WELCOME!

Welcome to Conducting Electricity. Since September 2014 I’ve been writing for the Florida Times-Union, keeping everyone up to date with what’s happening at the Jacksonville Symphony. These posts are reproduced with permission.

I also write about what’s going on in my life as a performing musician and the music I love, while trying to demystify my strange profession of conducting. I love to hear from you, so please leave comments. If there’s a question you’re dying to ask, or a topic you’d like to know more about, please send me a note and I’ll address it in a future post. Enjoy!

Latest Posts

Cat Links Jacksonville Symphony

A kid in a candy store

Posted on Courtney Lewis

It finally happened. After months of anticipation, interviews, photo shoots, planning and general pandemonium, this morning the Jacksonville Symphony had its first rehearsal for their opening concerts this weekend. And I was there conducting, for the first time as music director designate. No big deal. Well, not quite. It is a big deal. It’s a huge deal for everyone. I don’t know about the orchestra, but having convinced myself last night that the JSO management had made a terrible mistake, and that the musicians were going to leave for lunch thinking “what have we done?!” I had a few butterflies in my stomach this morning. We spent the morning reading through the main piece on the concerts this weekend, Berlioz’s unbelievable Symphonie Fantastique. It’s hard

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Cat Links Conducting Electricity, Jacksonville Symphony

Let me introduce myself

Posted on Courtney Lewis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjvskfCxL6Y Dear readers, My name is Courtney Lewis. I’m a conductor. Later this month, I start working with the Jacksonville Symphony as Music Director Designate. As we speak, I’m preparing for our first concerts together on Sept. 26 and 27. This is the first entry of a new blog I’m going to post each month to keep you up to date with what’s going on with our wonderful orchestra. So first of all, let me introduce myself. I grew up in Belfast, Northern Ireland. As I’m sure you know, Belfast has a chequered history due to the many different identities locals ascribe to. I call myself Northern Irish or British. My father was a barrister (lawyer) and my mother is a professor at Queen’s University,

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