Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser's journey from teacher to professional conductor takes him home to the CPO
Eric Volmers
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser imagines the audience at Saturday’s Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra event, Soul Legends: From Isaac Hayes to Marvin Gaye, will be full of familiar faces. It is, after all, a homecoming show for the conductor, who will be making his debut with the CPO.
The Calgary native hopes they will be entertained, but he’s also quite certain that many of them will be … relieved.
“Not only is it an orchestra of my colleagues and my peers and my teachers, but the audience is full of my friends and people who have, for decades, been listening to me complain about wanting to conduct the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra,” says Bartholomew-Poyser, in an interview from his home in Kitchener-Waterloo. “They’ll be like ‘Finally! You can do it and we won’t have to hear you talking about you wanting to do it anymore.’”
Granted, he has conducted orchestras all over North America. But being before the CPO has been a dream ever since he first immersed himself in music as a student at William Aberhart high school in the 1990s.
“If it wasn’t for William Aberhart I wouldn’t be in music right now, that’s for sure,” Bartholomew-Poyser says. “There are specific conversations with the music teacher that I remember. I can take you to where I was standing where we had the conversation that put me on the path to being a professional conductor.”
In fact, his trip back to Calgary is a full-circle affair. On Friday, Bartholomew-Poyser was scheduled to return to his old high school for early-morning rehearsals with music students.
Soul Legends, which will be presented in recognition of Black History Month, will also feature vocalist and fellow William Aberhart grad Gavin Hope.
Still, the path wasn’t immediate. Bartholomew-Poyser followed his Aberhart mentors into music education before turning his attention to conducting full time. He taught for nine years at Calgary’s Glenmore Christian Academy. Near the end of his time at Glenmore, he began thinking about fulfilling his lifelong dream of becoming a professional conductor. It was an ambition he harboured since the second grade when he was first taught conducting patterns.
“I just always conducted,” he says. “I would just be conducting in my head. Which is actually not the best way to learn. When I was 13 years old I wanted to be a conductor, I’d watch movies about conducting. When I was in university I wanted to be a conductor. I was always talking to conductors. Some of them would say ‘Don’t be a conductor, it’s really hard.’ And it is, they were right. But it’s worth it. So it has always been in the back of my head. But the actual decision came in my eighth year of teaching. I realized if I didn’t try to become a professional conductor I would regret it on my deathbed.”
So he left teaching and made his way to Thunder Bay, where he would eventually serve as associate conductor of the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra. He later became assistant conductor of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony and currently serves as the artist-in-residence for Symphony Nova Scotia.
It has allowed Bartholomew-Poyser to conduct a broad variety of styles over the years. So Saturday’s focus on half a century of R&B, Motown, funk, disco, and pop — much of which the conductor grew up listening to in Calgary — will not be that much of a stretch.
“Orchestras play in styles that range over 400 years,” Bartholomew-Poyser says. “They can play in Baroque style, they can play in Renaissance style, they can play jazz style, hip-hop style, soul, Romantic style. It’s really the CPO musicians on stage that are able to switch gears so fast that allow orchestras to do what they do, because they play in so many styles. Where do I fit in it mix? I’m kind of the bridge between audiences and all different types of music. So whether it’s a pops concert or whether it’s a concert of modern music; whether it’s Led Zeppelin, whether it’s Brahms or Beethoven, my goal is to always link up audiences and help them to leave enjoying more than they would have if I had not spoken or conducted and connected them.”
Connecting with audiences, including audiences that aren’t usually familiar with classical music, is a passion for Bartholomew-Poyser. His unique journey in the world of classical music as a gay, black conductor will be covered in an upcoming documentary, as will his work to bring orchestral music to a wide array of audiences: to young people, children on the spectrum, the LBGTQ community, people of colour and prison populations.
“It’s work I’ve been doing all along,” Bartholomew-Poyser says. “They thought it was interesting enough to do a documentary about it. That’s what it’s all about, the journey going from being a teacher to a professional conductor.”
It will also explore parts of his personal life. Growing up as a person of colour in Alberta was, for the most part, positive he says.
“That’s how I feel about the race thing,” he says. “They are going to get a little bit into the documentary about the whole story of coming out. That was a big, very, very long journey and extremely difficult journey for me that took years and is still a process of understanding and learning, such that it gives me great empathy for people who are struggling with issues of orientation, particularly issues of orientation in the context of faith communities. Just understanding how people (flourishing) in that context can be a challenge but one I’ve undertaken.”
Soul Legends: From Isaac Hayes to Marvin Gaye takes place Saturday, Feb. 9 at the Jack Singer Concert Hall at 7:30 p.m.
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