Q&A: The SSO's Podium Prodigy, Alexander Prior

​At 17--that's not a typo--UK-raised, Russian-trained conductor Alexander Prior has joined the Seattle Symphony staff after a good deal of acclaimed podium experience already. As Assistant to the Guest Conductors, he'll understudy indisposed maestros, and make his Seattle debut conducting Mendelssohn, Vivaldi, and Peter and the Wolf on the SSO's March 13 family concert. Prior is currently in Bamberg, Germany, as one of 12 participants in the International Gustav Mahler Conducting Competition.

SW: So how did you get started? How did you convince someone to give you a chance to conduct?
Prior: A conductor called Constantine Krimetz--he's dead now; he was from Moscow, and did mainly film recordings, big Soviet films--he was recording my music. And he came in rather tipsy one day. He liked his cognac. And he just couldn't physically get up [onto the podium], and said, "Well, you'll have to conduct."
Had you thought of conducting before you got this accidental opportunity?
Well, I was 11 then [laughs], so I hadn't had much thought of it. I was about 3 or 4 or 5 when I remember I told my preparatory-school teacher, "I'm going to be a conductor one day!"
When did you start composing?
It was improvisation, when I was 7 or 8 . . . coming back from theaters as a little boy, trying to improvise what I'd heard.
Talk about what you do with the Seattle Symphony.
Basically I assist everyone but Maestro Schwarz; he has his own assistant [Thomas Hong]. Also I get to do youth stuff, writing blogs, youth outreach. I want to get out to schools themselves and talk about music.
What path do you see your own career taking?
I tend to surf the wave which comes; obviously I want to just keep going as I am, and increase my quality and increase quantity, and at some point be the chief conductor of some major orchestra--that's the ultimate goal, isn't it?
Any experience conducting opera yet?
Oh, yes, I did a lot in Russia--in the Rubinstein Opera Theatre in St. Petersburg, which is the biggest theater there, I did The Tsar's Bride, Eugene Onegin, Traviata, Dido and Aeneas, things like that, Barber of Seville . . . I did my own ballet, Mowgli [based on The Jungle Book]. I wrote that when I was 13. That's my first piece of music which I'll openly show to people, which I consider decent.
Minimalism is something I'm really exploring--together with Scandinavian and Slavic folklore, fusing the two. And ancient church music, mainly Finnish and Russian. I have a Karelian Symphony. I wrote it in Saimaa Järvi [Lake Saimaa]--it's beautiful, in the middle of Karelia, the middle of nowhere . . . I wrote it in two weeks, and it's 45 minutes long. [I wrote it] just in the hotel . . . I walked in the forest and it's minus 30 degrees, and I wrote it up. Also Norwegian; I love the Norwegian language, I almost finished an opera called Et dukkehjem--A Doll's House--based on Ibsen.
Almost finished?
I thought it wasn't good enough, so I didn't finish it. I might one day. Right now I have a finished opera: a huge opera with a huge, huge orchestra and a huge choir called The Desert. It has to do with monasteries, eternity--it's a mixture of Pushkin's fairy tales and Christian, pagan, even Eastern religious thinking; it's sort of a big moral opera.
Your own libretto?
My own libretto, in Russian--in five languages, in fact: Russian, ancient Slavic, Finnish, Karelian, and, um . . . old Norse [sings a bit of a folk tune that is a chorus in the opera; then a Norwegian folksong]. I included that in A Doll's House.
What kind of response have you gotten from orchestras you've worked with--I mean as far as having a teenager on the podium?
[tentatively] I'm normally reinvited . . . does that answer the question?