John Jesensky tells CL that he doesn’t dream exclusively in G, E flat, C — all keys that appear in the score for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. That’s surprising considering the fact that he’s spent six of the last nine months teaming up with municipal orchestras around the globe to stage performances of John Williams’ brilliant composition.
[Note: you should probably press play on the full score at the bottom of the post — let's get in the mood.]
“I dream in every single tone color that happens to come out in Harry Potter, so it makes for some quite interesting and colorful dreams to say the least.” Jesensky says.
He’s a Connecticut-born NYU grad who decided to become a composer in high school, as he was sitting in a theater watching J.K Rowling’s globally adored book come to life onscreen. “I just remember sitting in the movie theater when it came out and thinking about how magical the music felt.”
This weekend, Jesensky and The Florida Orchestra will recreate that magic in real time as a giant HD screen plays the movie in the background. CL spoke with him about the challenges of the score, the kids who attend the show and why he won’t bring the politics of his Twitter feed to any one of the four scheduled performances.
Read our Q&A below, and get more information via local.cltampa.com.
Hey John, I'm great. How are you?
Good, good. We were just mentioning how Creative Loafing should pretty much be my job description. It's what I do all day long.
I don't know about that. Do you ever feel like a rockstar when multiple shows get booked? Because this Tampa stop started with one show, then became two and now it's four. What's it do to your headspace? Is it a cringeworthy amount of work you have to do?
No, not really. Most of the hard work we do is in that initial rehearsal time, which is usually short than we'd like, but luckily with ensembles like the Florida Orchestra, or any of the premiere orchestras that we work with, the people are champs. They just get right through it, and they are ready to put on the show in about three hours.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, usually we have more time than that, and that gives us time to perfect and fine tune things, but most of the hard work is done there. The shows are the fun we get to have as an orchestra, and we get to hear how much fun the audience has enjoying it. Even as a conductor, even though we're all supposed to be very straight forward as an ensemble, you still can't help but smile when you hear people cheering, you end up being like, "Wow." That's just the fun part of the whole gig. So they could throw 12 at me and I'd be perfectly happy.
The movie is wall to wall music, but community orchestras tend to be pretty sturdy — what’s been your experience on the challenges of doing this show?
You know every orchestra has been up to the task of doing the show. There are certainly more challenging parts of doing the show. And it's different with each orchestra you work with. For instance, my favorite part of the show is, and it might be masochistic, but my favorite part is always the most difficult part of the show — not only for the orchestra, but also for myself. It's the quidditch match. That's one where the entire thing can really unravel on you because the orchestra is hitting every tiny little thing that happens up on the screen and luckily the way that John Williams wrote it lets it flow very naturally and it's this amazing piece of music that just so happens to have something that touches every broom movement, every time someone gets hit by another player, every goal scored. It's really quite phenomenal, and it's a monster when you're first looking at it, but when you get it right in the show and sometimes the audience gives you a standing an ovation after just that one moment of music it really makes all of it worth it. The orchestra will always have a look in their eyes after that one.
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That's awesome. At what point were you able to train yourself not to watch the movie playing in the background?
I can't speak for every other conductor, but I watched the music and the movie lined up with my score. Preparing for Harry Potter the first time, I probably watched the film about 30 times.
Yeah, because the movie came out when you were in high school, right?
It's definitely the score that inspired me to be a film composer. I just remember sitting in the movie theater when it came out and thinking about how magical the music felt. Just, like, the little things, it was the first I really felt like I was connected — not just on a psychological level, but on a musical level — with a film score, and I was like, "I just want to be able to do that. I want to be able to create moments that are this special for people." So it's the one that inspired me to conduct and write in the first place.
And before that you had a Jurassic Park obsession, right?
Yeah.
You’ve credited Jurassic Park and Harry Potter with getting you into classical music. Have folks approached you and told you that watching these performances changed their approach, maybe inspired them to get into composing?
You know, I have had some people come up directly after the show or write me messages, which I am always fine with fans and musicians doing. I'm not one of those who tries to shelter myself away from anyone that enjoys the performance. I've had people contact me and say what a difference it made to them. I've had parents talk to me and say that their child has not been able to stop talking about how much they want to play in an orchestra afterwards.
That's one of the more important goals to me. A lot of the times we have kids that have never been to a live orchestra performance before. It's much different, I'm sure you're aware, than just listening to even the best speakers. They can't duplicate the amazing warmth of a live performance, the electricity that kind of gets transferred from the ensemble to the audience. It's a powerful experience. I always make a point, when the instrumentalists stand up, for them to show off their instruments a little. To hold it up so the kids can see it and connect with it.
So yes, I have a secret, devious goal of wanting to create a whole new generation of musicians from this. What better way to do that with one of the most brilliant film scores of modern time as well as brilliant source material from J.K. Rowling. It's a great to connect people with music and the symphony hall.
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You’ve mentioned music being able to guide you in a sense of developing a compass re: what is right, wrong, odd or simple — did you mean that in a moral sense or more literal?
Really both, I suppose, in a way. From a strictly musical sense, being able to study music you realize, especially from a psychological perspective, you realize very quickly what sort of music can capture certain sorts of sprits and emotions. Like what is right, what is wrong, what is good, what is evil. So from that artistic perspective, any film that has all of those perspectives, that can evoke all of those emotions, is great in my opinion.
From the moral perspective, music does have the ability to really instil values in us. Creatively, and also analytically about what we enjoy, what we may not enjoy, what we want to learn more about and become enlightened from. Music definitely has the ability to inspire a lot of free thinking and thought within us, and reflection.
Speaking of deviousness, I was reading your Twitter feed, and I have to ask if you would ever pull a Hamilton if you saw Mike Pence of Donald Trump at your show?
I think that everyone should be able to see, you know, Harry Potter. And one thing I've found throughout all of this is that we have fans everywhere, and everybody who comes is an enormous part of our family no matter what country you're in. I kind of find that quite unifying, as an experience, that the fan base is large and as varied as it is. So I tend to focus on the music and the film and how happy it makes people — not necessarily worry about anything else in terms of that.
You’re an NYU grad, and that’s obviously the center of the universe up there. What’s it like for you to come down and work with local orchestras in smaller markets like Tampa?
Yeah, the outreach and working with community orchestras is so important. It's one of the reasons we also pick locally sourced musicians. We really go to great lengths to find musicians from that area to work with. Just as a conductor and composer, I really put a high value on working with local ensembles, speaking with them, hearing what their opinions and thoughts are on music. Certainly, it's enlightening for me as a composer. There are times when I write something that I think is brilliant. Then I set it down in front of five musicians, and they instantly give me an entire education that went wrong for their instrument. It's a great thing. It's a great learning tool.
Some will be like, "Well if you wrote it like this, then it would be a lot easier to play and would probably have the effect you wanted more," so in that way when you look at John Williams' score — and it's a treasure to even have it in front of me in the first place — as I said an education in and of itself. Like I said, there's brilliant orchestration and use of tone color throughout that entire scene. Even while it's being performed I am picking up on little things and sounds that I didn't even hear last time.
Even though it's a huge orchestra, just the fact that its local and that everyone has their own input, it sort of makes it its own performance and entirely new composition.
Where do you live? How many days are you on the road? Do you have any kids?
No kids, which is fortunate because I am on the road quite a bit. I've probably been on the road, I've been conducting Harry Potter for about nine months, I believe. I didn't come on right in the begining, but it's been a solid six months, out of the nine, that I've been on the road. But it's been amazing. I've been able to see parts of the road that I wouldn't be able to see otherwise.
I'm based in Los Angeles, originally from Connecticut. I certainly do have my issues when I travel to Florida with humidity, so this orchestra will have to deal with my sweaty face while rehearsing.
And for now, do you dream in G, E flat, C?
I dream in every single tone color that happens to come out in Harry Potter, so it makes for some quite interesting and colorful dreams to say the least.
Awesome and thanks for your time.
Thank you Ray, really appreciate it.
This article appears in Sep 21-28, 2017.