Ian Carleton Schaefer is a conductor through and through.
On the podium, he has to think a millisecond ahead of his ensemble. “How am I going to get the orchestra from piano to double forte?” With his clients, he applies that same logic. “How is what we do today going to set the precedent for what we do later?”
The triple threat conductor, classical musician and labor and employment lawyer is a big believer in pursuing multiple callings. Having been brought up to seek a traditional career, Schaefer graduated from Fordham Law School and climbed the legal ladder pretty quickly. But his passion for music was insatiable, and he always found ways to feed the trumpeter within.
At 16, Schaefer auditioned for the New York Youth Symphony, one of the most highly reputed youth music organizations in the nation. He was admitted as first alternate trumpet, which he explained is the equivalent of being on deck in case Miss America gets hit by a bus.
While pursuing his bachelors at Cornell, he auditioned for the Youth Symphony again, and this time was named first trumpet. He had to commute from Ithaca to NYC and back every Sunday, leaving at 5 A.M. and returning at 1 A.M. He was also involved in Cornell’s Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra and Wind Ensemble.
Schaefer continued to play in orchestras throughout his professional career, but it wasn’t until the pandemic, right around his 40th birthday, that he entertained the idea of conducting.
“I had always thought about it, but kind of kept it to the side,” he said. “It was like an inner voice.”
But as the world shut down and things got quiet, that voice got louder. So when Schaefer turned 40, instead of going on a crazy vacation or buying something, as he says, “splurgy,” he decided to audition for Juilliard’s Evening Division. “And that changed my life.”
He took a class with a group of aspiring conductors, and given that it was on zoom, everyone was limited to small, digital squares with no sound. Despite the circumstances, he learned the gestures, the cues, how to bow, when to acknowledge soloists. All he had left was to actually get in front of an orchestra. So when the city opened back up, he rented out a concert hall, got a bunch of musicians together “that were so overqualified” for what he was asking them to do, and conducted his first performance.
And with that, an annual concert was born. It would become an orchestra composed of talented high schoolers, musicians from the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and friends in the New York Philharmonic. Everyone is united by a deep love for classical music, regardless of their vocation. The name? Second Ending Ensemble.
Schaefer explained that the musical notation of “second ending” is when a song goes “back to the beginning, but ends differently,” reciting the first and last verse of “Mary Had A Little Lamb” as an example. “But it’s also the idea that I can be a lawyer and a conductor at the same time. They feed each other, they help each other. I think everyone has the possibility of a second ending.”
While this idea of a second ending applies to Schaefer’s pursuit of both music and law, the conductor has also made it a goal to bring a second ending to classical music itself. In most traditional orchestra settings, communication between the conductor and ensemble is largely non-verbal. While this lends to a strong sense of connection and understanding within the orchestra, the audience is often left isolated from the performance.
“I’ve always thought that it’s a missed opportunity to give context to music which may not be that accessible,” said Schaefer. “There’s an unfair perception that classical music is fancy. That it’s boring and only for the upper upper class. We, as the Second Ending, are trying to demystify what it is that’s happening and get people excited about this genre of music.”
In other words, Schaefer makes a point to address the audience personally at each performance. The ensemble’s third annual concert is June 21st, and in classic Second Ending fashion, it will pair a “warhorse” composition with a freshly written one. The concert will feature “New World,” an influential work by Czech composer Dvořák, and “A Solar Symphony,” composed by the recent Juilliard graduate, Katie Jenkins. Dvořák’s piece was informed by his Czech background and diverse American experience, and Jenkin’s pays homage to her Welsh countryside roots.
It’s important to Schaefer that this context is communicated to the audience, so that they too “can experience the spectrum and journey of this great artform and find space for its relevance in today’s modern times,” as written on the Second Ending Ensemble’s website.
Whether his conducting informs his professional work or vice versa, Schaefer recognizes that interpretations, both in music and in law, are dynamic. “Just because the composer said one thing doesn’t mean 100 years later, it means the same thing.” Likewise, “There are justices that believe the Constitution and precedent case law are meant to evolve and can mean different things at different times.”
As a conductor, both on stage and in his legal practice, Schaefer embraces the evolution of his surroundings. He explains that Dvořák’s symphony was written in 1893 NYC, when streets were lined with horses and buggies, not cars and subways. The sound of the city is much different today than it was during Dvořák’s, and Schaefer has taken this into account for the upcoming concert.
“I’d be doing a disservice in the art form if I didn’t, because then it’s just static, then it’s an institution, it’s a museum and it doesn’t evolve.”
Schaefer channels this subjectivity when it comes to law, especially since Trump took office six months ago. Due to administrative efforts to defund federal workforces and eliminate DEI initiatives, labor and employment law has been significantly impacted.
“The law gets interpreted by different administrations, and corporations react differently based on those factors,” said Schaefer. “So I have to be flexible and open minded. Not just tell them what the law is, but help them craft solutions that are informed by law and by what’s going on.”
Schaefer believes in second endings. It’s why he’s able to adjust his practice to changing political climates, and it’s how he’s been able to create an ensemble of unconditionally passionate musicians. There’s a growing number of people who are itching for a second ending, so next year, instead of hand picking emerging young composers, there will be an audition process for people around the world to submit a portfolio entry. He is also hopeful for the addition of a chamber version, making the Second Ending Ensemble a biannual concert.
His parting legal advice? “Give yourself permission to do the thing that you really wanted to do before life got practical or real, you know, and do it if you can, in whatever form you can.”
“I can be a lawyer and a conductor at the same time. They feed each other, they help each other,” Ian Carleton Schaefer, Director and Conductor of the Second Ending Ensemble