After 47 years of orchestral playing, including 41 years with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, Jurgen de Lemos is moving on.
“It’s hard to sum up a career like mine,” said de Lemos, principal cellist of the CSO through the 2008-09 season. “In my role, I play the solos required by the composer, hopefully with some flair. I lead the cello section with respect and understanding of the other players. And I help us play as a coherent unit.”
De Lemos — a native of Leipzig, Germany, who studied both cello and composition in Germany and France — first joined the Denver Symphony Orchestra in 1968, which ultimately transitioned into the CSO.
“I’ve seen many changes in the orchestra’s administration, leadership and artistic direction,” he said. “But hopefully all those changes don’t affect who you are as a musician, as a person. What’s most important is to get along within your own group in the orchestra, and diplomatically balance what a conductor wants and what your fellow musicians want.
“I’ve learned a lot about psychology in my career. You might start cockish in life, thinking you know it all. But then you realize you don’t know it all, and you learn to respect others more.”
While de Lemos credits the local community for keeping the CSO alive at a time when many orchestras in other U.S. cities are flailing or disappearing altogether, he also sees a need for the orchestra to change its programming.
“In my opinion, the CSO should play more of the big, standard works,” he said. “A conductor will always get more attention, even funding, for pushing modern American works — and there are many very good ones. But like a plant that gets nourishment from only one source, orchestras don’t grow and develop as much if you sideline the time-proven masters.”
For his farewell appearance as soloist with the CSO, de Lemos chose Ernest Bloch’s Schelomo, Hebraic Rhapsody for Cello and Orchestra.
“Through the personality of the cello, the rhapsody relays the wide range of human emotions,” he said. “The cello has such a romantic quality to it. Throughout history, composers have recognized the wonderfully idiomatic timbre of the instrument and assigned it the voice of heroes — William Tell, Don Quixote, King Solomon.
“In the Hebraic rhapsody, the cello gives us despair, resignation and exultation.”
Prior to joining the CSO, de Lemos was the youngest member of the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein from 1964 to 1968. He also served as co-principal cellist under James Levine and Daniel Barenboim at the 1982 Wagner Festival in Bayreuth, Germany, and toured three continents in his 20-year stint with the Pablo Casals Trio. As well, de Lemos’ career includes more than two decades as a professor of cello and chamber music at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
De Lemos also founded and directed the Arvada Center Orchestra from 1979 to 1986 and plans to continue his post as music director of the Littleton Symphony Orchestra.
“I’m retiring from the CSO, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to hang my cello on a nail and be done with it. I have always enjoyed conducting, too, and I’d like to do more of that. I also want more time for other hobbies in my life.”
Specifically, de Lemos enjoys training German shepherds and indulging his interest in Märklin miniature trains. He also hopes to learn Spanish and read more German books. “I’m not nostalgic and I don’t look back. Instead, I look ahead to what’s next.”
Colorado Symphony Orchestra
Classical. Jurgen de Lemos, principal cellist, performs as soloist in Ernest Bloch’s Schelomo, Hebraic Rhapsody for Cello and Orchestra. Also on the Masterworks program with pianist and CSO Music Director Jeffrey Kahane is Johann Sebastian Bach’s Piano Concerto in D Majorand Sergei Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5 in B-flat Major. Boettcher Concert Hall, Denver Performing Arts Complex, 14th and Curtis streets. 7:30 tonight and Saturday. $15-$73. 303-623-7876 or .
