Q&A: New ASO concertmaster Coucheron

When maestro Robert Spano steps to the podium Friday to open his 10th season with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, there will be someone new sitting in the high-profile first chair of the first violins. It’s the ASO’s new concertmaster, Norwegian-born David Coucheron, all of 26.

Q: What is your anticipation level of tonight’s concert?

A: I’m looking forward to working with such a great orchestra. I’m obviously very excited to be working with Robert Spano.

Q: Some concertgoers will understand that you are responsible for leading the orchestra in tuning and handling the concertmaster’s violin solos, some of which are as difficult as any violin concerto, but may be confused about the role beyond that. Can you describe it?

A: Robert uses the term that the concertmaster is the shoulder of the orchestra, which I think is a very good way of explaining it. I am often the link between the orchestra and the conductor. People will come to me with something and if I think it needs the director’s attention, then I will bring it to him.

Q: What else?

A: People often ask me, “What’s your schedule like?” And I say I have a rehearsal from 2 to 4 and from 7 to 9, and they think I have a dream job because I only work four hours a day. But that’s like saying an NFL player only works once a week during the season.

I have to prepare the bowings, which greatly influence the style and phrasing of the music. And since the parts go out to all the string players, I spend a lot of time and effort on doing this in the best possible way. I mark the parts up to a half-year in advance of the concert. And I have to study the score and listen to the music really carefully and have to make up my mind about the music, often imagining what the conductor would want.

Q: You play a 1725 Stradivarius. Does it make you nervous to handle the instrument?

A: I spend more time with the violin than anyone else and anything else and it kind of becomes a part of me. Of course, I treat it with the utmost respect, but you get used to it after a while. Sometimes I have to remind myself what’s actually in the case when I put it in an overhead locker on the plane.

Right now, it’s being restored, so I’m playing a different instrument [a 1750s Guadagnini]. The Stradivarius was quite moody, had very good days and very bad days. Hopefully when the restoration is finished, it will take away some of the bad days.