When I was a kid, I never really liked playing the game "musical chairs". One small misstep and you were out for the rest of the game awkwardly watching the other kids play. Unfortunately, this seems to be a game I can't escape if I ever want to play in an established symphony orchestra. The process of winning an orchestral job is so similar to the slightly sadistic game that one of the main sites for job postings is actually titled "musicalchairs.info". We have all heard that orchestras are changing their approaches to drawing in audiences, but the one thing that seems not to change is the audition process.

Celebrating her first season with the Chicago Sinfonietta as the new music director Mei-Ann Chen sat down with Chicago Classical Music to chat about her first season, goals with the organization and favorite things in Chicago.

Your conducting style is so intensely energetic and vibrant as compared to other conductors I’ve seen. Where does all that energy come from? How did you develop such a unique style?
It’s a combination of all my experiences. I worked with the oldest youth orchestra in the country, the Portland Youth Orchestra.  The most precious thing that I took away from that experience was that those children make music from the heart. They don’t know hardship yet and make music in the purest form: they simply make music because they love it.  The energy that they had has remained with me and their love for music reminds me why I wanted to be a musician to start.

I have an embarrassing admission. This weekend while I was watching the television, I saw an interesting commercial with a completely gorgeous song in it. I could have sworn up and down that the song was the theme from Alan Menken’s score for Beauty and the Beast.

Well, I was wrong.  It wasn’t Disney but Camille Saint-Saëns’ the Aquarium movement from Carnival of the Animals.  Talk about feeling sheepish.

So in addition to this little incident and the Oscar nominations on Tuesday, I was thinking about film scores and classical music, and how the two inform each other. 

How many times have you heard music at the movies and couldn’t help but think it was Holst and not Horner who’d written the score?  And how frequently have you seen outstanding orchestras and performers lending their talents to film scores?

The Oak Park-based composer’s arrangement of the spiritual “Blin’ Man” will be performed by Chicago a cappella at their upcoming concert, Wade in the Water. Performances take place Feb. 3 (Chicago), Feb. 4 (Naperville), Feb. 11 (Evanston), and Feb. 12 (Oak Park). More information at www.chicagoacappella.org.

1. What are you listening to on your iPod these days?
Both of the new Grammy-nominated discs by the choir Seraphic Fire from Miami. One is a Christmas CD and the other is the Brahms Requiem in its more intimate piano 4 hands version. I am supposed to review them soon on my choral music blog: www.paulcarey440.blogspot.com. Otherwise I unwind listening to quality Latin jazz.

Every once in a while, my friends and I gather with our instruments, a few choice drinks, and the parts to several different readable works to have a "chamber music party". We read and have fun in the music without any concern of critique from an audience. Chamber music is sometimes called "music for friends" and originally (pre 1800s) was intended for a private household gathering with friends and family - a lot like the parties many young musicians have today (though perhaps slightly more dignified... we don't wear powdered wigs or petticoats). It seems with the passing of a few centuries and the categorization of chamber music as "serious" performance music, a lot of visual musician to musician interaction has been lost. Instead of watching what looks like friends in intimate conversation, most times I feel like I'm watching a group of acquaintances who may not even like each other. If the music that comes out is good, does it matter? I think so.