The following is a special presentation of WTI in Chattanooga, north Georgia, and the Tennessee Valley.

If you're looking for a little heart and soul, then look no further.

Join me.

Allison Leibovitz, as I sit down with Maestro Bob Bernhardt.

Straight ahead on the A-list perfect.

I think you should take the show on the road.

We can do this.

We can do this.

Coach, put me in.

I haven't met much music.

I don't love.

Maestro Robert Bernhardt.

He's the principal pops conductor for the Louisville Orchestra in Kentucky.

And as of 2010, he's led the Chattanooga Symphony and Opera for 16 seasons as its music director.

Well, Bob, welcome to the A-list.

We're glad you could join us today.

I can't believe I've made it.

Thank you.

I'm delighted to be here.

Thank you.

Well, you have had quite an illustrious career, quite a personal and professional life.

And to quote, I think, one of the greats of all times.

What a long, strange trip it's been for you.

It has.

It has been.

And it's really amazing that it's brought me here to Chattanooga.

How did you first come to Chattanooga?

Was it 16 years ago?

Is that.

Correct?

It was a conviction.

Oh, wait a minute.

Are we on?

No, I had a I had auditioned for the Chattanooga Symphony job in 1985 when I was four or six maybe.

And I was.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's an adult pride, maybe not even that.

So it was the year that Vartan Jordanian, my predecessor, won the job.

I came in.

I didn't win for that that time.

And then he was here for seven years.

And when he left, they called me again and asked me to audition again.

And I came back.

And in 1992, I won.

Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo.

Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo.

And with that, when the door opened to the scenic city and a new journey began for symphony and opera aficionados.

But the road to becoming the maestro we see today had to start somewhere, including just maybe, the road not taken.

When did you know you were musical?

Like, what age do you remember just being either interested or musically inclined.

Trying to figure that stuff?

If I am.

But always interested as a kid.

But I was more of a of a jock as a kid.

More of a I was more interested in mostly baseball and in soccer.

Then you were all-American baseball player, an.

Academic, all-American player, which I think means I could read, but I don't I don't know.

I mean, I'm ready to play today.

Look at me and be sad.

You actually, it was really wonderful.

I had the four years of baseball in high school and four years of varsity baseball in college.

And I had the same with soccer and four years in both of both of those, uh, in both schools.

And I loved it.

And baseball really was kind of my my principal game.

Did you ever think of going pro?

Well, actually, I went to spring training with the Kansas City Royals in 1974, and I was there about three or four days, and they suggested music.

But I did try.

After all, music has always been a part of the Bernhardt household, thanks to his mother and his own penchant for learning.

And once Bob was exposed to different varieties of music at home with some encouragement, the future maestro had found his calling.

Was your house musical?

I mean, were your parents musicians?

Did they encourage music in the house?

This is really interesting because my mother has a lovely voice, but the music that she listened to was Julius La Rosa, Vic Damone, Perry Como, Ella Fitzgerald.

It was the crooners and and the ladies of that era when another step, a very dangerous step and started listening to Bobby Darin and Johnny Mathis and into the early, very early precursors of rock and roll.

But yet rebel.

My dad still can't keep a tune, can't sing, sing on pitch at all.

So I don't know exactly, except my and my mom was always encouraging me.

She was the one sitting at the piano bench with me saying, you know, Are you sure?

That's right.

That doesn't sound right.

I also had a Well, I owe it all to my first piano teacher.

My first piano teacher lived behind us, and I used to cut to the yard, you know, to get to the lessons.

And she's the one who, whenever I broke a finger or something playing sports, I'd go up and sure my split.

And she said, Si, in six weeks it was just, you know, But she really got it.

She knew that I was I loved the music of Bach for some reason, from the very moment I heard Bach, it was there.

So she started me in her early Bach lessons and on the keyboard.

But she also knew that I. I loved popular music and everything else.

And she tried to she didn't try to make me do anything I didn't want to do.

It was just very, very encouraging.

And, uh, and I guess that's that gave me the, the impetus to keep going with music.

Bob attended college at Union University in Schenectady, New York.

After graduation, he took part in spring training with the Kansas City Royals, then went on to Los Angeles, California, attending the University of Southern California, and he began studying under Daniel Lewis at the Thornton School of Music.

So how do you transition from the musical sportsman, baseball soccer player to someone who becomes pretty much a renowned conductor?

It's one of those things where in college I was the assistant.

I was a math major when I went to college.

And then became an arts music major in my sophomore year when I realized that math wasn't going to be the creative thing, I thought it was going to be for me.

It is for others, but not for me.

And okay, I wasn't very good at it.

Okay.

So then I. I became the assistant to the orchestra there, and I, I set up the chairs and as a librarian, I personnel personnel manager, and just did everything but conduct and bug them enough that they finally gave me a chance.

The conductor there gave me a ten minute slot in a concert when I was 20.

Wow.

And you like Christian Bach Sinfonia B-flat Major.

It was that that concert and that experience where I kind of felt that my athletic self and my musical self met who I was.

I felt really comfortable with the physicality of the job because it's basically shaping sound.

And and then it also kind of allowed me to bring the music on me.

I was a pianist.

I was also a guitarist and, well, rock guitarist.

I played in a rock band for a while and coffee houses and that kind of stuff, but my piano skills weren't ever going to make me a soloist.

So I, I saw at that moment that this was if I was lucky enough, this could be my path because I really, really liked it.

And I really it really did something to me inside.

So that moment when I was 20 or 21, really shifted my thought processes.

But then in that year, tell me about it.

Bob Och well, when I, when I was off being a reporter in Rochester, I started they started allowing I was doing, you know, weddings and funerals and sports and I asked them if I could do some arts reporting.

So I reviewed a couple of concerts of the Rochester Philharmonic, my hometown band.

And in doing so, I met Isaiah Jackson, who was still a friend.

And Isaiah was the the associate conductor of the orchestra, the number two guy with the art.

And I reviewed a concert of his and we would I liked it a lot.

And then I met him and he had never done an athletic thing in his life.

And I was just eager to learn about music.

So we bartered.

I gave him lessons in squash.

We play, he plays squash and he gave me conducting lessons and the conducting lesson for me was pretty simple because there was so much music I didn't know.

And he said, he asked me if I knew the Brahms symphonies and I said, Well, a little, because I didn't want to admit that I didn't know that much.

So he asked.

We would look at the scores of play recording, look at the scores, follow it, and he would show me the pitfalls.

He would show me.

Usually we did it without recording first and he'd play it and say This, this is where you can get into trouble as a conductor.

This particular moment with the orchestra really needs you, and that's a wrong note.

It's been in the edition for 100 100 years and and that loud spot, if it's too loud, you won't hear that.

That's what it's about, learning from someone who's done it, who can tell you.

As in baseball, mechanics and technique can be learned.

But there are some things which simply cannot be taught.

Bob says the same gifts that apply to athletes can also apply to the musical world from combining the ingredients of rhythm in intervals to understanding pitch, He says.

It's a chemical thing.

Still, there is one tendency unique to this Maestro his ability to connect.

I've heard people say, I've heard it written before, that you make the symphony accessible, you make it exciting, you do make it fun.

And I think it's a rare trait in conductors, at least from my experiences.

Do you find that you're a rare breed within the conducting world?

I think that the reason that I might be rare, as opposed to medium well.

Is or conventional or conventional.

Is that I grew up with every kind of music.

I mean, I grew up with the crooners.

I love rock and roll.

I'd probably have my heart and soul as much as Mahler is to me.

Uh, I love Broadway, uh, especially Broadway concerts.

I, I haven't met much music I don't love.

I love going from genre to era to back and forth because I love it all.

This is giving me too much credit.

But I have tried to break down the walls that keep people from coming to concerts with a symphony.

For all of my career, we don't really care what you wear.

We don't really care if you applaud between movements or you plodded along to vaudeville.

The line is applause is good.

Don't be upset with applause.

And that's don't worry about that.

I'm not going to understand what's going on.

If it's opera, we translate it for you.

It's all there.

Try it.

We've just.

We just want you there.

I'll say.

The first time I came to the symphony, one of the first times there was a visiting pianist, I believe, and the lights went out.

I think just the electricity went out in the building and people kind of thought it was part of the show until the music died down.

And I thought, Oh, no, what's going to happen?

You came.

You came out after the intermission to a black stage and a single flashlight, and you turned it on and said, just in case.

And I laughed.

And it was such a refreshing thing to do as an audience member.

But.

But what you said to laugh, you know, I feel your connection to the music.

But why are you so committed to making sure that we have a connection?

Sometimes you see conductors just lost in it all, but to me, you, you really have a vested interest in making sure that we're connected to you and then to the musicians.

Because it doesn't matter.

Otherwise.

I mean, I love rehearsals and I love working on music and I love having the incredible privilege of shaping these masterworks.

And but without in a concert, without an audience.

That's what we live for.

We live to communicate what we're doing, all of us on stage, not just me, but for me.

That's the that's that is ultimately the only thing.

Well, there are two things that matter.

Doing our very best, putting the most excellent product we can on the stage, and then moving people.

It's the only thing that that's what we live for, to change someone's day, even for, you know, a short period of time to or to introduce them to a piece of music that they'll they'll purchase and will keep in their home and listen to it and and that will enrich their lives somehow.

And that's that's what matters.

The Chattanooga Symphony, an opera, a tribute, its emergence as a leading regional orchestra, as well as the significant increases in concert attendance, community involvement and even musical quality.

To one thing, the leadership of Bob Bernhardt.

Be that as it may, change is near, and now in your sixth season, you're not only bringing artists here, you're bringing some visiting conductors, you're actually helping them find your replacement.

Why am I just.

That's so bittersweet.

After my 15th year, my contract came up again and when they offered me a renewal, which I they have a process and they find out if it's, well, do we want burn back again?

And they a very grateful I was very gratified.

They asked me back.

I said, how about this art?

Give me a four year contract and the first two years I'll be full time and the second two years will be part time.

And they said, Well, how about we'll call you emeritus conductor?

And I understand there's an ointment for that, by the way.

So I'm going to be a music writer for two years while the search is going on, and then I'll be part time probably doing the Pops and or opera, hopefully both.

And that may continue if if it works because.

No, and I don't want to move.

If you've lived in a lot of places or travel a lot of places, you come to realize that when you're in Chattanooga, you're in one of the really great places to live.

And so we love it here and we want to stay.

So in a way of trying to both make room for a new artistic leader in 15, 17 years, it's going to be it's a good time.

It also wanted to come up with a way where I would be able to stay and still stay connected to the orchestra and live and work here because we do love it so much.

And that's what's happening for guest conductors this year, four or maybe five next year.

And then they'll be a selection.

And it's a it's a really exciting time.

I hope that our audience will get really involved in this.

We're going to have a way for them to respond on the website to each of the guests that come in.

This year, we have two men and two women.

My world, the world of conducting is is totally shifted in such a positive way.

Now.

And we have it's an international group that are coming this year and I'm sure it'll be the same next year.

So that that it should be a very exciting time to see different people work and to hear our orchestra sound different.

They will sound differently with each of the people that come here.

Something shifts because of that chemistry we were talking about with the people that are here and my, my, my dream would be in in two years into the two seasons from now, that the new person I take the new person around and introduce to everybody, our sponsors are donors, our audience at the university, just to be a partner.

In that last performance that you conduct as musical director here, what will be your swan song?

What will that what will be the genre we are?

You know, it's possible I may be able to have a couple of them, one from the lighter side and one from the the more serious side.

I'm I'm hoping but I'm we're, we're talking right now about the name I mentioned before about Mahler in Mahler there's something really deep something especially so for me.

And part of it has to do with this amazing journey.

That I think you.

Give me a love like.

That.

If I've ever heard a symphony that's really altered my feeling about music and about that particular day in which I'm living, it's that symphony that I'm hoping to do.

It's wild, it's crazed, it's totally personal, it's completely emotional.

It's sometimes banal, and it goes in the sense in a period of minutes it can go from banal to the the most profound thing you've ever heard, and that every symphony of his has that journey.

And there's one in particular I'm hoping to do what's even happened.

Well, I think that's profound and perfect for your departure, because I think if anyone's ever altered in a positive way our perception of music, it's you.

Bob Bernhardt.

Go on.

I will.

So from from back to the Beatles, you're a blast.

And I will only ask, since you have the penchant for music, if we had some some music, you know, underlying this as we go to credits, what would that be?

What would be the perfect theme?

Well, you know, the Beatles just rereleased 9909.

They just released a whole bunch of Beatles stuff remixed for TV.

So how about that one?

You won't see me from Beatles to be Find it.

Good luck.

My pleasure.

Anytime.

If you ask me why, I could play the other side of next week.

I dive in deep under the sea.

That is.

Join me as I sit down with the husband and wife team of 3D underwater filmmakers Howard and Michelle Hall.

I'm Allison Leibovitz.

See you soon.