‘Music is everything to me’: Sault Symphony director hits all the right notes

Since moving to Sault Ste. Marie from southern Ontario in 1991, Stephen Mallinger has become musically rooted in this community.

Mallinger, a professionally trained pianist and organist, is the Sault Symphony Orchestra’s artistic director and conductor, the Algoma Festival Choir’s music director, an Algoma Conservatory of Music instructor and St. Luke's Cathedral’s organist and choirmaster.

“Music has been such a part of my life. It is who I am and it has been for as long as I can remember. Music is everything to me,” Mallinger told SooToday.

Involved with the Sault Symphony Orchestra since the early 1990s, the SSO chose Mallinger as its new artistic director in time for its 50th anniversary season in August 2022.

“It’s great. It’s fabulous to play music with these musicians,” Mallinger said of his work as the symphony’s artistic director and conductor.

“You’re kind of problem-solving all the time, trying to get the most from the written music on the paper and into the live sound, trying to be true to what the composer did. That’s the functional purpose of my role as a conductor, not just with the orchestra but with the choir too,” Mallinger said, describing his role as the leader of the symphony and the choir.

That is certainly not a simple task but it brings Mallinger joy.

“The festival choir sang at the Bushplane Museum a couple of weeks back and we had two really great concerts. There were long stretches in there where we almost felt like ‘this isn’t us doing this, it’s just kind of happening.’ It was so great what was going on. Those are moments that you remember, thinking it was incredible and something very special happened. A lot of work went into it and we had a couple of really glorious concerts.”

Though audiences always applaud, Mallinger said “applause has different intensity and sometimes you can really sense that what you’re hearing is what they’re hearing and they really respond to it. Sometimes you really feel like they experienced what you did and I think those are golden moments that only happen in live music.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Mallinger recorded four albums of organ music that can be heard on Spotify, one of which is entitled Bach on Beckerath in honour of both composer Johann Sebastian Bach and Rudolf von Beckerath, a German master organ builder.

However, live performances are clearly his musical passion.

“All the music feels brand new again. Things we played in the past just feel really rejuvenated,” Mallinger told SooToday when the orchestra held its first full-scale in-person concert in May 2022 as COVID-19 restrictions were lifted.

Mallinger said the orchestra’s 2022-23 season, its first full series of performances after COVID, was very well attended.

He enjoys having the Sault Symphony Orchestra play a variety of musical styles during its performances, from classical pieces to Broadway musical favourites.

“I don’t make the distinction between classical and pop or whatever. If it’s good I like it. I guess the music that appeals to me the most is unamplified music, singing and playing and what you can do live. To me, music is what you can do live.”

Born and raised in Toronto, Mallinger’s love of music began at a young age.

“My parents owned a little music store in Toronto near the Dundas West subway station called Vienna House of Music, so I had my first piano and accordion lessons there probably around the age of five.”

He attended Toronto’s St. Michael’s Choir School - a school for boys from Grades 3 to 12 - for 11 years.

There he sang in the choir twice a day six times a week, learned harmony, musical theory and took piano and organ lessons.

At the postsecondary level, he earned a Bachelor's Degree in piano performance from the University of Western Ontario.

He later moved to the Sault with wife Anya, a violinist and the Sault Symphony Orchestra’s concertmaster. 

“She’s definitely had the most influence on my way of hearing and listening to music,” Mallinger said.

“She has so much orchestral experience and that’s really valuable for me to be able to lean on her and learn about how an orchestra functions.”

“When I was young my favourite composer was Mozart because my dad is Austrian and we spent a lot of time in Austria when I was a child and Mozart is such a huge part of Austrian culture,” he added.

He also enjoys the work of Finnish composer Jean Sibelius, Russian composers Dmitri Shostakovich and Sergei Rachmaninoff as well as German composer Robert Schumann.

When not immersed in music, Mallinger - a father of five and grandfather of three - said he enjoys living in the Sault and area through skiing, tennis, baseball, hockey, camping and canoeing.

When asked if he has any advice for those considering a career in music, Mallinger offered words of caution.

“It’s tough to make a living at it. It is very hard to make a living as a musician. You have to really want to do it. You have to really love practicing and you have to really love going after things because they don’t come to you. You have to go get them.”

His own hard work and determination having paid off, Mallinger and the Sault Symphony Orchestra are currently in their 2023-24 concert season and preparing for Classical Spectacular Sunday, Feb. 25 beginning at 2 p.m.

That performance will include Sault native James Gardiner, a Toronto Symphony Orchestra trumpet soloist.

The SSO will also present On Broadway beginning at 2 p.m., Sunday, May 12 - Mother’s Day.

Both performances will be held at The Machine Shop.