Conducting Fellow Michelle Bushkova on power of music, performance

CODY ENGLANDER
Staff Writer

For Conducting Fellow Michelle Bushkova, the music is the juice.

“At some point I realized that there is much more that speaks to me directly in making music with other people rather than by myself,” Bushkova said. “The enjoyment of listening and admiring other musicians from the audience is what keeps me in music.”

At 8 p.m. tonight in the Amphitheater, the Music School Festival Orchestra will make their mark on the season with their second performance, with Bushkova making her double-booked debut at Chautauqua Institution, both conducting and playing in the orchestra. 

“I’m conducting the second piece on our program, and then I’m transitioning to the back of the stage and playing the piano after the intermission, so that’s very exciting,” Bushkova said.

She’s been double-billed since college, double majoring in both piano and orchestra at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

“I was double majoring for most of my life, doing things like violin and piano before I started conducting,” Bushkova said. “I’ve done a bunch of performances doing both, like with orchestra, in chamber music, or solo, like, all possible combinations, both ways, violin first, piano second, and vice versa,” Bushkova said. “I’ve never really done conducting and playing an instrument in the same concert … we’re about to find out what happens. I was already asked what order I prefer, and I was like, ‘Well, I can’t tell you, because I’ve never done that.’”

Bushkova has been playing music since she was 4 years old, attributing her father as the reason for her musical foundation. 

“[My father] never wanted me to be a prodigy or something, but he wanted me to have a solid foundation on the piano, and so he suggested that, ‘Why don’t I start piano professionally, then take it from there?’” Bushkova said. “I guess I was just really lucky, because I’ve happened to end up with teachers or in environments that were supportive of that, or at least weren’t against that.”

Then, Bushkova learned about Chautauqua shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic.

“… When I was a teenager, I met [Ilya and Olga Kaler] at a festival, and I just completely fell in love,” Bushkova said. “They were to become my violin teachers at the Cleveland Institute of Music, and from the first lesson, I thought, ‘I want to study with them,’ but at that point, I was just a girl from Moscow.”

The couple invited Bushkova to Chautauqua for extra lessons when she was about 15 years old, her very first time on the grounds.

“I visited for a couple of weeks, and that was the point at which I was very firmly decided on coming to the United States and studying with them,” Bushkova said. “It must have been seven, eight years since then. Not only have I now completed my bachelor’s, but I also transitioned into conducting.”

After earning her bachelor’s degree, Bushkova moved to New York City to study conducting at The Juilliard School, eventually applying and receiving the David Effron Conducting Fellowship at Chautauqua.

“I think I’m really lucky to be here. I don’t know. I hope I deserve it, but … it feels like I’m really lucky to have been put in this place,” Bushkova reflected. 

Along with conducting and performing with the MSFO, she collaborates with Chautauqua Opera Company on their performances.

“I’ve gotten to do a lot of their staging rehearsals,” Bushkova said. “I’m working with both young artists and the apprentice artists there, which is essentially (the) main cast and cover cast … I’m doing the staging, so I get to know the entire process from the beginning, and again I am of assistance to Steve Osgood, whatever he might need, essentially, if it doesn’t conflict with MSFO. So far I’ve been keeping really, really busy.”

With a lively schedule, the hardest part for her is the inability to be in two places at once.

“You would think that after a year in New York City I would know how to accept that, but I have not, so whenever I’m realizing that I’m in rehearsal, but meanwhile there is an amazing faculty recital happening, that’s the feeling that you can’t get rid of,” Bushkova said. “You’re like, ‘Oh my God, I’m a loser,’ but you’re not. You’re doing your job. It’s a luxury to have that as your challenge.”

Although Bushkova is constantly running around, seeing the MSFO transform into a “living organism” in under two weeks is worth it, especially when she is able to see the sparkle in young musicians’ lives when the music is coming together. Her favorite part about the MSFO is listening to her friends, no matter what role she takes on stage. 

“I think I’m most looking forward to listening, which sounds sort of odd and counterintuitive, because, well, I’m doing it, so how can I be listening? But again, both when I’m playing or conducting, I will probably be just listening,” Bushkova said. “… When I’m playing, it’s more of a conversation, so you really listen to what the others are doing and then contribute to it.”