From the top

John DeMain reflects on his years leading the Madison Symphony Orchestra

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Music

Before arriving in Madison, John DeMain spent more than 17 years as music director of the Houston Grand Opera. There he built his career on conducting operas and Broadway musicals. By 1993 he was looking to branch out and work with symphony orchestras, with dreams of conducting the works of such great symphonic composers as Gustav Mahler.

“The Mahler symphonies are fabulous big works, and when I heard them, I thought, ‘Oh, my God. I would love to conduct pieces like this,” DeMain tells Isthmus. While Mahler didn’t write operas, DeMain says that his symphonies are like operas. “They’re massive works that go on journeys. So, yeah, absolutely, I wanted to conduct them.”

Mahler’s symphonies, some running over 90 minutes, demand a main-stage symphony orchestra — whose main goal is to perform symphonic repertoire — not a pit orchestra like those for operas and musicals. DeMain lacked such an ensemble until his agent informed him that the Madison Symphony Orchestra was looking for a new music director to replace retiring director Roland Johnson.

DeMain applied for the job and took the reins of the orchestra in 1994. Since then he has conducted all nine of Mahler’s symphonies. Now, after 32 years at the helm of MSO, DeMain is preparing to step down as music director and conductor at the end of the 2025-2026 season.

Valerie Kazamias, a supporter of the symphony for more than 50 years and now lifetime board director, says DeMain transformed the MSO from a closed community of local members and UW students to a premier, regional orchestra.

“Every year it got better and better,” she says. “It was not only with his talent and his knowledge of music and his being able to put the repertoire together to make it appealing to all generations, but he had the charisma to engage the audience and the community in classical music.”

“John DeMain has made the symphony one of the highlights of the Midwest,” she adds.

Kazamias says she also wants to credit DeMain’s late wife, Barbara, for her role. “She was a great force in his life and had great visions for his success.”

The improvements DeMain made were enough to keep the late Charles Snowdon, a former UW-Madison psychologist and avid classical music fan, from driving to Chicago to hear the Chicago Symphony on a regular basis, he said in a 2021 interview. He and his wife, Ann Lindsey, began attending MSO concerts together in 1991. Said Snowdon: “After John DeMain was hired to lead the Madison Symphony, I realized I could hear great music right here at home.”

DeMain, in a telephone interview with Isthmus, recalls his audition in October 1993, when he led the MSO in Wagner’s Tannhäuser Overture. “The second violins completely crashed and burned,” he says. “They couldn’t handle the technicality of it, so I was lucky to get the job.” He says that it was the Shostakovich Fifth Symphony that won him the position.

Upon taking the job, DeMain found that the orchestra had excellent players, including UW music professors, but the overall playing was uneven. “The first violins were decent, but the second violins were almost nonexistent,” says DeMain. “And they couldn’t sight-read in tune.

“My goal was to develop the orchestra to its peak. How far could we go? How great could we make it? Could it become a first-class regional orchestra that could stand on its own against other regional orchestras in similar cities?”

First, he introduced blind auditions. “The minute I started blind auditions, things opened up, and today musicians come from all over the country to audition,” he says. “Then I chose hard pieces for them to play, and I rehearsed very slowly so they could play them well.”

Tyrone Greive, former MSO concertmaster, told Isthmus in 2004 that “John can work very intensely, but he does it in a way that encourages the players, and that’s a very important part of the group dynamic.”

DeMain also worked with John Schaffer, former director of the Mead Witter School of Music, to bring talented UW students into the orchestra, especially into the string section. “John did everything in his power to work with the School of Music to bring the symphony to the next level,” says Schaffer.

DeMain’s determination and encouragement paid off, but some orchestra members quit. They appreciated what he was doing, but “they didn’t want to work that hard,” says DeMain. Despite the intense labor, or maybe because of it, he has developed a paternal attitude towards the orchestra. “I’m their papa now,” he told Isthmus in a 2023 interview.

Now, the musicians can sight-read in tune and play anything. Says DeMain: “The orchestra’s sound is big and lush because the players are powerful.”

Early in his Madison tenure, DeMain noticed that the acoustics were uneven in the Oscar Mayer Theater, where the MSO performed at the time. That was especially true under the overhang in the back. “I didn’t know that a low ceiling could cut off the vibrations and quality of the instruments in such a way that it could completely distort the sound,” he told attendees at a recent TEMPO Madison luncheon. He and then-MSO executive director Rick Mackie began discussing the possibility of building a dedicated concert hall.

They got their wish about five years after discussions began. In 2004, the MSO gave its first concert at the new Overture Center, made possible by a $205 million gift from the late Madison philanthropist Jerome Frautschi. “The Overture Center is a temple of the arts second to none,” DeMain says. “Jerry Frautschi, God rest his soul, loved classical music and had heard the orchestra improve as I made more artistic demands on the musicians.”

Following the Overture Center’s opening, DeMain saw the arts in Madison flourish. “Look at WYSO, which now has its own building, and the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, which plays winter concerts in the Overture Center. The Madison Ballet and Kanopy Dance live here. I saw the arts flourish and am proud to be part of them,” DeMain says. “I hope my contribution helped create a sense that this is a community that loves and supports the arts.”

DeMain’s duties as music director included helping keep the orchestra financially sound. In a 2012 interview, Mackie told Isthmus that “among John’s many attributes is a rare-among-conductors objectivity that enables him to get out of his shoes, so to speak, and see our work from other perspectives. He considers the artistic and the business aspects of programming decisions.”

In the same article, DeMain said that the MSO remained fiscally responsible. But he warned, “Things can turn on a dime, and you never know what may happen tomorrow.” This proved true in 2020, when COVID-19 forced the MSO to suspend its 2020-21 season.

J. Michael Allsen writes in his recent book, A Century of the Madison Symphony Orchestra (Little Creek Press), that through a combination of federal funding and generous donations, the MSO was able to resume performances for the 2021-22 season. Allsen is, among other titles, a music historian who has written program notes for the MSO since 1984.

“We have challenges now, post-COVID, where we’ve seen audiences fall off, so I feel like I was in a golden age before the pandemic,” says DeMain. “I was really fortunate during my time.”

DeMain recently wrote a memoir at his late wife Barbara’s urging, believing their daughter Jennifer would appreciate it. “My poor wife heard these stories many times at dinner parties, and people enjoyed them,” he says. “So I thought it would be fun to do a memoir.”

Working With My Heroes: A Life in Music (University of Wisconsin Press), co-authored with the late music journalist Greg Hettmansberger, chronicles DeMain’s journey from his Youngstown, Ohio, childhood to his acclaimed international conducting career. The memoir is set for publication on March 17.

DeMain’s grandparents emigrated from Italy to Youngstown in the early 1900s. His parents, Nancy and Dominic, were born in Youngstown as was he in 1944. DeMain recalls that while his parents were not professional musicians, they passed along their love of music and the theater to him.

DeMain had an early interest in music and began piano lessons at age 6. By grade school, he was already stepping in to conduct when his teacher was absent; while still in high school, he conducted Brigadoon at the city’s community theater. His musical journey was on a fast trajectory. At 18, DeMain won a concerto competition performing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra. This achievement propelled him into six years of study at The Juilliard School, where he completed his bachelor’s and master’s degrees and studied under renowned American classical pianist Adele Marcus.

Readers of DeMain’s memoir will meet those who influenced, and still influence, the future of classical music. “I just had the good fortune to work with some of the biggest people at the end of the 20th century and into the 21st century,” says DeMain. “In addition to anecdotes and fun stories, you will see how incredibly productive the last quarter of the 20th century was.”

It might sound almost too straightforward, but some of DeMain’s fondest moments with the MSO have been when concerts have simply gone well. Other highlights were conducting Mahler’s Fifth Symphony and his Symphony of a Thousand, which still brings a smile to his face. “The thrill of doing those pieces stands out,” he says.

He also has fond memories involving various guest artists. “Collaborating with artists like Yefim Bronfman and Garrick Ohlsson has been a highlight,” he says. “And artists such as Emanuel Ax enjoy performing here because they feel appreciated by our musicians. Soloists feel loved here.”

DeMain kept the orchestra current with works by living American composers, including Mason Bates, Christopher Theofanidis and Gabriela Lena Frank in the 2025/2026 season. Frank recently won Musical America’s Composer of the Year award.

He also promoted works of earlier American composers, including Leonard Bernstein’s A Quiet Place in 1983 with the Houston Grand Opera. In 1976, his work on George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess with the HGO won a Grammy for Best Opera Recording, a Tony Award for Most Innovative Production of a Revival, and France’s Grand Prix du Disque.

“I would say that every country wants to play its own composers’ music, and I think we have an obligation to perform it,” says DeMain. “But sometimes it’s better than obligation because sometimes the music is revelatory and fun.”

DeMain is unsure about what comes next. He still loves Madison and it was a great place to raise Jennifer, who was eight months old when the DeMains moved here. He’s open to accepting guest-conducting gigs. “If people ask me to conduct, fine, and if they don’t, I’ll stay home and play the piano,” he says. He’s currently working on Chopin’s Ballade in G minor.

Family time is also a priority: “My brother lives on the East Coast and has three kids who are married with their eight grandchildren, and I want to make sure they know who Uncle John is.” He also hopes to see more of the world. “I want to travel while I’m still in good health and while I can still do steps—you can’t go to the Vatican Museum and get on an elevator.”

There will also be time to party more. “John is flexible, fun to be with, and likes all kinds of music,” says Ellsworth Brown, symphony board member and former director of the Wisconsin Historical Society. “I’ve been to his home for Christmas parties, and sometimes he’s both the host and the chef.”

DeMain says that Robert Reed, the MSO’s executive director, has already asked him to come back to do his annual Christmas concerts. DeMain told him, “Well, Robert, talk to me about it after you’ve negotiated the concert with the new music director. If they say they don’t want to do it, then fine.”

As his music directorship of the MSO comes to a close and DeMain reflects on the trajectory of his career, his thoughts come back to Mahler. “When I look at the canvas of a Mahler symphony, and I hear a klezmer, and I hear street music, I hear a slice of life in addition to the journey of going from darkness to the light which permeates the Mahler symphonies,” he says. “I love his symphonies. They’re dramatic, and I’m dramatic because my life has been an opera.”

DeMain anticipates that his successor will be chosen around the end of April and, if negotiations are successful, the appointment will be announced then. Since that person will not lead the orchestra immediately, DeMain will probably conduct the remaining MSO concerts this season. His final concert as music director is Sunday, June 14, featuring violinist Julian Rhee.

He will also conduct opera events from time to time since he remains the principal conductor of the Madison Opera.

After that, maybe we will see him in the audience enjoying an MSO concert. “Absolutely,” he says. “I hope to be a big supporter of the orchestra.”