Conor Nelson: 2009 Samuel Baron Prizewinner
By Kristen Boysen Dr. Conor Nelson unwillingly relinquished the final note of a four-movement Muczynski piece. With a satisfied, red-lipped smile, he lowered the flute to his side in slow motion as the note dissolved into the crinkled static of applause that carried him through the doors at stage right. Half a minute later, he returned with a reserved smile and a sheepish preamble. He looked down as he spoke, picking words off the floor as he murmured a shy message of thanks for the opportunities he received as a doctoral student at Stony Brook University. It was his first time returning to the Staller Center's Recital Hall stage since his final doctoral recital in the spring of 2007. This time, Nelson took the stage as the 2009 Samuel Baron prizewinner. The $10,000 Samuel Baron endowed prize became a fixture in the music department in 2001 to honor the memory of the deceased Stony Brook professor and noted professional flutist who bears the grant's namesake. The prize was also created to advance the musical careers of promising Stony Brook graduates. It is open to all recent graduates who embody the roster of traits that defined Samuel Baron, including a ripe passion for musical exploration and good citizenship. Nelson, 26, was the third flutist to win the prize since its inception. "It was a true honor to be invited as a special guest, and I certainly found myself reminiscing about all the really great teachers that I had and all of the performances that took place there," he said. "I was just very thankful to all of the community members who helped me so much." It was a perfect summary of Nelson's transition to the professional scene: since graduating with his Doctoral of Musical Arts in 2007, he has seamlessly integrated himself into a network of seasoned performers and filled an insatiable appetite for musical exploration - all the while retaining an incomparable humility. He does not cut the roots from which he grew, but stays firmly tied to them, diligently praising sources of influence with bashful blessings of their brilliance. "I was humbled and honored to win the Samuel Baron Prize," he said, "in particular because this was a prize in the name of a flute player, who was incredible as a person and artist in every way. It was really one of the biggest honors anyone has bestowed upon me, to be associated in any way with Samuel Baron." Nelson attributes his first interaction with the flute to ordinary beginnings. "Well, the time came to pick instruments in seventh grade," he said, "and I wanted something that would fit in my backpack as I rode my bike to school." Since the days of middle school band practice, Nelson's career has evolved into a whirlwind of jet-setting that took him from his native Toronto to a number of prestigious music schools and performance areas in the United States. An alumnus of both the prestigious Manhattan School of Music and Yale University, Nelson breezed into the Stony Brook doctoral program on the prestige of a Yale University wind quintet and soon found a comfortable niche in which he could embrace his love of musical exploration. While studying with Carol Wincenc, a Stony Brook professor of flute, and serving as a teaching assistant for her undergraduate flute studio, Nelson furthered developed an interest in group collaboration. "It seemed like a natural transition," Nelson said. "We all wanted the credentials to teach at a college level, and that felt a lot less scary than being in the real world. There's just a more independent component to everything. It's an excellent training program for anyone who wants to take hold of their own education and career and move forward." Indeed, Nelson surged ahead of the competition to take top honors at music competitions throughout the country during his years at Stony Brook. At 24, he became the only wind player to clinch the Grand Prize at the Womens' Association of the Minnesota Orchestra Young Artist Competition. The competition, which was open to all extraordinary young musicians regardless of gender, began with a total of 68 applicants. Later that year, Nelson won top prizes at the William C. Byrd Young Artist Competition in Flint, Michigan, the New York Flute Club Young Artist Competition and the Haynes International Flute Competition. Still, Nelson hung onto his trademark modesty. "I was astonished by his non-fake humility," said Daria Semegen, Nelson's former academic advisor. "He was the first flutist to win this big competition, and he just said, 'yeah, I was really privileged to perform there, and I was just lucky to get something.' He doesn’t expect to just be handed anything." Nelson's humility is not a weakness. It is rather an uncanny ability to distance himself from the temptation of narcissism. "Music is not for wusses," Semegen said. "Conor has a highly charismatic stage personality without being a sensationalist. He's not trying to be the sort of Salvador Dali-type of the strange, surrealistic artist. He's very musically adaptable and he tries to have a social relationship with different composers' music. He approaches pieces as different personalities." Nelson's aggressive performance last Friday was merely a testament to the power of his talent. Lips puckered wetly at the mouthpiece, Nelson delivered a highly polarized program that included classic works of Bach and Schumann in addition to the east coast premier of Ronen Shai's "Void Vehicle," an intriguing electronic hissy fit that seemed to draw influence from early video game synthesizers and the natural sounds of an industrial park. "It's a great indication of his openness," said Daniel Weymouth, a Stony Brook professor of composition. "It's not only that he's willing to try something like that, but that he knows about it. Conor is someone who really understands the music—he is not trotting it out of the museum, the dusty archives. As a result, the older music that he plays sounds fresh. He's not just dusting it off of an office shelf. He treats everything as a newly discovered piece." Nelson, neatly dressed in a black button-down and lavender necktie, balanced an eager crowd of 30 on the sprightly whistle of his flute. Silken vibrato whole notes rippled out in a pleasant ode to acute finger dexterity and lung capacity. "Some of those phrases were really long," Weymouth said. "I mean, the guy's got incredible chops. People in the music department were like 'oh my God, this guy must run!'" He was not merely an athlete Friday night, but a musical shape-shifter, frequently calling upon his flute to emit a gamut of birdcalls that were sometimes energetic, sometimes angry, sometimes operatic and sometimes playful. He could stab the air with the shrill soprano notes of a military march then later capture the futuristic feeling of an '80s video game set in space. Under the whitewashed glow of the stage lights, a clean white sheen darted over the body of Nelson's flute like an overexposed portrait of a nocturnal city highway. The stage lights hovered above like bewitched paint buckets, adding color to the stage on which Nelson added pinches of flavor to old classics. "He plays with a palette of colors," said Wincenc. "It's strong and bold when it needs to be, and it's supple and soft when it needs to be. I don't think of him as a student anymore. I think of him as a colleague at this point." Weymouth said that Nelson has reached the level where he doesn’t have to try. "He's past the point of just getting the notes," Weymouth said. "He's really thinking about where the music is going, and he can change everything about the tone at the drop of a hat. He's not showing off---he just has got it." Nelson, who has touched upon everything from baroque to electronic music and has performed as both an orchestral flutist and a soloist, has developed a strategy for balancing his hectic performance schedule dating back to his days as a curious doctoral student. "He's just has a common sense about time," Semegen said. "He does have a lot of enthusiasm, and he knows that he has to make choices and sort of harmonize all the various things that he's doing." Nelson, likewise, offered a simple explanation. "I just have to make the best use of every day," he said. "I'm always really conscientious about that." In addition to his duties as assistant professor at flute at Oklahoma State University, Nelson's upcoming performance schedule will take him from several states in the Midwest to Lincoln Center in New York City this winter. Still, as before, Nelson retained his distinctive humility. "I don't feel I've mastered much of anything," he said, "but I do feel that in certain respects, I've matured as an artist, and I am more at home with my identity as a musician on stage." |
