Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra Music Director Eric Jacobson on meeting his wife, spending time in Minnesota every summer and the power of a live musical performance.

1. I am in my fifth season as music director of the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra. I wanted this job because the orchestra has such an amazing history and spirit of openness and adventuresomeness, and because Orlando itself is such a unique, growing community. We’ve been able to do some really wonderful programs here that I don’t think would have been possible without that spirit of trying new things.

2. Although I play the cello, the violin was the first instrument I wanted to play when I was young. After all, my older brother and father were violinists. My mother was a flutist. My parents, being musicians, didn’t want competition between my brother and me. I was always tall for my age, and I think a little bit of armchair psychology “but the cello is bigger and cooler” was all it took to convince me to play the cello instead of the violin.

3. My brother, Colin, and I co-founded the music group The Knights. The group’s formation was the outgrowth of friends getting together to play music, starting when we were at Juilliard—and after we graduated we didn’t want it to end! The group is really a collective, and all of its members have influenced its growth and direction. There’s a lot of creativity in the group, which has indeed taken us to some amazing places. Just in the last year we’ve played at Carnegie Hall, toured Europe with mandolinist Avi Avital and closed Ravinia’s Bernstein Centennial with a fully-staged production of Candide.

4. I met my wife, Aoife O’Donovan, in 2012 at a July 4th party at my Brooklyn brownstone. She had just finished her own show with the Punch Brothers at Madison Park and she heard about the party from her friends who were playing music at our house.

When she arrived, she did the two things I was always taught to do while growing up: She brought a gift (she brought a delicious IPA!), and she immediately came and introduced herself to the host (luckily, me!). I didn’t let her leave my sight that entire night. She is a singer/songwriter and this year I think I’ll get to go to the Grammys with her since she has been nominated for two awards.

5. As a family tradition, each year I go to Minnesota in the summer. My father’s family is from the Twin Cities and to this day we still spend time at their cabins on a lake. The cabins, near Stillwater, are tiny, and we always invite so many friends that I generally sleep in a tent outside.

6. A hobby of mine is playing pingpong. My brother and I grew up playing pingpong with our father. It was a pastime in between practicing stints. Now, Colin and I and a dear friend, and one of my favorite musicians in the world, Chris Thile, have a standing pingpong match that has happened pretty regularly late on Tuesday nights.

7. A skill I’d like to master is speaking another language proficiently. Over the last 10 years I’ve been traveling to Germany and Austria to conduct concert tours and have fallen completely in love with the culture and language. I’ve started studying and I’m committing to speaking German better than a high school beginner by spring 2021, which will be next time I’m touring in Germany.

8. Music is such a part of who I am as a human being and has been from a really young age, so a career in it was a natural choice. Playing music is the most natural thing to me and I consider myself very lucky to have been able to have so many different kinds of musical experiences, playing the cello as well as conducting.

9. A misconception that some people have about conducting is that it’s just a one-way communication. What people might not realize is that the rehearsals are full of talking and of two-way communication between the conductor and the members of the orchestra. The conducting during the concert itself is like the icing on the cake, but all the baking—mutual decisions about interpretation, not just rehearsing the notes or perfecting certain passages—happens during the rehearsals.

10. People should come see the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra play because there is absolutely nothing like experiencing a full symphony orchestra live— it’s mind-blowing. If you like live music, you should come. In fact, if you like any kind of music, you should come. Classical music is so full of stories and drama and energy and excitement and the absolute best way to experience it is with all of your senses in the full-on onslaught of a live performance.

This article originally appeared in Orlando Family Magazine’s January 2020 issue.