It was exciting to have the opportunity to interview Ed Smith as this meant that I gained access to the offices of the beautiful Göteborg Concert Hall, the brilliant creation of architect Nils Einar Eriksson, inaugurated on October 4th 1935. Its Great Hall was immediately recognised as one of the best in the world from an acoustical standpoint. It is worth going there solely to soak up the atmosphere of the beautiful building. The concerts are pretty good as well. (See below) Ed Smith´s official title is Managing and Artistic Director of Göteborgs Symfoniker (Orchestra and Concert Hall) He has worked in orchestra management all his working life. Ed studied music at Durham Universitybetween 1967 and 1970 and started his working career in Liverpool ,UK, his home city. He has actually learned how to describe his first position in 3 languages: in Swedish it is termed a springpojke, in England a dogsbody and in Canada a gopher.
When Ed was only 27 (the youngest orchestral manager in Britain at the time) he was appointed Chief Executive to the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra where he stayed for 22 years. Ed worked very closely with the renowned conductor, Sir Simon Rattle. Rattle and Smith rocketed Birmingham to international fame with a combination of high-calibre playing, unusual programmes, youth appeal, a dazzling new hall and a social conscience that reached out to every needy sector of a post-industrial city.² Once he finished there he took time out and did nothing associated with music for some months including travelling to the West Indies on a cargo boat.
Ed was then offered the position of CEO for the Toronto Symphony orchestra in Canada. He was never really comfortable in the Northern American working environment but loved living in Toronto. When he returned to Europe, he did work for the Beijing China National Symphony Orchestra. His task was to assist them in their aim of becoming a world class orchestra.
Ed Smith accepted the job in Göteborg in 2004. He met up with an old colleague, Mario Venzago who asked him if he would be interested in the position. What made Ed accept this position? He had always been interested in Scandinavian culture — the art, music, people, landscape and the colours had always fascinated him. He has close friends in Finland and is familiar with the country and culture. The GSO has a very good reputation in the international music world. He has known Neeme Järvi since the early eighties and was very aware of the special partnership that existed between him and the orchestra. Ed has always worked in second cities and never in capital cities.
Ed proved to be very positive about Sweden. He feels it has a civilised environment and is a polite, clean and friendly place to live. If he had children of school age he would be very happy for them to be brought up in the Swedish society in Göteborg.
As an expat he feels it is advisable to appreciate the good things and try not to see the negatives. All foreigners miss different things from home and it is easy to see things in black and white. This tends to cause the bad things to be exaggerated. Ed was given some good advice when he moved to Sweden. This was “just because the Swedes speak very good English do not assume that they think the same way you do". He feels this is true and that Swedes sometimes misinterpret and misunderstand what he says. In some cases the results of what he says are not always what he expects. In Ed´s words “we need to recognise that there is no better or worse but just different ways of thinking".
Ed describes himself as somewhat of a workaholic with a clear protestant work ethic. Holidays are associated with guilt. This is not the way in Sweden and Ed can see that the Swedish family holiday does work. He feels that the Swedish people are generally contented people at ease with themselves. It has taken some adjustment to get used to the regular holidays and half days off here and there. It is not what he is used to but he feels fine about it.
When Ed arrived in Sweden he prepared himself with a defence mechanism and was not sure that he would fit in. He does however feel comfortable here and counts himself lucky that he is able to come here to Sweden and work in a foreign country where he can still speak his mother tongue and people understand him. On the contrary, he also feels it is important to learn Swedish. Before Ed came to Sweden he learned Italian and could speak a little German and French. Once he was settled he concentrated on learning Swedish and had one to one lessons for about 18 months. He can speak and read and write Swedish but finds it more difficult to understand what people are saying to him.
