NEW YORK -- Neeme Jarvi's two sons went into the family business. And it keeps them thousands of miles -- often continents -- apart.
Like their father, Paavo and Kristjan Jarvi are conductors, making the Jarvis the only family threesome waving batons in front of classical musicians.Neeme, 62, is music director of the Detroit Symphony and principal conductor of the Gothenburg Symphony in Sweden; Paavo, 37, will become music director of the Cincinnati Symphony in fall 2001; and Kristjan, 27, is assistant conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and founder and music director of the contemporary Absolute Ensemble in New York.
"You should see our phone bills!" says Paavo.
Recently, Neeme was conducting "Carmen" in Paris while Paavo was debuting with Italy's La Scala Orchestra and Kristjan's Absolute Ensemble was playing in New York.
But they remain close, talking often with each other and with Liilia, Paavo's and Kristjan's mother, and their sister Maarika, a flutist in Paris.
The Jarvis emigrated to America in 1980 from Tallinn, Estonia, each with two suitcases and $100. They became American citizens in 1985.
Neeme stays the busiest. After a recent American tour with the Gothenburg Symphony, he went to the Bastille Opera in Paris for 10 performances of "Carmen" and in between conducted other opera and symphonies in Paris. He also went for three days to Estonia, now accessible again after the Soviet breakup.
He once met a taxi driver in Tokyo who said he had "no day off," and since then he has liked to think of himself as a "no day off" conductor.
His sons have absorbed his energy, enthusiasm and delight in conducting -- though not yet his jammed schedule.
"My father is a complete workaholic," Kristjan Jarvi says. "I think he doesn't consider it work. He is just, in his way, having fun. Look at his recordings: He's the most recorded conductor there is. It's usually composers you never heard of. For him it's like exploration, like going into the Amazon jungle with a machete. I think his whole life is an adventure."
Neeme Jarvi has made almost 350 CDs, most with the Scottish National Orchestra and Gothenberg Symphony, for two foreign record companies that like live performances and little-known works.
Paavo Jarvi says his father "has a music library at home that puts most large libraries to shame. He's constantly doing premieres and old pieces that haven't been heard in
hundreds of years."
Neeme Jarvi's parents were amateur musicians.
"My father would say, 'Come here. Listen. What piece is that?' " he recalls. "I'd say, 'Some kind of Glazunov.' 'You are right. Now you can go.' " He continued that game with his own children.
Neeme's older brother Vallo became a professional musician, playing xylophone and guitar and conducting. Neeme studied in Leningrad, then returned to Estonia's Radio Orchestra and the Tallinn Opera, where he met young composer Arvo Part and started playing his music, which he still champions.
He entered a conducting competition in Rome at age 38 and won. It made him a hero in his small country; two orchestras met him at the airport on his return, playing the triumphal march from "Aida."
Three years later, however, he ran afoul of the authorities when he conducted the Estonian State Orchestra and a choir in Part's "Credo," which has a biblical text. "It was a big scandal. A lot of people were sacked from their positions. I finally find out we have to escape that country and Communist ideology."
Paavo Jarvi says he never thought of becoming anything but a conductor. "By the time we were conscious of what we were doing, it was too late to turn back," he says.
Paavo, who came to America at age 17, envies his father's first 20 years as a conductor, making mistakes and learning in an isolated country.
"Conducting is sort of the second half of your life's profession," Paavo says. "Before 50, nobody is a conductor. Everything you do then is preparation.
"I think conducting is sort of witchcraft. It's not really something you can go to school and learn. Conductors, I think, are born. It is also a craft where one needs a mentor to guide and advise. In that way, having a father as a conductor was tremendously valuable."
A year ago he completed stints as principal guest conductor with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic and the City of Birmingham Symphony in England. When he first went to Cincinnati, Paavo says, he felt good chemistry.
"Something really basic was working well. And I like the acoustics of that hall. The orchestra has been under very good leadership for a long time: Jesus Lopez-Cobos. All those things made sense."
While he waits to start his job there, he recently made his debut at La Scala and, unexpectedly, with the Berlin Philharmonic, when Daniel Barenboim got sick. He conducted an original instruments ensemble in London. And this summer, with James Levine, Zubin Mehta and Yuri Temirkanov, he will conduct at a festival in Switzerland and lead the festival orchestra's world tour.
Kristjan Jarvi, meanwhile, finds his musical identity in the Absolute Ensemble. He wears a red shirt and black pants to conduct the 18-piece group, which he says plays "weird transcriptions of regular stuff."
Splitting his time between Absolute, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and guest conducting in Europe makes him a better conductor, he says.
At a March concert in New York, Mahler's "Fourth Symphony" was played by 12 Absolute musicians using a synthesizer and no horns. The arrangement was made around 1920 by a student of Schoenberg's.
"We're taking the furniture from a yellow room and putting it into a green room and seeing how it fits. We're about creativity, musicality and self-expression," says Kristjan. "We try to create an atmosphere with music, lighting and setting.
"People should have fun when they go to hear music," he says.