Meet the 24-year-old Philly native conducting No Name Pops and ‘The Nutcracker’ shows this year

Na’Zir McFadden, the 24-year-old Philadelphia-born conductor, is dividing his December between concert work in Detroit and the No Name Pops at the Kimmel Center, plus conducting the Philadelphia Ballet Orchestra in multiple performances of George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker.

He is conducting nearly half of the 30 performances taking place this month at the Academy of Music, and feeling anything but deprived. Mega-weight Beethoven and Mahler symphonies aren’t on his immediate horizon, but late last month, McFadden conducted Grieg’s middleweight Holberg Suite with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

“I’m enjoying every moment,” said McFadden. “I don’t want to block any potential blessings coming my way. I’m open to everything. But I’m taking it day by day,” he said between ballet rehearsals and a flight to Detroit, now his home base.

Places where he truly lives — musically speaking — are the high-romantic repertoire with long-breathed melodies that tap into his fundamental exuberance. “My favorite part [of The Nutcracker] is when the Christmas tree grows [at the end of Act I]. It’s this long, lush line, Tchaikovsky at his best,” he said. “There’s nothing happening onstage except the tree. I can take as much time with the music as I want. I can give it an energy that’s important to the ballet.”

McFadden’s energy has unexpectedly different platforms. He didn’t anticipate being so good at talking to the audience — a key part of being a pops-concert conductor — or writing engaging scripts for those programs.

One thing that has encouraged his verbal skills is his father’s advice: “Closed mouths don’t get fed.”

Expect jokes about the notorious Philadelphia Parking Authority in his Dec. 14 Philly Holiday Spectacular with the No Name Pops (soon to be reconsecrated the Philly Pops). The group’s mission statement — “For Philly people, by Philly people” — is in good hands with this Mayfair native who felt early on that conducting was in his future. He practiced with recordings using a coat hanger for a baton.

“Some of us know from an early age and some of us don’t. He falls into the first category,” said Beatrice Jona Affron, music director of the Philadelphia Ballet since 1997, a mentor McFadden calls his “musical mom.”

Growing up in a family steeped in music at the James Spring Memorial Baptist Church, McFadden played clarinet in multiple youth orchestras and was part of a circle of kids (he graduated from Lincoln High School) who were seized by music and, from Affron, obtained entry to observe rehearsals and performances.

Among that group, McFadden was the one who stayed in touch, “which is one of his superpowers … and not typical of teenagers,” said Affron. “He’s comfortable with people who are older than he is.”

In fact, he wrote many emails requesting talk and observation time, aiming high in the classical music world, to the likes of Yo-Yo Ma (who didn’t come through). Nos and no answers were never taken personally.

Still a teenager, he was given a chance to conduct the Philadelphia Orchestra in a pop-up concert. While McFadden was playing with the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra, music director Louis Scaglione gave him podium time. Also important was his inspirational Philadelphia Orchestra encounter in 2018 with the imposing Shostakovich Symphony No. 7, facing Yannick Nézet-Séguin from the Conductor’s Circle of the Kimmel Center’s (what is now) Marian Anderson Hall. He now counts Nézet-Séguin as one of his mentors, along with orchestra members cellist Yumi Kendall and bassist Joe Conyers.

With the ballet company, Affron made him apprentice conductor with the ballet company in 2020.

A year later, when McFadden was in his final year at Temple University (to which he transferred from DePaul in Chicago) studying performance, both clarinet and conducting, he had an extraordinary choice to make: join the U.S. Navy Band as a clarinetist (which is good, steady work) or join the Detroit Symphony as a largely untried assistant conductor. He chose the latter, one semester short of graduating.

McFadden doesn’t see himself finishing his schooling. Affron does, but also admits that he seems to be doing fine without conservatory training: Conducting is an art learned largely from the doing, she said.

“Much of it is psychology … knowing what to say, how to say it, and who to say it to,” said McFadden. “It’s something I’m still working on.”

One particularly prestigious workplace was the Boston Symphony’s summer home, where he was one of two Tanglewood Music Center Conducting Fellows in 2014. That led to the Nov. 30 Boston concert, where he shared space with Boston Symphony Orchestra’s music director Andris Nelsons.

McFadden’s ongoing Detroit connection (both as assistant conductor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and music director of the Detroit Youth Orchestra) is significant given the city’s opera company and symphony are paragons of youthful renewal. The symphony is a place where music director Jader Bignamini intermixes movements from Tchaikovsky’s original Nutcracker with Duke Ellington’s witty rethinking of the same music.

“I first visited Detroit in 2018, but when I won my job in 2021 … the city had completely changed,” McFadden said. He brings flashes of Philly with him, having grown up with the Philadelphia Orchestra’s luminous sound in his ears.

“He really knows how to get a good sound out of an orchestra,” said Affron, who has heard him in both cities. “He allows the players to enjoy what they’re doing. He has this wonderful combination of seriousness and likability. That’s not so easy to pull off.”

Indeed, becoming Na’Zir McFadden (in his words), “takes a village … takes a city … takes everything,” he said. “I think Philly is the greatest city in the world.”

Philadelphia Ballet’s “Nutcracker,” Dec. 11-29 at the Academy of Music. McFadden’s Nutcracker performances include Dec. 19, 11 a.m.; Dec. 20, 2 p.m.; Dec. 21, 22, 23, 26, 27, and 28, at noon. ensembleartsphilly.org