Although he performed before two Popes and led orchestras from London to L.A., conductor Boris Brott took a special pleasure in introducing the classics to young people and the uninitiated
The stock image of the classical conductor is of a grand, imperious figure, lofty upon his podium, piercing the air with his baton.“He was always physically engaged with the orchestra,” recalls Christopher Deacon, the president and CEO of Ottawa’s National Arts Centre, who watched Mr. Brott conduct the NAC Orchestra and others many times. “He really leaned in. With his animated gestures it was almost as if he was giving a bear hug to the orchestra.
Although Mr. Brott performed before two Popes and led orchestras from London to L.A., he took a special pleasure in introducing the classics to young people and the uninitiated. He became known for his imaginative kids’ concerts with the NAC Orchestra and later developed a sideline as a motivational speaker, turning a room full of employees from IBM or McDonald’s into an impromptu symphony.
Mr. Brott soon decided, however, that he preferred to be in front of the orchestra and traded his violin for the baton. Studying with Pierre Monteux and Igor Markevitch in his teens, he won top conducting prizes at international competitions in Mexico in 1958 and Liverpool in 1962.
About the same time that he was building the Hamilton Philharmonic, Mr. Brott briefly helmed the symphonies in Thunder Bay and Regina, and was principal conductor for two radio orchestras: the CBC Winnipeg Orchestra and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. In the early 1980s, he accepted another challenge, transitioning Halifax’s bankrupt Atlantic Symphony Orchestra into Symphony Nova Scotia. By then, Mr. Brott had a reputation for business savvy to go along with his artistic credentials.
When not in Ottawa or Hamilton, Mr. Brott kept up his connection with Montreal concertgoers. He became an associate conductor with the McGill Chamber Orchestra in 1989 and, after his mother’s death, its leader in all but name. When his father died in 2005, he succeeded him as artistic director. In 2015, Mr. Brott decided to do the same for opera singers by launching BrottOpera – a program also meant to fill the gap left by the demise of Opera Hamilton. His co-artistic director was Mr. Kulish, a former opera singer. “He had conducted opera all over Italy, he just loved singers,” Mr. Kulish said, “so he asked me to help him.”
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