A musical philosophy Maestro from Billings, Montana, fifth and final candidate for Bangor Symphony position

Uri Barnea didn’t know it, but when he was standing in the foyer of the Bangor Public Library this week, he was visiting one of the oldest and most beloved cultural institutions in the city. “Welcome to the Bangor Public Library,” said director Barbara McDade, recently named Maine’s librarian of the year. “We’re very proud of our library.”

As McDade led Barnea, the fifth and final candidate for the position of music director of the Bangor Symphony Orchestra, to the music holdings, she explained that she, too, had moved to Bangor for a job and hadn’t regretted the decision. There’s a frontier spirit in Bangor, she said as they toured the building, that can be comforting and freeing.

When they reached the music section, McDade raised her hand Vanna-like and swept it through the air toward shelves of folders holding sheet music.

It turns out that the library is deeply connected to the city’s other oldest and most beloved cultural institution: the BSO. For as many years back as McDade could remember, the Bangor Library has purchased and stored music for the BSO and has served as its official library.

“We lend the music to other orchestras, and patrons are also permitted to borrow it, but the Bangor Symphony has first option,” said McDade.

Barnea raised his eyebrows in surprise. “So a patron can come and check out the music without asking the music director?” he asked.

That’s right, said McDade. Three weeks for patrons. Six weeks for groups. A year for the BSO. Typically, the library receives the BSO season program in the summer and reserves those scores or purchases new ones. The library’s music budget for the year is $10,000. If the library does not have a piece of music or if the budget has been reached, the BSO rents the music from other organizations.

It isn’t exactly the way things are done in Billings, Mont., where Barnea has been music director of the Billings Symphony Orchestra for 18 years. There, he explained, the music scores are kept under his watchful eye.

The stop to the library was one of many Barnea has made in his 10-day blitz in Bangor. In addition to formal interviews, he met with the mayor, board members, the business community and musicians. Most importantly, he rehearsed for Sunday’s concert, the last in the season before the BSO decides who will permanently take the podium left vacant when Christopher Zimmerman resigned last year.

After last weekend’s rehearsals with the BSO, Barnea commented on the eagerness of the musicians.

“They are anxious to do a good job,” he said. “It shows in their demeanor. They have to be anxious to do what needs to be done, even if it isn’t according to their own ideas. And they knew how to adjust to the conductor.”

When asked what he would focus on if the orchestra became his next fall, Barnea was quick to make a correction. “It will never be my orchestra,” he said. “It’s the community’s orchestra.”

Therein lies Barnea’s most cogent qualifications. Music and civic responsibility have gone hand in hand during his career. Born in Israel, Barnea comes from a musical family and was encouraged early to play instruments, beginning with toy harmonicas, progressing to recorders and settling finally on the violin and viola. He came to America in 1971 to serve as music director of the Jewish Community Center in Minneapolis and as conductor of its resident chamber orchestra. While there, he earned master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Minnesota.

By 1984, Barnea was lifting his baton in Billings, where, as the first full-time music director of that city’s symphony orchestra, he has become a vocal and active member in the cultural scene. He’s ubiquitous in schools, on political panel discussions, on radio, in marketing pitches. Before each classical concert, he holds “Concert Cues,” a preconcert lecture. His programming includes new works and composer residencies, but it is popular and weighty, too. Last year’s concerts included selections from Bach, Dvorak, Vivaldi, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Brahms and Beethoven. Always Beethoven, Barnea said.

When he speaks of music, Barnea is passionate and loquacious. He can quickly and easily spin into composer biographies, explications of art, or philosophical views.

“The live concert is a spiritual experience,” he said. “The music doesn’t stop at the double bar. It ends but it goes on in life in the mind and hearts of the listeners. It’s a transformation, an elevation, a spirituality that people take with them. The concert is time you dedicate to yourself for growth, for meditation. Never can you experience that in front of a television.”

When it came to discussing the vision behind this weekend’s concert, which features Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 and Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 3, Barnea smiled coyly.

“I hesitate to tell you because I want to give it to the audience,” he said. “I don’t want them to read it in the paper. But I’ll give it to you in general.”

For the next several minutes, he spoke eloquently and associatively about Bach’s rhythmic vitality, sophisticated harmonies, and divine vision, and about Beethoven’s great unifying message for humanity.

In this expressiveness, Barnea’s eagerness to get back to rehearsals was clear. He is in Maine to look around the city, to learn its history and meet residents, but the experience in the concert hall is what he craves – that “miraculous cycle” of energy flow from conductor to musicians to audience, and back again. “I never interpret silence in a concert hall as aloofness,” said Barnea. “That silence is a very important component. It means the audience is being drawn, almost sucked into an experience.”

While the BSO is sizing up Barnea, he understandably was sizing up the possibilities, too. After living in a city four times the size of this one, with a larger orchestra, more concerts, and a dynamic presence in the community, would Bangor be the right place for him?

“I am not in music for money,” said Barnea. “Music is the medium through which I reach people and interact with people. You have to think of the essence of your life. Was it a step down for Albert Schweitzer to leave the university and go to the jungles? It’s not a step down. It’s a philosophy. I’ve accomplished a tremendous amount in Billings. Bangor is another adventure with different people and a different community. I believe I can do some good for others and for myself. And I believe it may be time for a change for me.”

If offered the job, Barnea said he might not move to Bangor immediately. He has a daughter in high school and a son in 5th grade in Billings. Plus, in a few years, he and his wife will have paid off their house there. But, if his skills seem right for the job, he is willing to get on the three airplanes it takes to get from Billings to Bangor to explore the possibility of directing a second orchestra.

“I am willing to help if people think I can help,” said Barnea. “I am willing to try.”

Uri Barnea will conduct the Bangor Symphony Orchestra, and the University of Maine Singers, the Oratorio Society and four guest soloists, 3 p.m. May 5 at the Maine Center for the Arts in Orono. For tickets, call 942-5555 or 800-639-3221.