Sarasota Orchestra - Christopher Rountree

We see Lady Macbeth in a dozen crooning silhouettes washing blood out of rags over bright porcelain sinks; hear Stravinsky pouring out of an abandoned warehouse; see dozens of watermelons fly off of Disney Hall; hear a black and white overture imploring against hatred; parse a chorus singing Haydn’s “Creation” backwards; watch a violinist cutting himself out of duct tape with a razor as his amplified violin sits gathering feedback; celebrate with rituals joyous for the end of the world; witness a long lost John Adams suite come alive; and hear the sound of rose-petal jam making as music. Conductor and composer Christopher Rountree, is standing at the intersection of classical music, new music, performance art and pop.

Whether presenting his beloved chamber group Wild Up in a museum bathroom, directing a series of interdisciplinary ambient concerts called SILENCE in an oak grove, or leading renowned ensembles through new music freshest works at the world’s greatest concert halls, Rountree has distinguished himself as one of classical music’s most forward-thinking innovators in creativity and community building.

“I think of scenarios that will awaken people’s hearts or change people’s minds about something, then set them up, and see what happens,” Rountree, 36, says of his approach. “If I can imagine how a program will live in a space and that thought makes me smile, then I’m ready to start.”

Rountree, is the founder, conductor and creative director of the pathbreaking L.A. chamber orchestra Wild Up. The group’s eccentric mix of new music, pop and performance art quickly jumped from raucous DIY bar shows to being lauded as the vanguard for classical music by critics for The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, public radio’s Performance Today, and The New York Times, where Zachary Woolfe called the group “…a raucous, grungy, irresistibly exuberant…fun-loving, exceptionally virtuosic family.” Wild Up started in 2010 with no funding and no musicians, driven only by Rountree’s vision of a world-class orchestra that creates visceral, provocative experiences that are unmoored from classical traditions.

In 2019 he curated and conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s FLUXUS Festival, the experimental music component of the Phil’s 100th season in collaboration with the Getty Research Institute. The 16-concert FLUXUS Festival united icons of contemporary art with classical music for the first time, placing Yoko Ono next to Ryoji Ikeda and Luciano Berio; La Monte Young next to Steven Takasugi next to John Cage. Ragnar Kjartansson’s “Bliss,” an ecstatic 12-hour rendering of Mozart, stood next to Alison Knowles’ “Make a Salad,” performed by 1,700 people. David Lang’s “crowd out” took over downtown L.A., as orchestra musicians launched the watermelons of Ken Friedman’s “Sonata for Melons and Gravity” off the top of Walt Disney Concert Hall.

“I envision the audience first: their experience watching and listening to whatever it is that the band is doing up there on stage, and I think of the audience’s conversations when they leave the hall, What will they be interested in? What will they remember?” Rountree says. “Then I see the space the way I want it to be: the light, the air, the taste of the room. Then the band: I see all the challenges, fights and elation we’re going to have in rehearsal and I imagine the way that we’ll all feel when the time is right and we make that choice to walk on stage to start the show.”

As he’s become regarded as one of the most exciting and iconoclastic conductors and programmers in the field, Rountree’s inimitable style has led to collaborations with: Björk, John Adams, Yoko Ono, David Lang, Scott Walker, La Monte Young, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Mica Levi, Alison Knowles, Yuval Sharon, Sigourney Weaver, Tyshawn Sorey, Ragnar Kjartansson, Ashley Fure, Julia Holter, Claire Chase, Missy Mazzoli, Ryoji Ikeda, Du Yun, Thaddeus Strassberger, Ellen Reid, Ted Hearne, James Darrah, and many of the planet’s greatest orchestras and ensembles including: the National, San Francisco, Houston, Cincinnati, Colorado, San Diego and Chicago Symphonies, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, International Contemporary Ensemble, Roomful of Teeth, Opera national de Paris, the Washington National, Los Angeles, Omaha, San Diego, and Atlanta Operas, and the Martha Graham Dance Company. He has presented compositions and concerts at Walt Disney Concert Hall, Palais Garnier, Mile High Stadium, the Coliseum, the Echoplex, Kennedy Center, Philadelphia Museum of Art, ACE Hotel, National Sawdust, MCA Denver, The Hammer, The Getty, a basketball court in Santa Cruz, and at Lincoln Center on the New York Philharmonic’s Biennale.

In the coming year Rountree begins recording a four volume set of the music of Julius Eastman. Tours the country with Wild Up, ending in an Eastman portrait at the National Gallery. Starts a multi-year project, resurrecting old work, with the Martha Graham Dance Company. Collaborates with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and Four Larks. Plays with filmmaker Bill Morrison and composer Alex Somers at the ACE Hotel. Conducts part of a viola festival at New World Symphony. Starts an ambient series at Descanso Gardens with co-artistic director Anna Bulbrook. He’ll return to the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and Houston Symphony. Make debuts at Florentine Opera in Milwaukee, River Oaks Chamber Orchestra in Houston, and with the Sacramento Symphony. He’ll work on two operas about love and technology with librettists Royce Vavrek and Roxie Perkins. Do Jury Duty. Sing. Dance. Do yoga. And drink beer.

“I don’t have enough tattoos to be the badboy provocateur of classical music,” Rountree jokes. “But is the goal to dismantle the barriers to the artform, and to build something entirely new — something bursting with life, contemporary relevance, equity and deep mindfulness? That is exactly what we’re doing.”