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Jordan de Souza has stood on the podium of some of the world’s most famous stages, but has no doubts about the classical music scene in his home and native land. “There’s so much great music-making happening in Canada,” says the busy conductor. “I think that’s clear from one end of the country to the other.”
Much of de Souza’s life has been based in and around the European classical world for the better part of two decades. Yet, appreciation for his Canadian training has stayed with him. “I think we musicians are built, in a way, on all the experiences we’ve had,” he says. “And McGill is my foundation, in a big way—there, as well as the Choir of St. Michael’s and the Conservatoire in Montreal where I studied with Raffi Armenian. I loved and valued the time I had at those places, to a high degree; they laid a lot of the groundwork for how things developed.”
That development has included a four-year stint (2017-20) as kapellmeister with the Komische Oper Berlin (KOB), where he led a variety of operas including Pelléas et Mélisande, La bohème, Iphigenia auf Tauris, Jaromír Weinberger’s 1933 operetta Frühlingsstürme (Spring Storms), and Leonard Bernstein’s Candide. His KOB concerts featured programs with lesser-known works by Kurt Weill, Franz Schreker, and contemporary composer/pianist Fazil Say. De Souza has also conducted at Houston Grand Opera; the Accademia Filarmonica Romana; the Bregenz, Glyndebourne, and Garsington Festivals; Dutch National Opera; Nationaltheater Mannheim; Bayerische Staatsoper; Deutsche Oper Berlin; Seattle Opera and Lyric Opera Chicago; as well as Canadian companies Opéra de Montréal, the National Ballet of Canada and the Canadian Opera Company.
Orchestral appearances include guesting with the Royal Philharmonic, the BBC Symphony, the Adelaide Symphony, the Auckland Philharmonia, and Orchestre symphonique et lyrique de Nancy (France). De Souza has also led the National Arts Centre Orchestra (NACO), Orchestre symphonique de Québec, Orchestre Métropolitain, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (VSO), and Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (OSM). Conducting NACO and OSM were especially unique experiences; de Souza grew up an intense fan of both so working with them was, as he puts it, “a kind of full-circle moment for me.”
Jordan de Souza at the BBC Proms. Photo: Chris Christodolou
This August sees de Souza formally take on a major position in Germany, as general music director of the City of Dortmund, a position which will entail his leading Opernhaus Dortmund and the Dortmunder Philharmoniker as chief conductor. This new phase, which has been a long time coming (his appointment was announced over a year ago), has inspired a pause for reflection—of moving from one phase of development to another; of “recalibrating;” of finding what de Souza characterizes as “my best self” in opera and orchestral works alike. “It’s like the second chapter,” he muses. “At the beginning you have to make it out in this arena, almost try a bit too much, and you test the limits a little bit and also see where you thrive—where you can really connect and resonate with people. Then it’s about celebrating and trying to bring all of that into an optimal balance, though maintaining that balance can be a difficult thing.”
Keeping the balance means often moving between Canada, where much of de Souza’s large family resides, and Germany, where he is based with his wife (a member of RIAS Kammerchor, one of the world’s leading professional choirs) and two small children. His musical journey began in Toronto, the son of parents who moved to Canada from their native India in the 1970s. A student of St. Michael’s Choir School (a semi-private Roman Catholic boys’ school), de Souza moved to Montreal at the age of 17 to study at McGill University, and eventually became a member of its faculty (from 2011 to 2015) before going on to conduct full time.
A decade can pass in the blink of an eye, and at the moment de Souza is pondering that time, and how cycles are a natural part of that process. He told Le Devoir in May 2022 that conductors’ lives are “always on the edge of order and chaos” and that the pause forced by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 allowed for important reflection. Many of the works he’s currently encountering were last experienced as a student (including the operas of Mozart and various baroque pieces), and there are new meanings to be found in old works now—not only as an established conductor but as a husband, father, expat. “The whole centre of gravity is shifting at the moment,” he says, “and I’m doing it consciously, in a way, in order to really try and build something in Dortmund and, on a personal level, to be together as a family.”
Jordan de Souza. Photo: Neda Navaee
Connections between the opera and orchestral worlds continue to present themselves in new and inspiring ways, too—not least because of the demands opera makes on one’s time and energies. Along with his work in Berlin, de Souza has conducted an immense variety of works, from Die Zauberflöte to Les contes d’Hoffmann to Don Quichotte. In 2017-18, he helmed an impressive 28-performance run of Carmen with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra at the Bregenzer Festspiele in Austria. In September 2024, he led Verdi’s immense Don Carlo (the Italian version) at Royal Danish Opera. “Producing opera is a long process which lends itself to growth in a very different way from symphonic work,” he explains. “(In opera) you have weeks to try different things; you’re with just the singers and a pianist. You can explore corners of the score, character motivations, all those kinds of details. Working that way really does arm you for the times when you’re with an orchestra trying to bring the best out of a score, and you have maybe a total of four days for the whole project. Both worlds really need each other.”
Given de Souza’s clear veneration for the great historical works, one might be forgiven for thinking he isn’t as involved with contemporary music, but nothing could be further from the truth. During his tenure as conductor in residence with contemporary-focused Tapestry Opera in Toronto, de Souza led no less than three world premières. Collaboration, he says, is what makes new-music experiences pleasurable as well as important.
“In a way it’s the closest thing (classical musicians) get to a jam session, aside from just sitting down improvising together or making chamber music,” he says. “It’s a way of getting inside the creative process; we can have exchanges with living composers and they can hear some of the strengths of an orchestra. Maybe (that experience) helps them understand their goal in sound. It’s rewarding to be able to dig together.”
Violinist Francesca Dego with Jordan de Souza conducting NACO. Photo: Curtis Perry
Very often, new music is tacked onto the start of orchestral programs as a kind of “medicine”—satisfying organizational missions and grant requirements, and politely endured by audiences. De Souza’s 2023 NACO program included Flowing Waters for orchestra by Alison Yun-Fei Jiang, one of two NACO Orchestra Carrefour composers from 2020 to 2022. His OSM appearance the same year hosted the première of Canadian composer Tim Brady’s Violin Concerto No. 2 featuring orchestra Concertmaster Andrew Wan as soloist.
“The challenge with contemporary music is that it’s very often temporary,” de Souza explains, “and the goal of it ought to be not just a disposable gesture, but rather to say: we’ve identified something that we want to offer a chance to. We want to give ourselves a chance together, to expand and to see where this can go in a broader sense. The goal is to nurture these new works properly.”
That sense of collaboration might have its roots in de Souza’s history with choral singing—something that “speaks immediately to music’s power to enable community.” Along with contemporary composition, de Souza sees great value in oratorios and cantatas being part of orchestral seasons. In 2023, de Souza led Orff’s Carmina Burana with the VSO, the Vancouver Bach Choir, and the Vancouver Bach Children’s Choir. “Maybe we, as presenters, have a responsibility to find a way for each generation to experience this kind of music,” he says, “so that people can find their own identities within it.”
Jordan de Souza. Photo: Neda Navaee
Indeed, some of de Souza’s own early musical identity was found in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. So far in his career de Souza has led the St. Matthew Passion, the Christmas Oratorio, and the Mass in B minor. His very first conducting experience was Bach’s St. John Passion at 20 years old, something that is still “very much a part of me,” he says. “It was a really formative experience in my life. Though I am very different now than I was and might make every decision differently, I don’t know if my spirit has changed one bit.”
Such spiritual fortitude is the stuff that often makes for not only memorable performances, but long careers. Even as he enters this new phase in Dortmund, de Souza has reached a place where he can “finally, now, get to enjoy a bit of the fruits of all of that labour.” That doesn’t mean resting on his laurels—far from it. “It’s about understanding what’s required, and then trying to be your best in order to enable those around you to sing and play their very best—and, always, to honour these composers that we’re so fortunate to spend our lives with.”
As the 2024-25 season continues, Jordan de Souza conducts Turandot at Deutsche Oper Berlin, La bohème at Lyric Opera of Chicago, and Carmen at Deutsche Oper am Rhein. www.jordandesouza.com
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