.

And Sinatra is really great and then you know you find Billy Holiday and Chet Baker and all these other great people.

And then of course my late husband was a music critic, a jazz critic.

So we still listen to a lot of music together and go to a lot of concerts and then I discovered opera and just like totally fell in love with it.

Was there a connection between because you're naming like the great jazz divas and you know the crooners and the legendary singers.

So was it the voice you think that led you to love opera or was it more storytelling?

It was all of it.

It was the drama like one of my I think my most favorite opera is dialogue of the caramelites.

I saw the production that you conducted.

And it's got a great story about nuns who are risking their lives to defend their monastery, nunnery, what?

Yes.

Absolutely.

During one of the French revolutions.

Yeah.

And they're risking their lives to do it, and they know that.

And then the mother superior is dying.

And on her deathbed, she's questioning her faith.

And she's just, she's terrified of death.

And it's such a spectacular aria.

And the production, I saw where you conducted, so like dramatically sung.

And that kind of drama about life and death and religion and sacrifice.

And doubt, it's like, where are you going to find that?

You find that all the time in opera Yeah, that's true.

But also my, my, my approach sometimes is to think that the voice itself has to carry the drama.

But you have to start with also having a voice.

You know, I'm saying, oh, no, absolutely, absolutely.

And but that drama, maybe Billy Holiday was also carrying that drama in her way of singing.

Yeah, and the opposite way of opera because it's very subtle.

You know what I mean?

It's not like a big passion where you're falling on the floor, dying, you know.

And she was, she had such a relaxed behind the beatway of, of singing.

What was it like for you to conduct that death scene that I mentioned?

You see?

It's, it's, it's been five minutes.

No, no, no, no, I'm so, I'm so much.

Every so often I just go back and watch that scene.

So for, for us, I'm going to tell you a story, Terry, this opera I've been involved in one production so far, the Met conducting, but involved as an assistant conductor way back in Montreal when I was, I don't know, maybe 24.

I was a chorus master and I was also assistant conductor.

And both times happen with different singers, different productions, different sets, design, different obviously, everything.

The same thing happened after a couple weeks in rehearsal or three weeks, whatever.

The whole cast was just bursting in tears at that moment you're describing.

And at some point there needs to be and it's a great thing about art and the power of art, which sometimes is so powerful emotionally that for us musicians, singers, we have to carry that and project that emotion to the audience, but if we're too emotional about it ourselves, we can't actually project it to you.

And we have to get past it.

We have to get it out of our system.

At some point the cast has to cry it out and then we have all to collectively talk about it and say look, now our role is to try and just give this to the audience.

Because if we're keeping to ourselves, it's too emotional for us, you as an audience member will not feel as much.

It reminds i heard Mabel Mercer, the great cabaret singer perform and she said, this was in there was like a reception going on afterwards and what she said was It's my job to make you cry.

If I cry, I'm going to be the one who's crying, not you.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

It's so true.

Sometimes we don't think of, if we see a great actor also on cinema and you see them crying, but they cannot have... I mean, there's all these conversations and you've interviewed so many actors about method acting and everything, but at the end of the day, there's a certain projection.

I remember being in concert also, even for Symphony Orchestra, where there's no story, but being so happy with the performance, thinking, "Oh, we were so intense, and the audience did not feel maybe as much, because we felt so much on stage."

It's very interesting how that happens and the perspectives.

And our job, as you just said, is at the end of the day, is to project it to the others, not staying there.

Do you still listen to Rock 'n' Roll now?

um yes, but my first go too is usually jazz.

When I can, I get to the opera, but it's been a while because of COVID and my husband and all of that.

It's one of the things I miss most, because I look forward so much to going.

And I would do it, and I recommend this, you know, the Met Live in HD at the movie theaters.

The sound is great.

If you go to the right theater, the projection is great.

And the camera work is great.

The subtitles are great.

So you can thoroughly enjoy it without having to travel.

Did you ever have a plan B in your life?

I had a plan A, and that failed pretty quickly.

So are you telling us that this is your plan B?

It was my unexpected plan B, because plan A, well, really plan A was like, I don't know what I'm going to do with my life.

Plan B was, you're in English major, therefore you have to teach English.

So I got placed in a public school, got fired within six weeks.

And why?

I was in a very poor majority black school teaching eighth grade.

I was still wearing like hippie clothes.

They accused me of shopping at the Salvation Army.

Then I got accused of like shooting up heroin because they saw the track marks.

I wore long sleeves all the time.

There was no track marks.

It was, the administration was really terrible.

And the kids were really out of control.

And they were taller than I am.

And I started the day after election day.

So, they were already organized.

And I was like brand new to the school and brand new to teaching.

So, I was a total failure.

When the supervisor from the board of ed came down to watch me, the students kind of knowing what a really lousy teacher I was, overturned a bookcase on their way out.

It was the equivalent.

Oh, that's cruel.

Well, I think they wanted to make a point.

And they made it to their credit.

Yeah, of course.

Yeah.

But anyways, and then Plan B was, I don't know again, and then Plan D, I guess it was, was my roommate had just come out on the radio, on the feminist show.

And her girlfriend was moving to the lesbian feminist show, creating an opening on the feminist show.

And that's when I volunteered to work on the show.

And that's how I started.

That's such a fascinating story.

Oh my goodness.

Well, all I can say is that that supposed failure created something that you know so many of your impact then on the entire nation was there because you know maybe just this failure that the school did.

You find it was a failure at first or we just thought at least I know I'm not made for this.

Oh I know I wasn't made for it like really quickly.

Yeah.

But I didn't want to be a quitter.

You know everyone says like don't be a quitter.

And so but so I was I felt the last one they fired me.

Yeah.

I'm sure they thought like we'll teach her a lesson.

And when you arrive on radio, I don't know what do you prefer about this?

Is the research because that's something I've always wanted to ask you.

We musicians are a lot of what we do is obviously the preparation.

You know, and the musicians in the orchestra they practice at home every day.

I mean, between, I don't know two to four to six to eight hours a day.

And then a conductor, I also sit with scores in silence and get ready.

And that's, I guess, every profession does a certain amount of that.

But what I'm so amazed with you is the research, is the prep time.

Do you have an organized way of doing this?

The producers send me links to articles I should read and sometimes give me some bullet points about the most important things about their life.

And then I have articles about the person that I read and if it's an author I have one or two or three of their books.

One I'll read more carefully, the other two I'll just kind of skim through.

I dog ear pages of the books and circle things I want to remember, take notes on what I've circled.

That's my memory bank and then I think about it and write the questions.

But the research for me is the hard part because you're kind of bound to the chair.

Like I give myself goals.

Like you're not you're not going to the bathroom until you read 50 more pages.

You have to pace yourself, you have to get this read.

You're not going to bed no matter what time it is until you finish the reading because the interview is in the morning.

So I just find that really challenging.

Too many authors write like 500 page books that are really hard to get through.

The best part is of course doing the interview and talking to the person who you care about.

And we spend so much time preparing for.

It's wonderful to hear but it's also I think for the musicians who are present here, you know this kind of goal like okay 50 more pages before I get dinner or 50 more.

It sounds very musical to me.

Like this is the kind of... Oh yeah the kind of challenge.

Otherwise that and that's quintessentially the discipline I feel.

Do you like the learning part of having to study a complicated score?

So much.

But my and that's related because it might be a weakness of mine and I want to know I had to learn very much, I have to learn later in life how to really get organized about preparing so that it's not last minute.

And so for example opera scores which are long is three hours four hours Wagner five hours and counting.

I tended to automatically do maybe the same to allocate the same prep time for each score.

And therefore would find that, you know, I want our symphony and the five hour opera I would mentally allow the same time and then I would freak out.

Of course that the opera I didn't have as much time.

But being the way who I am I would just like not sleep for two weeks and then just make sure that everything was done.

But that's why now I'm learning more that I need to get to see what's coming.

And three months before make sure that this is done so that I'm, you know, and that's also maybe part of what I wanted to know is there are some topics that you feel you have to learn more about them and you need to do it more ahead of time.

Well there isn't really much of a ahead of time because I'm doing two interviews a week and I used to do 10 a week.

So like you can't really get ahead unless you're on vacation and if you're on vacation it's not what you want to be doing No, because it's called a vacation.

Are you good at vacation?

I've been taking stay-cations the past few years.

Yeah.

And I'm good at stay-cation if your definition of stay-cation is stay home and take care of all the things you didn't do because you are on deadline all the time.

So, you know, good at dinners.

Oh good.

Okay, good at dinners and then with friends.

Yeah, yes, dinners with friends.

Yes.

And then do you interview them?

No, no, because those are conversations.

Yes, that's great, that's great.

Now I'm learning, I'm learning.

You mentioned something earlier about preparation and emails and links.

I mean 50 years of Fresh Air also means that these technological things have changed a lot since you started.

And they've changed a lot in my time of doing what I did.

I remember hiring chorus members at the Montreal Opera, singularly by fax.

So I wonder how has it changed also for the preparation?

What did you do before these emails for reading the books?

Was it different or?

Well for many years, for at least 10 or 12 years, it was a three-hour show five days a week.

So I had so many interviews to prepare for that I couldn't prepare too long for any one of them.

But the research was sending an intern to the library who'd bring back microfiche copies.

So it was often like a black page with white blurry lettering on it that you had to read.

And then I started off hand writing everything because I didn't have a typewriter.

I finally got like an IBM Selectric which seemed like wow I'm so lucky to have an IBM Selectric typewriter and then when we got computers first I didn't like the first the team had computers and I didn't because Okay, yeah, it's a long story, but it made sense it made sense to me at the time But then I finally got a computer and that was pretty great.

Was it resistance of technology or?

No, no, it was more like the producers started writing the intros for me, but then I started writing my own and I really needed a computer.

And I really needed it for notes too, but I didn't realize how much I needed it at first.

I thought like, I can do without this.

I've done it without it for so long.

Yeah, that's true, but I mean those, so basically you're not nostalgic of that time.

Oh, hell no.

I'm not going back to correct type and white out, no way.

That's wonderful to hear.

How do you keep your voice healthy?

You were talking to somebody who a month ago had no voice.

I had laryngitis I don't know if that's ever happened to you and so This has happened to me ever since 1978.

When I get a cold, and this time I didn't even have a cold, I just had laryngitis I lose my voice.

That's how I stopped smoking.

I realized I was losing my voice on the air and still smoking during the interview.

I thought, "This is bad."

You're going to kill your voice and not have anything to do anymore.

so that's how I stopped.

But anyhow, when you lose your voice, when I lose my voice, there's a part of me that's saying, "Hey, what if it never comes back?"

That's really scary.

Then the other part of myself tries to drown out that voice and says, "It always comes back."

Just relax and trust that's going to come back.

That means that you are obviously aware how precious this is for what you do.

But do you do any, of course, singers, as you know, do a lot of warm-ups.

Theatre actors do it.

So I've always wondered, someone like you, do you warm it up in the morning before?

No.

Because I'm just talking in a regular voice into a microphone.

So I don't have to stretch my octave, make sure I reach the high notes or the low notes.

you know what i mean?

So I'm just talking in a regular conversational range.

And I can speak as quietly as I want and trust that the mic is going to pick it up.

But your voice is so human, so very warm, I think.

And I know that when I do the few times that I do an interview, if I wear those, you know, headphones, I find my voice always very scratchy.

And I always feel like it's not warmed up enough.

And then I hear you and it's like so, so normal and perfect.

So that's why I really thought you were doing warm-ups.

No, but your voice has never sounded scratchy.

Really?

Yeah.

Oh, well, that's a great compliment coming from you.

So now is the time for me to ask you, do you like being interviewed?

Sometimes, I'm enjoying talking with you, and it's part interview and part conversation, and I love you so, so that's great.

But I've had interviews that were just like really horrible questions, and so it just becomes boring.

And I've had interviews that have gone pretty deep, and I really enjoyed it a lot.

But one way or another, I learn about interviewing from being interviewed.

You learn what's an answerable question, and what's just so broad, how am I going to answer that?

So basically your brain, of course, not surprising me, is always functioning in terms of how can you learn more?

Yes.

What you do.

And this is one of the things that we, well I and we all admire so much about you.

And I wonder if sometimes you can turn that off.

Meaning like, can you enjoy sometimes a play or book or even watching another interview on TV or listening on radio without having your brain thinking, oh that was too much, that's going too long, I wonder.

Well I'm grateful when I see a movie and I'm not doing an interview about it, I'm grateful I don't have to take notes because you know you're in a dark theater and you're writing notes down that you can't see and you come home and you realize you can't even recognize your writing.

However while you were looking down you missed a key moment in the movie and you don't know what happened.

So I appreciate not having to do that but sometimes seeing a movie when you're doing an interview can even enhance your appreciation of it because you're studying it so carefully and you're watching the performance to see what clues the actor is giving you about how they perceive the actor, the character they're playing or what the director or the editor do that made this scene like so gripping or funny.

I, one of the Fresh Air we did together was with Bradley Cooper about a master film where you were in Philadelphia, he was in New York and I was in Montreal and we had this three way conversation about it but that was precisely remember you you asked a lot about what really some scenes meant and I remember you were able to get things out of us like no one else did.

So thank you for this.

Well thank you for that.

Well I mean yeah I think you always do in my opinion that's why we're celebrating 50 years and I think I need to I'm indicated that I need to wrap up soon but maybe my final question to you you know you've interviewed so many people over the years obviously and sometimes I just think you know 50 years I know for myself it's been already 25 years that I am and more 30 years that I'm conducting and I see myself doing this forever but for you you've been talking to so many people does it ever get repetitive or boring or what keeps your fire of being curious about about topics or people.

Well first of all there's always new people coming up of a different generation with different stories to tell and different landmarks in their lives and in their pop culture life in their music life.

So that helps keep it fresh.

And also there's people who are after being on the scene for a while are coming into their own and now they have real stories to tell.

They're not there like 20 something self just kind of showing off and asserting who they are.

Well they don't really know yet who they are.

And then later 10 years later 15 years later they're reflecting on who they were and who they've become.

So like you know and there's always like new books with new insights but there's also always trends.

And with the trends after a while it just gets a little tiresome to keep.

Like even in memoirs there's certain trends.

Yeah.

Whether it's about being more forthcoming about sex than before, being more forthcoming about parental abuse or being more forthcoming about like racial issues or gender issues.

And so after a while, I think I've done this interview five times already.

So I start to cut back on it.

Yeah, I guess this you probably can't control, but it's really amazing.

I never thought of this that you're in such a position that you can observe those trends.

Yeah, very much.

And then see.

So I mean, I was swearing to myself.

I wouldn't ask you this, but I will.

Did you have like a favorite interview?

No.

No.

My fear is if I have a favorite interview, I'll listen back to it and go, "That's the best you can do."

That's the best there is.

So I don't.

Can I ask you one more question?

Of course.

I believe the first music we hear creates this kind of genetic imprint and that we're always, even if we didn't think we liked it, it stays deep in our buried in our brain and we somehow gravitate to things related to it or to that itself.

Absolutely.

What is in your deepest music genealogy that you were first exposed to?

So, there's a great example of this for me that it's not technically the first, but it's very early in my development musically.

Actually, yes, there is a first in that story.

It's the first CD that I bought.

So, I was, I don't know, we're talking 1988, so I was 13, so it makes sense.

You know, 1988 is when CDs started to really be the thing as opposed to LPs.

So, and that also at 13 is the age where I started to get a bit of pocket money and decided that I would invest in CDs.

So, I go to, I remember it was called Eaton.

It doesn't exist anymore in Montreal and they had a section of recordings.

And I decided I was playing some Brahms.

I decided to learn more about Brahms and then in my choir we were doing the Brahms Requiem.

So I want a version of the CD of Brahms Requiem.

I don't know the conductor.

I vaguely heard that Vienna was a musical city and I didn't know the soloist then.

So it was Carli Maria Giulini conducting the Vienna Philharmonic and the soprano was Barbara Bonney.

Well, I don't know if it's because of that or not, but Giulini ended up being my mentor, my ideal conductor.

He still is to this day.

I worked with him.

Vienna Philharmonic is one of my favorite orchestras that, you know, the music for 'Rain of One' my favorite halls and Barbara Bonney, the soprano, who's from New Jersey, by the way, was also my favorite soprano.

And I think this is exactly what you were describing.

I think there's kind of an imprint.

But I'm like, is it really?

Because I bought this that it shaped all... It's a bit scary to think.

Because if I had bought another recording of that... You could have had really bad taste.

Maybe.

Well, but I already had some taste.

And I won't name the orchestra or the conductor.

But I threw away... Maybe I told you this story a few years ago.

But I threw away a CD of a Bruckner symphony that I bought from another orchestra and another conductor.

I hated it.

And I was 14.

So I think I already had kind of a discerning taste.

But yeah, well, before we wrap up, I think there would be some audiences questions.

Well, to tell you the truth, if somebody is in the polarized world we live in, part of... the world thinks that lies are true.

And we don't have on people like that because I don't want to expose lies.

I mean, I don't want to put lies on the air.

And I'm not a fact-checker.

I don't follow politics , i mean i follow politics very close but i don't follow a specific beat.

I'm not following just Congress or just the White House or just the War in Ukraine.

And I just don't have a big enough brain to do like music and literature.

Nonfiction books and cover all of politics.

So I wouldn't trust myself to catch and to be able to correct any mistruths, falsehoods that are spoken on the show.

So our way of covering politics and division is to talk to trusted journalists who were investigating and reporting on it and kind of synthesizing that.

And that's the position that I want to and we want to as a show be in.

I'm worried.

I see ways it could be incredibly useful and I see ways in which it can be incredibly destructive.

Among the things I'm worried about is who's programming it because some of the people who are at the top of some of the AI creation, some of them are like very conservative and believe things that are factually just not true.

Are they going to be programming that into AI so that when you research something and you look something up, you're getting falsehoods, that's a really big concern.

These could be people who are controlling it, not just like people who are fooling around or people on social media, so that's pretty frightening.

So far we're here to see how it's going to be regulated.

You're not going to be replaced.

Well, we are very concerned, I think, as artists, just because you know, we've seen all these silly, young people.

Oh, yeah, that's already happening, right?

But I believe, but that's me.

I believe that we're going to reach some point where this is not replaceable to be in a concert hall and to see the value.

And maybe if we do it right, it's going to maybe emphasize even more how live music, live theater, live dance is something that is so precious because everything else, maybe not everything else, but a lot of things could be manipulated a different way.

But it's still I'm very against it and I know I'm very I don't want to put my hand my head in the sand with this but I'm worried the same way as you are.

The person who I used to get most nervous about interviewing with Steven Sonnheim, because he's like a musical hero of mine.

I think Sweeney Todd, Merrily we roll along, are just beautiful.

You know, and his other works too, but those are the two that are my favorites.

And he's a real stickler for language.

Like he would parse my sentences and take out individual words and say, when you say this word, what exactly do you mean?

And like, that was rough.

But there was one interview where I thought we really connected and I was so grateful for that.

Though he did correct me, I said something about dissonance and he he corrected me and said you mean discordant.

And I thought oh thanks for that distinction.

Yeah that's the one time he corrected me and I thought like grateful.

Well speaking of grateful I can't tell you how we're unbelievably grateful for your generosity today.

I'm very very grateful.

This is one of the highlights of my life so far to have had the honor of have a conversation but also mostly an interview.

I think I stood my line.

I mostly asked the questions to interview you and on behalf of all the Americans and all the citizens and beyond America.

Thank you for what you're doing and please, as long as you want to do it, please stay and come in our homes like this because you inspire all of us.

Thank you, Yannick Thank you for being in Philadelphia at least part of the time.

we know you're all over the world, but it's so wonderful to have you as the conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra and thank you for conducting the Met.

And thank you for your generosity to Fresh Air because you've been our guest several times and it's always wonderful to have you on.

So I'm just so grateful to you and I just enjoy hearing and watching you conduct so much.

Well, see you at the concert and at the opera.

Okay.

Thank you, Terry.

And thank you all.

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