Brilliant. Masterful teacher. Welcoming. Gentle. Positive. Taskmaster. Amazing fellow. Those are words used to describe John V. Sinclair, artistic director and conductor of the Bach Festival Society of Winter Park. Combine them, as you might notes for a musical score, and a more complete picture of Sinclair emerges. Perhaps Eric Ravndal III, president of the Bach Festival Society’s board of trustees, sums it up best: “He is the personification of the Energizer Bunny.” Besides his work with the Bach Festival Society, Sinclair teaches music and chairs the Rollins College Music Department, directs music at First Congregational Church in Winter Park, conducts the Walt Disney Candlelight Processional at Epcot, directs and conducts the Messiah Choral Society, and conducts the International Moravian Music Festival.

Consider a recent day in the life of the 55-year-old Sinclair: The day begins with a 9 a.m. freshman music-major class at Rollins, where he has spent 24 years of his 33-year teaching career and inspired countless students, such as senior Herman Leptz, who chose Rollins because of Sinclair and his music program, and who now hopes to go on to the Manhattan School of Music and eventually a career as an opera singer and conductor. At 11 a.m., Sinclair is working with an independent-study student, followed by a rehearsal at noon, conducting at 2 p.m., an orchestra rehearsal at 3, followed perhaps by a couple of additional rehearsals. Add to that several late-night jaunts during the holiday season to conduct rehearsals for the Candlelight Processional, for which he conducted his 500th show in December. When does he breathe? From 11 p.m. to 3 a.m., he says, during his “study time.” He also has been known to do a bit of midnight gardening, weeding the roses he loves to grow – a vestige from his childhood perhaps, when his summer job was to grow a garden.An important milestone

As he celebrates his 20th season with the Bach Festival Society, Sinclair is quick to pay homage to those who came before him and the sacrifices they made to ensure the survival of what has become the third-longest continually operating Bach Festival in the country – and Sinclair the longest-serving conductor in the Winter Park organization’s 75-year history. Noting that Central Florida is often associated with “quick culture” and that “in Florida, 75 years is a long time,” Sinclair says of the anniversary, “It’s not just important for us, it is important for this community.” To more fully appreciate how important, it is necessary to know something of the bespectacled, white-haired and bearded, nattily attired man who holds the baton. Those who attended either of the sold-out Classic Christmas presentations know something of the warm fuzzy feel Sinclair exudes as he draws the audience in with conversation and smile.

That same welcoming spirit is at home in his well-lived-in office (that includes a closetful of suit jackets and freshly laundered white shirts) in R.D. Keene Hall on the Rollins campus. Sinclair keeps the memories of his childhood in Independence, Mo., stashed among shelves stuffed full of audio equipment, CDs, sheet music, musical scores handed down from conductor to conductor, and books – including a couple of rows dedicated to volumes of quotations. Also at home on those shelves are the scale and cash register from his grandfather’s general store, which opened in the 1840s, along with three big jars of antique marbles.

Sinclair gifts graduating seniors with marbles to remind them of a story he likes to tell (he does come from the land of Mark Twain, after all) about a traveler who is told by a stranger he meets on a deserted road to fill his pockets with the stones he finds, and in the morning, he will be both happy and sad that he followed the stranger’s instructions. The next morning, the traveler discovers the stones are precious gems, and wishes he’d picked up more. The moral and the reason for the marble as reminder: “You need to be a sponge and a voracious consumer and take every jewel and gem you can possibly hold.” For choir-member consumption that means using “every gem of knowledge we can accumulate to realize our fullest potential.”

Expect the best

As he does with students, Sinclair says he expects the best from his all-volunteer choir, because he knows that expecting the best yields the best. Despite knowing that he might sometimes be viewed as a taskmaster, Sinclair says those expectations get higher each year. “It’s like a gear box. I notch it up one more gear each year. No one goes into this other than to be the best they can be. They are in it to make art at the highest level they can.”

The road Sinclair has traveled to conductor has been “evolutional.” A “trumpet player and singer in a previous life,” he says he always knew he wanted to be a teacher. “Maestro means teacher,” he points out. He began teaching in public schools in Missouri, where he was involved in sports and music. “I just didn’t know it would go to this extent.”  He was looking for a college job when he heard of a national search being conducted by Rollins, and “I knew they were hiring the next Bach Festival conductor.” Sinclair says he is something of an anomaly. “There are very few like me who are comfortable on either side – the choir or the orchestra.”

Sinclair has a son, Taylor, and daughter, Kaley, attending Rollins. Taylor, a junior, sings and plays piano. Kaley, who will graduate this year, is studying anthropology and psychology. Sinclair’s wife of nearly 33 years, Gail – whom he refers to as “the good Dr. Sinclair” – is a Hemingway and Fitzgerald scholar and heads up the Winter Park Institute at Rollins College. “We’ve been together forever,” Sinclair says of his wife, whom he met on a blind date and ended up taking to her high-school prom in Independence.

Though it might seem obvious, when asked what his favorite music is, Sinclair says he listens to a lot of jazz and early rock. If Bach were alive today, Sinclair is pretty sure that, given Bach’s improvisational skills, he would be a jazz musician. As he seeks to make Bach and Mozart and their contemporaries relevant to today’s generation, Sinclair says, “I want to hear the best of every genre.” But, in the final analysis, classical music is it. “I see it as the source for everything else,” Sinclair says. “It’s like going back to the mothership.”

A Dozen Sinclairisms

Conductor John Sinclair has a way with words during choir rehearsals. Here are a few of his best lines.

1. Basses, you’re so far behind, you’re in a different ZIP code.
2. Folks, folks, you’re nibbling it. I want you to chomp it. 
3. Breathe in the shape of the vowel sound.
4. Let the softness sound like a choice, not like we ran out of steam.
5. That was mezzo-boring all the way. There has to be a sense of urgency.
6. You’re singing with a 10-pack of crayons, and he’s given you 144 colors.
7. The little pop that happens when you’re pulling a berry off the vine, that’s the sound I want.
8. Big warm sounds. It’s a chocolate pudding kind of sound. 
9. It doesn’t need to be louder. It needs to be more dignified.
10. Stay home and phone it in if you’re not going to get that sound.
11. Altos, take that away from them. It’s the last piece of meat at the table and you want it.
12. You’ve got the right idea, but your heads are buried too deep.