INTERVIEW WITH MUSIC DIRECTOR PAUL GEMIGNANI
Education Dramaturg Ted Sod spoke with Paul Gemignani about his work as Music Director for Kiss Me, Kate.
Ted Sod: Were you born in California? I read you were educated in San Francisco.
Paul Gemignani: I was born in Albany, California. It’s across the bridge and west of Oakland. It’s almost on the water. And I was educated at San Francisco State University because the music staff was incredible. On the faculty teaching you your instrument were Laszlo Varga, Earl Bernard Murray, and the entire San Francisco Symphony. Roland Kohloff taught me percussion. Several of us gave up scholarships to other colleges in the area because of the collective talent in that music department.
TS: Will you talk about the teachers or other professionals who had a profound impact on you? PG: Jewel Lord was a high school music teacher who let me do everything. He let me conduct, he let me write, anything I wanted to do. I must have played four or five instruments in high school before I made up my mind. He didn’t care. He was a professional French horn player who taught school, and he was fantastic. The other influential teacher in high school was Arley Richardson, who was a woodwind player. They were both very open. They weren’t dictatorial. That’s totally unheard of in the music business. Lenny Bernstein, even though I never took lessons from him, taught me every day of my life. And Steve Sondheim, too. Those people have influenced my career the most.
TS: On Kiss Me, Kate you’re going to be music director and conductor. Can you tell us what those job titles are responsible for? PG: The music director is responsible for teaching the score and teaching it in a way that will make both the composer and director happy. The conductor conducts the orchestra every night as part of the performance. On Broadway, they hire someone called a “contractor” and that person hires the band. I don’t like to do it that way. The guy who first hired me on Broadway didn’t do it that way, and I thought it was a great idea, because I can hire people who I know will make the orchestra sound the way I want it to, which is my responsibility. In Kiss Me, Kate’s orchestra, there are three new people, out of a total of 16, who have never played at Studio 54 before. It’s similar to what a director does with a cast, only I am casting musicians.
TS: Larry Hochman is doing new orchestrations, correct? PG: Yes, because the revival I worked on in 1999, with Brian Stokes Mitchell and the late Marin Mazzie in the leading roles, was so specific. Don Sebesky was the orchestrator then, and we did a whole different thing on that.
TS: Is it a challenge returning to a piece you’ve already music directed? PG: I erase everything; it’s like an Etch-a-Sketch. I think there’s a hundred different ways of doing something. The most important thing is to remember that you are working with different people who are gifted in different ways. Kelli O’Hara is not Marin Mazzie, and Will Chase is not Brian Stokes Mitchell, and vice versa. They don’t approach things the same way. I like starting with a clean slate. That’s part of the reason we’re doing new orchestrations.
Paul Gemignani
TS: So, there are 16 in this orchestra. How many were in the ’99 version? PG: I think there were four more. It’s not about Roundabout being cheap. I can get four more, but I can’t fit them into the stage left and right boxes at Studio 54—which is where the orchestra is situated. I love Studio 54’s set-up, because the orchestra can see the action instead of being underneath it.
TS: I’m curious how you decide which instruments will be in the house left boxes and which will be house right? PG: Well, it’s funny you ask that. I’ve changed it. I need the strings by me this time around, because they need the most attention. That’s why I put them in front of me on the house left side. Why do I sit on house left? Because it’s a better view of the stage. I can see more if I sit there. In terms of which instruments go where, you think about families. The string family goes in one place, the rhythm family goes in another, the woodwind family goes in another, the brass goes in yet another. The rhythm section in a 1940s show always incorporates guitar, drums, and bass, so I put the rhythm section upstairs house left, above my head. I moved the keyboard player to the house right side, since he’s not playing rhythm. The woodwinds are sitting below, and up above that we have a bigger brass section than usual (two trumpets, a trombone, and a French horn). They are actually building a platform and fixing that area in order for this band to fit. We’ve had more people playing shows at Studio 54 before, but not this particular instrumentation. That’s why we have to change it.
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