Grant Llewellyn spoke with Handel and Haydn Society Director of Marketing Gregg Sorensen about early music, Boston, and his family. This is the second of two conversations.

GS: When you were a student in Manchester and Cambridge did you study a lot of choral music?

GL: Absolutely, especially Italian and English Renaissance and Baroque. At the Chethams School of Music in Manchester-during my high school years-we had a wonderful director of music, Michael Brewer, who is one of the great choral trainers in the world today. His favorite activity in the school was his chamber choir, of which I was a member. We really learned this repertoire very intimately and rehearsed and performed week in, week out.

I also found myself singing as a choral scholar at Cambridge University. I'm no singer, particularly, but I had lots of experience at school and was able to join one of the college chapel choirs where we sang five or six services a week. I guess you could say that it's in my blood.

GS: Does your approach to music-making differ when you lead a period instrument orchestra from a modern one?

GL: Somewhat. You must have a scholarly approach with a period instrument orchestra in order to do justice to the style and the time of the composer. But ultimately, it comes down to gut instinct and where your heart and passions lie. I think you would probably find that the vast majority of early music players are first and foremost interested in whether the person on the podium has a strong sense of the music, is intuitively musical, has a feeling for the music, and the nature of the music. One needs to marry the scholarship with the heart.

GS: Which period instrument conductors have influenced you?

GL: I think I'm fortunate that I grew up with Christopher [Hogwood], John Eliot [Gardiner] and Roger [Norrington]. We younger conductors have had the luxury of being able to learn from them. They've taken all the risks. John Eliot stands out in my mind because he worked with my school orchestra in Manchester when I was 15 or 16 years old. I led the cellos for him a number of times.

GS: What are some of your favorite places in Boston?

GL: I think my all-time favorite place in the Boston area is Good Harbor Beach, just outside Gloucester on Cape Ann. In the early 1990's, when I was an assistant conductor [under Seiji Ozawa] at the Boston Symphony, my family and I would head up there if we had a free day. In town, Brookline was our favorite spot. We lived in and around Coolidge Corner for the years that we were here-a little place called Kent Square. We also love Concord, and, of course, the Berkshires. Doyle's in Jamaica Plain is a great favorite.

GS: In addition to music, are there any sports that you enjoy?

GL: Soccer is my sport, absolutely. When I was a young lad in Manchester it was a thrill to be so close to some of the greatest soccer teams: Manchester United, Manchester City. Week in and week out I would go to see them.

GS: Did you play?

GL: Yes, I played a lot in my youth. In fact, during the summer while I was at Tanglewood [as a Conducting Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center], I played in a team called Tio's Hot Dog Internationals. Tio's Hot Dogs were a particularly spicy hot dog served at a restaurant in Pittsfield. One of the teachers at Tanglewood was a great soccer player, a great sportsman, and he invited me to play. So I ended up playing in this tri-state league during the summer months up in Vermont, New York State, and Massachusetts.

GS: You're someone with a lot of interests. What keeps you busy when you're not making music?

GL: I do indeed have numerous interests: literature, theater and all the various sports I dabble in. But when I'm not working, I become pretty single minded about my family and guard that time jealously. I'm away so much of the year that I like to give all my energy and time and imagination to them when I'm home.

I think it's now five years on the chart that I've missed my wife's birthday. When I say missed, I mean I've been abroad. I miss anniversaries, and that's just a fact of life. We don't get heated about that, but it means that when I do get home it would be very easy just to shut myself away and study my scores, but that time is too important, it's too precious. For the time being, having four kids and a wonderfully talented, intelligent wife, is a pretty big hobby.

Part One: Mr. Llewellyn speaks about his musical background, conducting, and the Handel and Haydn Society

READ MORE about Grant Llewellyn’s Music Background

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