PAST PERFORMANCES
PORTLAND BAROQUE ORCHESTRA
Artslandia celebrated Monica
Huggett’s 20-year anniversary with
Portland Baroque Orchestra by
Skyping her at her second home in
her native England. She was “just
getting the wood stove going” in the
music room, practicing late into the
night preparing to lead Beethoven’s
Symphony No. 4 on violin at Juilliard.
With a mere glance at the blurry
sheet music in the photo above,
she could tell us what piece the
Orchestra was playing 19 years ago.
What a pro!
How did you start at Portland Baroque
Orchestra?
I was concert mistress of the Amsterdam
Baroque Orchestra, directed by Tom Koopman, a quite famous harpsichordist who
went on to run the Early Music Society
in Vancouver, British Columbia. Through
that connection, I got to teach summer
school in Vancouver and met the people
who started Portland Baroque Orchestra.
By the ‘90s when they were looking for a
director, they knew me quite well, and I
won the job.
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ARTSLANDIA AT THE PERFORMANCE MARCH | APRIL
Tell us about Portland then and now.
When I first visited in 1981, it was such a
different place than it is now; it was deeply
in recession then, I think. I got the impression that it used to be all lumber, and then
the lumber just stopped and it took a while
for Portland to discover what it was going
to be next ... whereas it’s almost a boomtown now!
Describe your jet set life at age 61.
I spend about five months a year in
Portland, about three months a year in
England, over two months a year in New
York teaching at Julliard, and then I’ve got
a job in Ireland which is at least a month
a year, and that other month I dunno … I
went to Hong Kong last year in January, so
I sometimes do wacko things.
I take a long time to wind up. I don’t
do anything much useful until about
3 p.m. I think my natural time zone now
is somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic,
at least. My lifestyle’s getting a bit harder
at 61. But I’m having a great time!
Monica Huggett, artistic
director, Portland Baroque
Orchestra. 1996 rehearsal of
Mozart’s Haffner Serenade
What are your thoughts on Portland
Baroque Orchestra’s growth?
In this picture, I see a lot of the people who
were what I would call “semiprofessional.”
They had other jobs, and it was quite a
struggle to get it up to standard. We had
seven executive directors in nine years,
and we had no executive director for a
while because we didn’t have money to pay.
When we got Tom Cirillo as our executive
director that was catalytic; he was able to
link us up with the Portland Opera and the
Oregon Bach Festival.
How has your approach to your musical
career changed since this picture?
It’s been an evolution. When I got the job, I
was very lucky to get it. I didn’t know who
the important stakeholders were, or about
chatting people up at shows — those skills
you need to have as an artistic director.
I’ve also become more skilled artistically.
When I began, I was just a fiddler …
Portland Baroque Orchestra has expanded
my horizons enormously … unbelievably ...
exponentially. .
PORTLAND BAROQUE ORCHESTRA AND MONICA HUGGETT present Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. April 24–26
at the First Baptist Church and Kaul Auditorium. www.pbo.org