Singing the Praises of Ann Howard Jones
National award, rousing Elijah at Symphony Hall
In the video above, Ann Howard Jones discusses the art of conducting. Video by Devin Hahn
In her many decades in the choral world, Ann Howard Jones has had her share of transcendent moments. There was the performance of Beethovenâs Ninth Symphony in communist East Berlin and the time she conducted Benjamin Brittenâs fervent War Requiem at Bostonâs Cathedral of the Holy Cross. But it is the memory of Verdiâs Requiem at Boston Symphony Hall that resonates most with the 68-year-old Jones. The performance was in 2000, a year after she had been waylaid by surgery and chemotherapy treatment for cancer. The disease took a huge toll, and although sheâd been back at work for a bit, the return to her beloved Symphony Hall, with its ageless grandeur and unrivaled acoustics, marked her full-throttle return to the podium.
âI could feel myself thinking, as I put my foot on that stage, I made it. I survived,â says Jones, a College of Fine Arts professor and director of choral activities, who has been teaching since 1966. âThat was exhilarating enough, and then the music was so gorgeous.â
More surgeries would follow, and the illness left the seemingly indomitable Jones grappling with dietary restrictions and an ever-present fear of the diseaseâs return. But these concerns donât accompany her to the podium, where she is in top form and at the height of her long, distinguished career. She is the 2011 recipient of the American Choral Directors Association biennial Robert Shaw Award, named for her late mentor Robert Shaw (Hon.’94), renowned for his namesake chorale and his work with the Cleveland and Atlanta Symphony Orchestras. The award, received last month, is a poetic coda to her lifelong gratitude to her famous muse. Jones was Shawâs assistant in Atlanta for 15 years before coming to BU. âI learned more from Mr. Shaw than I ever could have imagined,â she says.
Robert K. Dodson, director of the CFA School of Music and an adjunct professor, says he is âdelighted but not surprisedâ that the ACDA selected Jones. âThe award is a measure of her standing as one of the most influential and accomplished choral conductors in the country and recognizes the extraordinary service she has rendered to the profession and her students.â BU is lucky to have someone with her âunique and authentic artistic vision,â he says.
Fresh from that honor, Jones returned to Symphony Hall Monday evening to conduct the BU Symphony Orchestra and Symphonic Chorus in a performance of Felix Mendelssohnâs Elijah. The three-hour oratorio, a rich and vibrant depiction of the Old Testament prophetâs life, is judged by Jones to be one of the 10 greatest choral works, along with Handelâs Messiah, the Brahms Requiem, and Beethovenâs Ninth. The performance featured soloists from the School of Music, both students and faculty.
Baton or no baton, Jones cuts an arresting figure. People often remark on her faultless posture. Is it a yoga regimen? The Alexander technique? Although she swims several days a week, she draws her bearingâthe expansive sweep of her shoulders, her sturdy lateralsâmostly from a lifetime at the podium. âMany conductors get feeble legs from standing up all that time,â says the former Fulbright scholar, who has conducted over 20 all-state choruses. âYou need to exercise the legs, and you need good muscles that support your arms. The swim stroke works that rotation motion in your back.â She begins each rehearsal by leading her singers in arm stretches and shoulder rolls. âA singer is like an athlete,â she tells them. âEverything is engaged.â And conducting is heavy-duty physical work. âI have core strength just by nature,â she says. âHere I am, still going at it hard.â
A handsome woman with cropped white hair who favors simple, tailored clothing, Jones possesses a gravitas that commands studentsâ respect and a playfulness that commands their affection. In 2002 she offered an International Federation for Choral Music seminar titled The Responsibility of the Conductor, which provides a shorthand for her rigorous but compassionate style. She urged choral conductors to âtalk less, listen and sing more, reinforce positively, strive for beautiful, expressive, and healthy singing.â
Cajoling a more focused, soulful sound from her singers in rehearsal, Jones quotes Shaw: âMake tempo. The tempo has to be in you.â She didnât come by these pretexts casually. She has been honing her craft since her student days in Iowa, and her apprenticeship with the uncompromising Shaw.
Iowaâs Harold Hill
Long before music became her vocation, it was a source of comfort, synonymous with the joys of family and home. The only girl among four siblings, she grew up in rural Iowa with a mother who was the town wedding singer, a father with a weighty baritone voice, and a grandfather who entertained his grandchildren on Sundays by sitting at the piano making up songs. âEveryone in my family is musical, but theyâre amateur,â says Jones, who evolved into what she calls a âutility instrumentalist,â managing to play whatever the school band required. Her first instrument was the trumpet, impulsively selected from a heap of smelly instruments that spilled out from the trunk of one Mr. Parkinson, Iowaâs own itinerant Harold Hill. âI bet that trumpet hadnât been cleaned in a lifetime,â she says, recalling being handed an alto clarinet when the high school trumpet section reached its quota: âThey knew I could handle it.â The young Jones also sangâalto, always a harmony partâand was valued as a piano accompanist. âMy first accompanist job was the menâs glee clubâone girl in the room besides the teacher,â she says. âI just had to be superior to all those boys.â
After earning a bachelorâs, a masterâs, and a doctoral degree in music at the University of Iowa, her first job was teaching music at a community college in California. âI was engaged to my husband-to-be and thought, Iâll do this for a year,â says Jones, whoâd never ventured west of the Missouri River. She had majored in vocal performance and music education; not only were there no degrees in conducting, but at the time she just assumed that a conducting career was out of her reach. âI was prepared to be a music teacher,â she says. âThatâs what I thought people did when they studied music.â
This was especially true for women. Jones doesnât quite understand why there are so few women choral conductors outside of high schools. âI donât know if I can answer the question,â she says, shaking her head. âItâs probably the same thing as in the higher levels of anything. Sometimes itâs a glass ceiling, sometimes itâs gender bias, sometimes itâs we wonât invest in you because youâre going to have a child.â She consistently encounters far more men than women in her graduate conducting classes. âSometimes itâs a womanâs choice,â she says. âThe hours are crazy. Thereâs a certain strength involved. One has to be willing to open oneself in front of a lot of people; itâs pretty demonstrative.â But conducting isnât about power; to her, a successful conductor needs these gender-neutral traits: âa spectacular ear, a spectacular musical imagination, and the ability to get the people in front of you to do what you want.â The time demands are huge, but âthe life of an academic musician is pretty civilized,â she says. She has been married for 46 years âto the same man,â a now-retired college administrator.
Back when she learned how to conduct, the discipline was honed through observation and imitation. Sheâs seen her share of flamboyant characters and their theatrical gesticulations, but for herself, Jones leans toward conductorial restraint. She began at the podium as an apprentice, but these days, she says, there is a pedagogy of conducting: âWe know which gestures are effective; the basics are there to be taught.â
Before Jones arrived at BU in 1993, she says, choral music here was almost an afterthought. If CFA wanted to do a Mozart Requiem, an easel was put out on the buildingâs sidewalk urging singers to sign on. On New Yearâs Day that year Shaw told her to expect a call from BU: âTheyâre going to offer you a job.â When she asked his advice, he responded, âYouâll take it.ââ After a ânot terribly successfulâ tryout, she recalls, she was hired. She signed on with the tacit understanding that at that time BU was âa solo place,â geared toward grooming opera singers. âI started only with a symphonic chorus. There was a great orchestra at BU and I thought, we can showcase a chorus with a big orchestra faster than we can get a small choir finessed to the finest detail. For a year all we did was symphonic chorus, and then the faculty said, donât you think students could benefit from a smaller chorus, and I said yes. I didnât even have to push it.â Now Jones conducts several chamber choruses and supervises student conductors for the Concert Chorus and Womenâs Chorale.
Jones has a winning way with students, which explains why the connection endures long after they leave BU or BUTI. âItâs astounding how that works,â she says. âThere are so many students, and Iâll be somewhere, like the Dallas airport, and someone will come up to me and say, âAre you Ann Jones? I sang in a state chorus you conducted in 1965.â One can have that impact on a student,â Describing the conductor-student relationship as âintimate but not personal,â she is demandingâof herself as well as her singersâand at times resorts to tough love. As she puts it, âIâll do anything to get you the sound thatâs right, so you may as well just do it.âSummers Jones heads for the Berkshires to conduct gifted high school students in the Young Artists Vocal Program Chorus at BUâs Tanglewood Institute. âI love working with Ann and am proud to claim her as a beloved friend and colleague,â says BUTI director Phyllis Hoffman (CFAâ61,â67), who credits Jones in large part for the vocal programâs far-reaching reputation for excellence. Jones, says Hoffman, who is also a CFA professor, offers a winning mix of challenging repertory and inspirational leadership. Students agree. âDr. Jones is fabulous!â wrote one in her evaluation. âSheâs inspiring, demanding, and dedicated. This is the best chorus Iâve ever been in.â Dragging themselves to rehearsal and finding Jones all smiles and full of energy, theyâve been known to say, âI just had to give in; I couldnât resist her.â One BUTI vocalist said Jones taught her to love choral music, others have praised her as âa genius,â âfantastic,â and unrivaled in her passion and dedication to her art.
Putting BU on the musical map
Along with David Hoose, charismatic director of orchestral activities and a CFA professor, Jones has put BU on the map, musically, with twice yearly Symphony Hall concerts showcasing the Symphonic Chorus and the Symphony Orchestra. Jones is a great admirer of Hoose, who is on sabbatical this year. âWe are more than just casual colleagues,â she says. âHis gifts are great and I admire him enormously.â
At the same time that the quality of the music has soared, attendance at campus concerts has gone down, which perplexes Jones. âWhen I first came here you had to have a ticket to the Tsai auditorium; it was overflowing for every orchestra concert.â Whatâs changed? âTo blame the culture seems like a cop out,â she says. âAt one point the chorus had 220 singers who came from all over campusâfaculty, secretaries, many nonmajors. Now we have 120. People are busy, they donât have enough leisure.â
When it comes to discussing her craft, the unpretentious Jones bounces easily from the sublime to the quotidian. She can wax poetic over singing Mahlerâs Eighth, the âSymphony of a Thousand,â at Carnegie Hall: âThe amount of sound is so visceral it shakes you to your boots.â A few breaths later she is bonding over shoes: âAt the podium itâs flats only. I canât find myself in a position where Iâm going to throw myself off balance.â A conductor friend once ventured to the podium in new heels and fell flat on her face. There are other occupational hazards. For one, itâs hard to tune music out. âPeople say when they come to my house, âIâm surprised you donât have music playing,â and I say, âLetâs think about that for a minute. Music equals work.ââ An off-key note or a flubbed phrase are like fingernails on a blackboard. She loves jazz and show tunes and belting out standards with her brothers, but âwe donât sing wrong notes,â she says.
Also inescapable is that when Jones sees a performance sheâs glued to the conductor. âSometimes it keeps me from hearing as well as I wish, especially if the conductor is very quirky or things arenât going that well.â A bad sign of that is âif the downbeat comes, and everyone looks at the pianist or first violinist and not the conductor.â
Mondayâs Symphony Hall concert afforded BU vocalists the chance to sing a choral work scored for 100 voices and an 85-piece orchestra, and revel in the acoustics of Jonesâ favorite concert hall. And sheâs been around. What is it about Symphony Hall? âItâs a classic shoebox shape with a very high, unimpeded ceiling,â she says. âThereâs nothing in the way, and the surfaces are all receptive and reflective. Acoustical surfaces can eat the sound, but these surfaces are happy to have the sound come at them and they reflect it beautifully. Itâs tall like Carnegie Hall, but long. And the sounds that goes out into the hall is so beautifully collected.â
One of her most âgoose bumpyâ moments was quietâsilent, in fact. It was the conclusion of Brittenâs War Requiem. âOf course the piece is extremely dramatic and wrenching, and when it was over, with the chorusâ cadences in F sharp major with bases on low F sharpâas that stops, I didnât think about how long I would stand there without moving a muscle.â That profound silence, eventually pierced by âsome foolâ who decided it was time to clap, still reverberates. âI think,â says Jones, sucking in her breath, âI could still be standing there.â
For Jones, the podium is a place where pain, loss, and even time are obliterated; there is only the music.
Susan Seligson can be reached at sueselig@bu.edu. Devin Hahn can be reached at dhahn@bu.edu.
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