Madeline Adkins

Madeline Adkins served as NOVA’s music director from 2018-2019.

When Jason Hardink approached me in the Fall of 2017 regarding the artistic future of NOVA, I was just starting my second year as the Concertmaster of the Utah Symphony. Recently tenured and feeling energized, I enthusiastically accepted the challenge of the newly-created role of Music Director for the 2018/19 season. I had some very big shoes to fill, considering NOVA’s artistic legacy over its 40 seasons and the amazing level to which Jason had led the series during the prior ten years!

I spent countless hours at my kitchen table researching repertoire and crafting my eight programs, discovering many fascinating connections between pieces along the way. When I presented my vision for the season to the NOVA Board in the spring of 2018, I think they were amused by my color-coded and themed materials. It was so gratifying how they embraced my ideas with open arms!

The core themes of my season were a celebration of women composers (9 composers from 6 countries!), an exploration of artists’ responses to war, and a focus on British composers.

Some of my most fulfilling moments as Music Director occurred, not as a performer, but as an audience member at concerts that I had worked with so many others to create. Bringing dance to the NOVA stage for the first time in decades in Gity Razaz’s Chance Has Spoken. Watching composer Andrew Norman place players around the hall’s balcony to achieve the effect in Mine, Mime, Meme he had always wanted but had never been able to try. Hearing Portuguese pianist Luis Magalhães play a jazz concerto by Nicolai Kapustin. Seeing percussionist Eric Hopkins build his own lithophone with materials from Home Depot for Unsuk Chin’s Fantaisie mécanique. And, as a performer, a personal bucket list piece: Steve Reich’s Different Trains.

The 15th Street Gallery was host for our Gallery Series that season, and I was particularly thrilled with the audience response to my first program: R/Evolution, which traced the development of the musical revolutionary from Hildegard von Bingen through Beethoven to Philip Glass and Caroline Shaw.

My thanks to the Board, especially Frank Hanson, and to Jason and the NOVA staff (especially Kristin and Chris) for their faith in me, and to our adventurous audiences for coming along for the ride!