“How hard it can it be? A 70-piece ensemble is waiting expectantly for my downbeat for the first movement of Beethoven’s Fifth. What kind of a maestro should I be? The conductor is, after all, not the karaoke conduit I have been play-acting for years. He is mentor, scholar, motivator, interpreter, leader, follower, idol. He is all of those and none, a cryptic figurehead who can mean everything or nothing depending on what he brings to the performance.”