Pre-College alum Vinay Parameswaran returned to SFCM for the last orchestra performance of the fall semester, sharing his experience since his graduation with students both on and off the podium.

Parameswaran led the SFCM Orchestra in Rossini's Overture to Semiramide, Mary Kouyoumdjian's Walking With Ghosts and Beethoven's iconic Symphony No. 3, known colloquially as "Eroica." He took SFCM Music Director Edwin Outwater's place onstage, a full-circle moment for the younger conductor, who studied with Outwater for four years while in the Pre-College program.

"With Edwin, some of the rep I got to play with him, like Lutosławski's Concerto for Orchestra—that's a piece I conduct a lot, and I wouldn't know it without him," Parameswaran says. "Works by Tōru Takemitsu and Tan Dun, I wouldn't know any of these folks without the experience of working with him and playing in that orchestra. I just remember being so impressed by how broad his repertoire was and always being really inspired by that."

Oddly enough, Parameswaran says he never thought he wanted to be a conductor: He started playing piano at 4 and drum set at 8, but realized his passion for conducting while doing his undergrad, and though he was halfway through a pre-law track, he realized during a summer internship that, "I could go to law school any year," and made the decision to continue with conducting. 

Vinay Parameswaran with the SFCM Orchestra.

Parameswaran did almost 200 concerts at his first professional job with the Nashville Symphony, working with everyone from Tony Bennett to Boys II Men to Tim McGraw. "That was a great place to start my career," he reflects. His next job turned out to be the Cleveland Orchestra, one of the most respected in the United States: "To be in front of them so many times and learn from the music director and all the guest artists … it really shaped me as a musician. I was lucky to be there." 

For the last few years, Parameswaran has been freelance, which he says he's enjoyed for the opportunities to travel. When he decided to return to SFCM, he says he and Outwater knew that his evening would be built around Kouyoumdjian's Walking With Ghosts, a bass clarinet concerto dedicated to and performed by SFCM's Woodwinds Chair Jeff Anderle, so he and Outwater began programming the night around it. "'Eroica' is an amazing undertaking for the orchestra to do,"  Parameswaran says. "It's a piece they'll play a lot in the professional world, tons of excerpts from it and plenty of material for everyone to keep busy." It made sense, he added, to program the Rossini overture to open the night to sandwich Kouyoumdjian's much newer piece between two pieces of classic rep. 

Jason Hainsworth and Vinay Parameswaran.

The day before the concert, Parameswaran made time for a pizza lunch and discussion with students and SFCM's Associate Dean of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Executive Director of the Roots, Jazz, and American Music program, Jason Hainsworth. Parameswaran candidly disclosed some of the issues he faced with discrimination in his career, including the time someone suggested he change his professional name to "Vinny"—advice that, needless to say, he did not end up taking.

He says his return to the Bay Area was full of welcome memories. "I joined the youth orchestra in San Francisco when I was in seventh grade, so like, starting from when I was 11, I was coming here every weekend and going to the old Conservatory in the Sunset District, taking piano lessons there all the way from when I was 12 to high school. My Saturdays would begin with my piano lesson at SFCM, and then the Davies Concert Hall at the Symphony in the afternoon. That's what I looked forward to more than anything else."

Learn more about studying conducting at SFCM.