It’s a fair bet that at some point this month, you’ll catch a glimpse of the old holiday movie White Christmas flashing across your TV screen (for some of us, it’s a must-see in December). Staring with crooner Bing Crosby in that classic film is the always-zany Danny Kaye.
In addition to being a brilliant comedic actor, Mr. Kaye was also something of a conductor. Now typically, this writer cringes when celebrity wannabes ape our treasured craft, but in this case, Danny Kaye actually possessed more than a little facility on the podium.
Of Danny Kaye’s conducting, famed New York Philharmonic Orchestra conductor Dimitri Mitropolus said, “Here is a man who is not musically trained, who cannot even read music, and he gets more out of my orchestra than I have.”
Ponder the accompanying video fragment of Danny Kay conducting the New York Phil. What can we discern from Mr. Kaye’s approach to music making? Certainly, it is brimming with energy and his conducting technique is quite admirable. Without question, his physical gestures are communicating clearly and concisely. Is it the freedom of not worrying about what some persnickety so-and-so thinks that makes it work? Maybe it is the unrestrained joy he is experiencing as he conducts.
Whatever it may be, we could take a lesson here.
Ronald Richard Duquette says
Ronald Richard Duquette says