A candid conversation between host Khadija Mbowe and 23-year-old Detroit Symphony Orchestra assistant conductor, Na'Zir McFadden. You'll hear about his collaborative conducting style, day-in-the-life, and deep Philly roots.
Music from this episode:
STRAUSS, Also sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30 (Opening), Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Na’Zir McFadden, conductor.
COLRIDGE-TAYLOR, African Suite: Danse Nègre, Detroit Symphony Youth Orchestra, Na’Zir McFadden, conductor.
HOLST, The Planets, Op. 32, Detroit Symphony Orchestra
Na’Zir McFadden, conductor.
Links from this episode:
Nazir McFadden's Website: https://www.nazirmcfadden.com/
What is "The Hive"?: https://music.fandom.com/wiki/Bey_Hive
Detroit Symphony Youth Orchestra: https://www.dso.org/community-and-learning/wu-family-academy/civic-youth-ensembles/civic-youth-ensembles
The Philadelphia Orchestra’s HearTOGETHER series is generously supported by lead corporate sponsor Accordant Advisors. Additional major support has been provided by the Otto Haas Charitable Trust.
A candid conversation between host Khadija Mbowe and 23-year-old Detroit Symphony Orchestra assistant conductor, Na'Zir McFadden. You'll hear about his collaborative conducting style, day-in-the-life, and deep Philly roots.
Music from this episode:
STRAUSS, Also sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30 (Opening), Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Na’Zir McFadden, conductor.
COLRIDGE-TAYLOR, African Suite: Danse Nègre, Detroit Symphony Youth Orchestra, Na’Zir McFadden, conductor.
HOLST, The Planets, Op. 32, Detroit Symphony Orchestra
Na’Zir McFadden, conductor.
Links from this episode:
Nazir McFadden's Website: https://www.nazirmcfadden.com/
What is "The Hive"?: https://music.fandom.com/wiki/Bey_Hive
Detroit Symphony Youth Orchestra: https://www.dso.org/community-and-learning/wu-family-academy/civic-youth-ensembles/civic-youth-ensembles
The Philadelphia Orchestra’s HearTOGETHER series is generously supported by lead corporate sponsor Accordant Advisors. Additional major support has been provided by the Otto Haas Charitable Trust.
(KHADIJA MBOWE VOICEOVER): Hello and welcome back to the HearTOGETHER Podcast from The Philadelphia Orchestra and Kimmel Center. I’m your host, Khadija Mbowe— a socio-cultural content creator, classically trained soprano, and loving provocateur. Together, we’re here to clear out dusty assumptions about concert music and explore its potential to reflect and connect our world today.
The music you heard in the intro was an excerpt from the opening of Richard Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30 (Opening), performed by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and conducted by our guest today, Na’Zir McFadden.
Last year, at age 22, Na’Zir became DSO’s Assistant Conductor, Phillip & Lauren Fisher Community Ambassador, AND Music Director of the Detroit Symphony Youth Orchestra. Despite these achievements, he’s humble — always aware that, to mix metaphors, he’s playing a team sport.
"You're only alone if you make yourself alone on that podium. If you see yourself as this dictator, this my way or the highway, then you're going to be alone. But if you are open to expression in many different ways in this collaborative spirit, then it's impossible to feel by yourself. It's impossible to feel alone." .
Na’Zir was born and raised in Philadelphia by a family of talented Baptist church musicians. He came up through the public school system where, in 5th grade, he joined the band and took up clarinet. Quickly, his passion outpaced the resources available — so he spent his teen years emailing every music organization in the tri-state area, begging for opportunities to sit in on rehearsals, meet guest performers, and absorb everything he could. A small percentage of the time, the cold outreach worked.
By age 21, Na’Zir had been named inaugural Apprentice Conductor of the Philadelphia Ballet Orchestra, Conducting Apprentice of the New York Youth Symphony, and had been invited by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to conduct on a recording project as part of their “Notes for Peace” program. He even guest conducted at one of your Philadelphia Orchestra’s pop-up concerts!
For every yes, there were dozens more no’s, but Na’Zir was undaunted by rejection.
NA'ZIR MCFADDEN:
Well, my dad used to say, closed mouths don't get fed. And that could be for anything. If we were in the barbershop and I wanted to design in my head, closed mouth, don't get fed. If you don't ask the barber and you speak up, you won't get that design in your head. If we're walking to someplace and we see a corner store and you want a snack, if you don't tell me that you want that snack, how am I supposed to know that you want it? So quite literally, closed mouth, don't get fed. But me internalizing that from a very young age, as I started to get older, there were so many youth orchestras and even the Philadelphia orchestra, I'm sure they have those emails.just begging for the opportunity to sit in rehearsals to meet performance, the guest performers. I even wrote an email to the New York for Harmonic to meet Yo-Yo Ma. That didn't work, but just the opportunity to observe, to learn. eventually some of those opportunities came into fruition. I was able to conduct the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra, the Philadelphia Symphonia. I was able to attend rehearsals at the Philadelphia Orchestra, all of these wonderful things because I just wasn't afraid to ask, and I think people saw that I had drive, I had a need for music, and people started to mentor me and take me under their wing, and I definitely wouldn't have gotten to where I am now if I hadn't spoken up and became my own advocate, and then also had people help me along the way.
KHADIJA MBOWE:
And I want to ask, because for being so young and sending out all of these things, you could have all the drive in the world ask a million people and only one will say yes. How do you manage that rejection then, for all the people that didn't say yes or didn't even respond?
NA'ZIR MCFADDEN:
My mom is a human resources manager, so she does. She deals with a lot of applications and interviews, and I think because she's always told me, for every 10 applications that you send out, you may only get a response from one or you may get a response from none. So hearing that over and over and over from the time I was very, very little. I applied that to everything. So if I didn't get the good grade that I wanted, I just knew I had to work harder. If I didn't win an audition into the top youth orchestra, I knew I had to work harder. I knew I had to become my own advocate. If I wanted something, I had to go after it at full force.
So it never was a matter of feeling rejected. I didn't feel like I was not allowed to something. I just thought I didn't work hard enough for it, Whether it means practicing harder, whether it means asking more people, it meant that I just needed to work harder. And so I never took a no personal and I still don't. I just say, okay, well, I have to convince you.
KHADIJA MBOWE:
If you had to describe your conducting style, then as you see it right now in this moment, knowing that it'll change and evolve in three words, here we go. How would you do that, especially to an audience that maybe isn't familiar with your style?
NA'ZIR MCFADDEN:
Oh, that's a big question. I Would say energetic. I try to bring the energy in all of the music that I approach, different types of energy. It could be really big and loud and obnoxious energy or very, very subtle and selective energy. I would say informed. I try to be as informed as possible in the practice techniques and the traditions and style of the music that I'm approaching and maybe even spontaneous. I think while I'm in the performance, of course, after we've rehearsed and we figure out all of the things that we want to do. Sometimes when I'm in the performance, I might show a dominion window or crescendo just to change something on the spot, something that I'm feeling in that moment. You can't replicate that in rehearsal. And that's also what makes live performance so special is the ability to change things on the fly and just go with it.
KHADIJA MBOWE:
I love that because it means you're, you have the energy and the intention behind it. You have the discipline to practice, to be informed, to get all the information you can about the skeleton of this piece, or if it's a contemporary piece, exactly what the composer wants or doesn't want. And then you leave room for the moment. You leave room for whatever magic happens out of nowhere. It's not to say that spontaneity can't happen when you're prepared, but it's for some of us a bit more comforting.
NA'ZIR MCFADDEN:
And there's actually another level too of it, another layer, because I'm not the only person on stage. There's also whatever the musicians are doing and feeding off of their energy and their spontaneity, it's like this huge collaborative experience on stage. So it's not just me. And if anything, I'm a very, very small part of what's actually happening on stage. I make no sound. I can influence the sound, but at the end of the day, the musicians can choose whether or not to follow me. So I think being open and aware of what's happening on stage is very important for a conductor. And I never take that for granted
KHADIJA MBOWE:
I can see the joy from you. I can feel it. And okay, so this is a question that we wanted to ask, knowing this is your life. This is what you love to do, this is what you care for. What was it like? And we'll get to you breaking batons in a moment. Messing up your mom's good hang hangers for those batons. We will talk about that. But before we do, because I would be a good auntie if I didn't, but I want to know what was it like to get your first set of real batons in your hand?
NA'ZIR MCFADDEN:
My first real baton actually came from the Philadelphia Orchestra. I conducted a pop-up concert. There was the competition, this conduct us competition before the program. And we conduct a little string quartet. And I never forget, kenchi Wilde, previous assistant conductor, he puts the adjudicator and I'm thinking, okay, I'm going to conduct this quartet. Maybe they'll choose me. They probably won't. They're going to choose a three, four year old to come up and conduct the orchestra. It's going to be great. Everyone's going to love it. At the end of the concert, they called me and I never would've thought that that would've happened. I was at the top of the hall, someone came and guided me all the way backstage, and they gave me this baton that I still have to this stage. And that was my very first conductor's baton.
And I keep it with me. Unfortunately, my mom's Pomeranian bid it, so there are some teeth marks in the barrel of the baton, but I keep it with me all the time. Just as a reminder of how far I've come from thinking that I wasn't even going to be selected for a kiddy award or something like this to now where I am today. It's special. But that was my very first baton and now I don't use it so much. But with every baton that I have, I always take the previous one out, but I keep the first one in my case at all times.
KHADIJA MBOWE:
I wonder as well, just for a little tea, for the audience, you said, you had said that sometimes musicians can choose to follow you or not. As a conductor, has that ever ctually happened? Have the musicians ever actually refused to follow you? If maybe you've been a little too dictator and they're like, I'm not with this now.
NA'ZIR MCFADDEN:
Yeah, of course. I would be completely lying to you if I said, no, that's never happened to me. I'm 23 years old. The orchestras that I step in front of, they've played some of this music as many times as I've been able to blank throughout my lifetime. So of course they have the clearest idea of how this music goes. And sometimes I may want to try a drastic tempo that's completely different than what the composer wanted or what the musicians are used to and what they will do. And like I said, I'd be lying to you if I said the musicians haven't done it, but I've never had it done in a malicious way. A musician has always come to me and said, maybe you shouldn't try this, or maybe this doesn't work. I would go back to the original tempo, but it's never been a, we're not going to follow you because that's ridiculous.
MUSIC
(KHADIJA MBOWE VOICEOVER): That was Na’Zir McFadden conducting Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s “African Suite: Danse Nègre,” performed by Detroit Symphony Youth Orchestra.
As Na’Zir was finishing his senior year as a music performance major at Temple University, he won his first professional audition. Nope, not with Detroit Symphony Orchestra. With the United States Navy Band. DSO’s offer came and turned his plans upside down just a few months later… after he had dropped out of Temple, but before he shipped out.
NA'ZIR MCFADDEN:
I thought, okay, I'm going to go to bootcamp and then I'm going to get skinny. You have to get skinny before you go to bootcamp, and then you get skinnier during bootcamp. But I was a chubby kid growing up. I was in for the ride. If it meant that I was going to be ripped, I was ready for it. So I prepared for six months every day, pushups, running sit-ups, lifting weights at Navy Pier. We were ready. I was ready mentally and physically for six months, and then I was one week away from going to Navy Bootcamp and I won the job at the Detroit Symphony, but I went into the Navy as a musician. I had won a clarinet position. I won that position two days after my 21st birthday. So 2021, June 7th was my birthday, so I won that the ninth, June 9th, 2021. So I prepared for six months and then in January when they said, okay, we're sending you off to bootcamp, the D S O came calling. And so that was my short period of the Navy. I didn't actually serve, but I was ready.
KHADIJA MBOWE:
I've noticed doing a lot more physical activity has helped my classical singing so much more. I feel so much more in my body. So I wonder, did that six months of training, even if you didn't go into the Navy, change or alter your relationship to your body and therefore your relationship to how you conduct and use your body?
NA'ZIR MCFADDEN:
Yeah, I learned how to breathe properly, and selective breathing was definitely something that helped me, especially when we had to run, we watched a lot of film of Olympic track stars, and we found that when they're running, they breath, they breathe very selectively, and they breathe before they start. But when they're in the process of running, they don't breathe because they're only running for a short period of time. So when I took that back to my clarinet playing or even my conducting, when I'm thinking of phrases, it helps me understand the arc of the music a little bit better. The selective breathing or the selective rest or pauses in the music. I don't know if that's coming off a little bit clearly, but when we're say we have a really long passage, if we're playing a really long passage and we take no pause in between or there's no fluctuation of tempo, of dynamic contrast, the music can become very, very stale. And I found that when I think about the running with the music, there are moments where I think, okay, we can take a little bit of a pause here, or we can push the tempo so that it's interesting for the listener.
That helped me in this way, but also it kept me very disciplined in my practice, in my studying, being very efficient on what I needed to accomplish. I don't regret that those six months at all.
KHADIJA MBOWE:
Okay, now, and this is something that I struggled with is the only reason why. Part of the only reason I think I went to get a degree was because I worried about feeling legitimate, not having one. I wonder, do you ever feel like a little like, oh, what am I doing here? Not just because you're young or you're one of three black male conductors in the country, but just the degree of it all. Do you ever feel like, ah, my credentials? That's not a question, but it is a question.
NA'ZIR MCFADDEN:
All of the time, and that's not an answer. That's just my life. Even outside of music as a black man, yes, all of the time. As a black man in classical music, without a doubt, and as a black man in classical music, that's a conductor without a doubt. Yes. I'm just going to leave it at that. There's no more to explain, and if I need to explain, then whoever's listening should do more research on the state of the United States. I'm going to leave it at that.
MUSIC
(KHADIJA MBOWE VOICEOVER): That was an excerpt of Na’Zir McFadden conducting Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s performance of The Planets, composed by Gustav Holst.
KHADIJA MBOWE: Nazir, walk me through a day in your life
NA'ZIR MCFADDEN:
Normally I'll wake up around eight in the morning. I'll make breakfast, and then I'll go to the gym with my trainer and he'll put me through the works. I'll come home for maybe 30 minutes and I'll feel like my day should be over. But then after I take my shower and I get dressed, I realized that going to the gym was great and I feel energized. Then it's, let's say it's around 1:00 PM I normally have youth orchestra rehearsal, so I rehearsed with the Detroit Symphony Youth Orchestra from one to four. Then after this, I'll have my dinner, lunch, late lunch, early dinner, and I'll prep for my evening concert, whether it be score studying or listen, listening to Beyonce and dancing it out, and then I'll make my way to the hall. I'll give my performance, or if I'm assisting, I will give the pre-con talk and then I'll go to the lounge and relax before the show. After the show, I'll go home, listen to more Beyonce, then I'll go to sleep. That's normally a typical Saturday throughout my season.
KHADIJA MBOWE:
Nazi, why didn't you start off by telling me you were part of the Hive? That's all you had to say.
NA'ZIR MCFADDEN:
Oh, I'm deep in the hive.
KHADIJA MBOWE:
Best and worst advice you've ever gotten?
NA'ZIR MCFADDEN:
Best advice came from Joseph Conyers. He said, if there's a door, and this is something I repeat all of the time, he said, if there's a door in front of you, knock on the door and if it won't open, kick open. It was the best advice I ever received. The worst advice. I don't think I've ever received bad advice because even bad advice is good advice because you learn what not to do.
KHADIJA MBOWE:
what piece did you conduct for the first piece that you did with a Philly orchestra and have you conducted it since?
NA'ZIR MCFADDEN:
So it was the CanCan to Orpheus on the world, and I myself haven't conducted since. I haven't conducted since, but I am programming a community concert similar to the one that I did in Philadelphia with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. And we have that moment of the can can, and we're going to have a student conductor come into conduct it. So it'll be a full world circle experience for myself. Maybe that student will have an awakening like I did when I got to conduct it. It might be a few more years until I'm able to conduct the can can again, because I might keep doing it, but hopefully this young person can see themselves in the music, how I saw myself in the music and getting, I'm not yanique. I got to share the stage with Yanique. This child will get to share the stage with me.
Hopefully that means something.
KHADIJA MBOWE:
I think it does though. It seems like you do care a lot about outreach. You care a lot about young people having this art form and meeting them where they're at, and recognizing how hard it is and how many doors you had to try and knock on, kick open, whatever. So I wonder, does that feel like, was this an outlook that you were conditioned to have? Does it feel like an obligation or it's just like it is what it is?
NA'ZIR MCFADDEN:
I think it's just the nature of my being. I think I had a strong support system growing up, and even now I still have a very strong support system. So if I can be that for someone else, it's almost like breathing. I don't have to think about it. I just do it. Yeah. I am sorry. I don't have a better answer for you. I don't think about it. I just feel like, no, not that I feel like I just do it. It has to be done because it was done for me.
(KHADIJA MBOWE VOICEOVER): I feel so full from this conversation with Na’Zir McFadden and I hope you do, too. Thanks so much for listening to the HearTOGETHER Podcast from The Philadelphia Orchestra and Kimmel Center. I’m Khadija Mbowe —happy holidays! see you back HERE next year! Meantime, here’s a bit more of Na’Zir conducting Gustav Holst’s “The Planets”....