Justin Han is among those competing in the Emerging Conductors Concert this weekend. (Photo by Lola Scott)
You might call Justin Han a people person. A concert pianist by trade, he slowly found himself gravitating toward the communal aspect of singing in choirs — so much so that after receiving his undergraduate music degree from the University of Georgia in 2017, he turned to a choral conducting degree from Georgia State University.
“Being a concert pianist is a very lonely route,” he said.
Now his days are far from solitary. In addition to teaching biology at GSU Perimeter College, Han is a high school chorus teacher, the director of music at Emory Presbyterian Church and the artistic director of the Athens Master Chorale. You can also find him singing with the professional choir Hub or doing musical things like Sacred Harp-ifying the 16th-century Thomas Tallis anthem “If Ye Love Me” on Instagram.
Han also is a self-described “ginormous jazz fan” who occasionally frequents jam sessions around town and has tried to get an Atlanta-based vocal jazz group off the ground.
“I love baroque and jazz,” he said. “They have an improvisatory aspect to both of them.”
Michael Palmer.
Now he’s bringing his passion for people to orchestral conducting. Han is part of the six-member cohort of conducting students participating in the new Georgia Festival of Music’s conducting program. Led by conductor Michael Palmer, the GFM, now in its second year, has chosen six conductors from a national pool of 22 applicants through a week of rigorous study in conducting. After their sessions with Palmer, students “work through” the pieces with a stripped-down ensemble and then in three rehearsals with a full orchestra packed with members of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Atlanta Opera Orchestra and other major organizations. They also receive coaching in the business aspect of music.
It all culminates in a grand-finale concert on Saturday night at Saint Mark United Methodist Church. Each conductor will lead his or her own musical segment — bits of works by Haydn, Mozart and Dvorak — then orchestra members will help organizers determine a winner.
This year’s cohort includes a range of professionals from conductors and teachers just getting into the art form to more established artists. The first year, only two conductors performed. Next year, Palmer hopes to grow the number of conductors as well as the number of concerts leading up to the competition. (This year, the GFM also held an opening house concert with soprano Greer Lyle and a conducting competition kickoff show.)
Palmer has a long history in Atlanta. He first came to the city as a 21-year-old at the behest of former ASO Music Director Robert Shaw. After 10 years in the city, during which he helped grow the orchestra in size and stature, he left, returning in 2004 to teach at Georgia State University. He founded the Georgia Music Festival last year to present music during the ASO’s down season but also to create a new generation of music directors.
“I want to do what I can to pass on a tradition,” he said, mentioning the conducting legacies of Shaw and the great music director’s major influence, George Szell. “You have to teach it beginning with the study of conducting itself and conversations and examples of what it is and what it means to be a conductor and a music director.”
For the closing program, Han is conducting the first movement of Mozart’s 29th Symphony. Han performed the piece in his high school orchestra, so the nostalgia factor is in full effect, but he said he’s also drawn to the whimsy of the music.
“I think it fits my temperament really well,” he said. “I particularly loved Mozart as a kid, and he’s my main man now.”
For a young choral conductor stepping into the symphonic world, he’s wary of prepping too much. He doesn’t want to make the music too academic by fussing over the score. He instead starts with the listener. He said he tries to focus on the emotion of each piece and not “steering away from what the essence of the music is.”
The Festival is also about bringing new voices into the Atlanta music scene, expanding the scope beyond the traditional organizations, said Logan Souther, Georgia Festival of Music’s associate conductor. Souther started working with Palmer as a 15-year-old conducting student.
“There are incredible orchestral musicians in the ASO, the Atlanta Opera and ballet orchestras. These very fine institutions are necessary for our city but really only represent a limited artistic voice,” he said. “For a classical music scene to thrive in a world-class city like Atlanta, there needs to be new artistic voices and many voices.”
These new voices are perfect for Palmer’s methods. He wants to develop conductors and music directors as being “somebody other than someone who just stands on the podium and conducts,” he said. This means teaching the art of conducting but also showing future music directors how to become an essential and vibrant player in their communities — how to weave the orchestra into the fabric of the city. In his estimation, many symphonies around the country have lost their way.
“The orchestra went from being a powerful voice for music and for the importance of art for the people … to having become a glitzy, professional, big-time orchestra,” he said.
Palmer intends to stop that showboat progression before it even starts.
“The young conductor gets enamored very quickly of the dreams of being a star and then being a big presence and having everything revolve around him or her and make a lot of money,” he said. “And it’s so antithetical to conducting as an art. The goal of the great conductor is to get out of the way of the music.”
By molding young conductors in this image, exposing them to a great Atlanta conducting lineage, Palmer and Souther hope to use the GFM to continue to grow the city’s classical scene.
“We only want to do one thing at Georgia Festival of Music: make music at the highest level,” Souther said, “while fostering warm and intimate relationships between the musicians and the audience.”
Where & When
Emerging Conductors Concert. 8 p.m. June 28. $25. Saint Mark United Methodist Church, 781 Peachtree St. NE.
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Jon Ross writes about music and culture. His work appears in Atlanta Magazine, The Bitter Southerner, The Atlanta-Journal Constitution and Downbeat Magazine, among other publications.
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