Conductor Kyle Wiley Pickett
Following his graduate studies at Peabody Conservatory with Frederik Prausnitz, Kyle Wiley Pickett was hired as music director by both the Redding Symphony and the Chico Symphony in northern California. Within a year of his appointments, Wiley Pickett devised and launched a plan to merge the two orchestras to create a single professional symphony that would join the two cities and ensure the future of symphonic music in Northern California. A year later, the North State Symphony was launched. The result has been the creation of the only professional and high caliber orchestra north of the San Francisco Bay Area in California.
Background
After receiving a bachelors degree in music in 1993 from Stanford, Kyle attended California State University at Chico where he studied choral conducting with William Ramsey and received an accelerated masters degree in music.
He was accepted for graduate study at Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, and Frederick Prausnitz agreed to take Kyle as a student in conducting. Along with the Juilliard School in New York City, Peabody (part of Johns Hopkins University) graduates most of the top classical musicians in the United States; its alumni includes Andre Watts, celebrated classical pianist. Prausnitz, a world renowned luminary in classical conducting, has made guest appearances around the world.
According to Wiley Pickett, this was a turning point not only for him, but also for his family and former teachers. “They all sort of said, ‘If Prausnitz took him, he must have potential.’”
Wiley Pickett graduated from Peabody with his doctorate of music in 1998, and he credits Prausnitz for making him the musician that he is today: “As busy as we were with classes and homework, Frederick would ask us, ‘What other books are you reading now?’ ‘What museum did you go to last week’? And that’s what makes conducting my thing. Prausnitz taught us that conducting wasn’t all about technique or musical knowledge. He insisted we also have knowledge of the world, art, drama and literature.”
Conducting "style"
Musicians and students who work with Wiley Pickett praise him for his knowledge of the score, conveying the composer’s motivation and intention to the musicians, his efficiency during rehearsals, and his unassuming nature.
It’s the latter trait that makes Wiley Pickett a refreshing anomaly, because many classical conductors are notorious for their arrogance. “Some…explode in a storm of wrath if you play the wrong note,” but not so Wiley Pickett, says Bruce Finch, bassoonist with the North State Symphony. In a music critique filed with the Chico News & Review, Ernst Schoen-Rene said of Wiley Pickett’s first North State Symphony rehearsal: “My first impression was of [his] supremely efficient and gracious manner….Not a harsh word was spoken, and the musicians seemed to have total respect for their leader.” Eugene Nichols, a Redding architect and president of the North State Symphony board, agrees: “Everyone in the orchestra loves him, which is unusual. He has a facility to endear musicians to him.”