Artslandia at the Performance: Portland Playhouse Nov/Dec 2014 | Page 66

PAST PERFORMANCES

PORTLAND BAROQUE ORCHESTRA

Artslandia celebrated Monica
Huggett’s 20-year anniversary with
Portland Baroque Orchestra by
Skyping her at her second home in
her native England. She was “just
getting the wood stove going” in the
music room, practicing late into the
night preparing to lead Beethoven’s
Symphony No. 4 on violin at Juilliard.
With a mere glance at the blurry
sheet music in the photo above,
she could tell us what piece the
Orchestra was playing 19 years ago.
What a pro!
How did you start at Portland Baroque
Orchestra?
I was concert mistress of the Amsterdam
Baroque Orchestra, directed by Tom Koopman, a quite famous harpsichordist who
went on to run the Early Music Society
in Vancouver, British Columbia. Through
that connection, I got to teach summer
school in Vancouver and met the people
who started Portland Baroque Orchestra.
By the ‘90s when they were looking for a
director, they knew me quite well, and I
won the job.

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ARTSLANDIA AT THE PERFORMANCE MARCH | APRIL

Tell us about Portland then and now.
When I first visited in 1981, it was such a
different place than it is now; it was deeply
in recession then, I think. I got the impression that it used to be all lumber, and then
the lumber just stopped and it took a while
for Portland to discover what it was going
to be next ... whereas it’s almost a boomtown now!

Describe your jet set life at age 61.
I spend about five months a year in
Portland, about three months a year in
England, over two months a year in New
York teaching at Julliard, and then I’ve got
a job in Ireland which is at least a month
a year, and that other month I dunno … I
went to Hong Kong last year in January, so
I sometimes do wacko things.
I take a long time to wind up. I don’t
do anything much useful until about
3 p.m. I think my natural time zone now
is somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic,
at least. My lifestyle’s getting a bit harder
at 61. But I’m having a great time!

Monica Huggett, artistic
director, Portland Baroque
Orchestra. 1996 rehearsal of
Mozart’s Haffner Serenade

What are your thou