Conductor Grete Pedersen brings 'Dialogues' to this summer's Carmel Bach Festival

“Starburst,” by Jessie Montgomery, is one of the pieces planned for this year's Carmel Bach Festival. And like a Starburst, Grete Pedersen, the artistic director and conductor, is changing the direction of the festival with a splash of vibrant programming and adventurous themes. During a visit to Carmel from her native Norway, she talked about what to expect this summer.

"This year [the theme] will be 'Dialogues.' I was thinking a lot about composers talking to each other," Pedersen says. "Bach can talk to Jessie Montgomery, right? Jessie Montgomery is one of the most interesting composers living now, I think. And [we] let her talk with Bach. And we will have The Art of the Fugue going through the whole festival. You take a theme and then someone else takes the same theme and you start this conversation. So it's the ultimate dialogue, musically. You know, we can think of east-west, heaven-Earth. It's so many different [dialogues]—and/or the inner dialogues we all have.

Randy Tunnell Photography

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Carmel Bach Festival

Click the audio player at the top of this story to listen to the interview or see the highlights below.

On opening the 'dialogue' door to a fantasy world with Mendelssohn

Maybe everything is a dream, but let's be sure it's a nice dream, of what we are living, you know? So we start with Mendelssohn's "Overture to Midsummer Night's Dream,” which he wrote when he was 17, I think? He was very young. And it's such an inspired piece, full of energy and sparkling joy.

On Pedersen's former career as a professional soccer player and the switch to conducting

It was a very conscious choice. In sports, it's about winning, right? It's to be the first, the best through sport. I feel that music is—it's not about being best, It's not about winning. It's about sharing. It's about connection, the community, the communion.

Dylan Music

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KAZU

On why she doesn't use a baton when conducting

I've been back and forth. I start with the baton and I take it away. I don't know, I feel it's easier to communicate. And then I have both my hands I can open, I can close them, I can use them.

On the flow and energy of her conducting style

If we can create the feeling that the pieces are played for the first time or it's a new event...you think of children who just suddenly hear something."

Grete Pedersen is the artistic director and conductor of The Carmel Bach Festival, a 15-day event in July at various venues around Carmel, now in its 88th season.

The Carmel Bach Festival is one of KAZU’s many local underwriters.