Traveling the world, meeting new people, working with old friends, all in the name of the profession you love — pianist-conductor Stéphane Denève lives the dream.
“I don’t know how I’ve come to be so lucky to make music with all these great musicians,” he said recently from St. Louis, where he is musical director of that city’s orchestra. “It’s magical to just deal with art and create beauty and to be rewarded — can you imagine we do this for a living? We give joy.”
The French conductor will spread his upbeat disposition through the Tetons this weekend when he leads the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra in a program of Ravel, Dvořák and — with one of those friends he gets to work with in fantastic locales, violinist James Ehnes — Samuel Barber. Concerts start at 8 p.m. Friday and 6 p.m. Saturday.
