How did I end up here?
Finan Jones (Strong Yorkshire Gold, splash of milk) is an English conductor based in Atlanta, Georgia. You might wonder how a Londoner ended up working with an orchestra in the American South.
Having graduated from the Guildhall School in London in 2017, I was offered the chance to stay on as a Conducting Fellow to continue my studies. During these two years and then throughout the COVID pandemic and beyond, I made my living making myself useful to orchestras in the UK - administering COVID tests, loading trucks, setting stages, driving vans, marking up music, and very occasionally conducting.
In the summer of 2022, on top of some freelance work as an orchestral librarian I was already doing for them, the London Symphony Orchestra asked whether I could be available for two weeks of work with Sir John Eliot Gardiner (Decaf Earl Grey, splash of milk), to carry his bags, make him tea and generally be on hand to help in London and on tour in Spain.
Working with Sir John Eliot Gardiner. Credit: Gwyneth Wentink
After one of the rehearsal days, John Eliot and I were waiting for the car that would whisk him off to his hotel, listening to a game of cricket on the radio in the sun, when he asked me why I hadn’t told him I conducted.
I had always made a point of never letting on to conductors about my own ambitions while doing other work for orchestras, so they didn’t think I was fetching the tea to get something out of them. Turns out someone else had let slip my secret.
From that point on, as well as talking about the cricket, rugby, what fresh fruit there was at the market that day or what each of us might do in our time off on tour, he began talking to me about the music the orchestra were rehearsing, what I thought about it, and what I heard or didn’t hear.
By the end of the tour, as well as making the tea, I was also giving my opinions on balance from the auditorium. As he got into his car to the airport, John Eliot invited me to watch a few days of rehearsals for concerts he was conducting later in the summer with the Monteverdi Choir and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis.
Over the next few weeks, while not working around London loading trucks and putting out orchestra folders, I also spent every spare hour studying the Beethoven so I could learn as much as I could from the three days of rehearsals I was going to watch.
Armed with a box of Twinings Decaf Earl Grey Tea and my new Bärenreiter score, I headed to the rehearsals. On the final day, at lunchtime, John Eliot came up to me, tea in hand, and said, ‘At some point this afternoon I’ll get you up to have a go.’
Either I conducted well that afternoon, or I had made the best cup of tea of my life; whichever it was, so began a mentorship that is ongoing, working with all of John Eliot’s groups and on a number of his guest conducting engagements, touring extensively in Europe and beyond.
In between projects with John Eliot, I was still working my other jobs for orchestras in the UK, and in February 2024, the LSO asked me to look after another guest conductor, Nathalie Stutzmann (Builder’s tea, not too strong, a little milk).
Working with Nathalie Stutzmann, Music Director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Credit: Ra Sheed Lemon
I really owe a drink to whichever player in the orchestra was out there banging the drum for me, because again I found myself waiting for a car, this time with Nathalie and under an umbrella, being asked why I hadn’t mentioned I conducted.
They were recording Bruckner 9 and his Te Deum for broadcast on Medici TV, and Nathalie wanted someone in the hall to help with the balance. She asked if I could give notes.
On the final day of rehearsals, again sheltering under an umbrella, Nathalie said there was an assistant job going with her orchestra in Atlanta, and promised me that the weather was much nicer there. Ten days later, I was on a plane heading to the audition, my first time in the USA.
Rehearsing the Constellation Choir and Orchestra, Nikolaikirche, Leipzig. Credit: Iris Korfker.
Two and a half years later, here I am, starting my third season with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. The weather is definitely nicer, but it’s harder to find a box of Yorkshire Gold.