FARMINGTON – The new conductor of the University of Maine at Farmington’s Community Orchestra is anything but ordinary. He’s encouraging his musicians to play that way, too.

Norwegian-born violinist Trond Saeverud, 44, loves music, but does not listen to it – if he can help it – unless he’s preparing for a performance, watching one, or conducting or playing in one.

“I seek restaurants and shops where there is not (background) music,” he said Thursday. “I would much rather sleep next to a construction site than with music (on the radio). Noise doesn’t bother me. Music does.”

It’s not exactly what you’d expect from a man who’s released numerous acclaimed CDs, played in orchestras around the world, and serves as first violin in the Bangor Symphony Orchestra.

But it’s actually not as odd as it sounds at first.

“My relation to music is something active,” he said. When he listens, he really pays attention. When he plays, he’s involved.

“Music is communication,” he said.

Saeverud, who began conducting at UMF last spring, loves music for its energy and dynamism, and he conducts with the intention of bringing that to his players and their audience, according to a UMF news release.

“We try to focus less on the details and more on the expressive side of the music, because that will carry the piece,” he said in the release.

It’s important to practice that way, too, he said in an interview Thursday. When you’re working on the notes in a practice session, you should be focused on what you need to improve, of course, but when you’re playing for the joy of it, you should let the music take over. “So you can just go for it,” he said, “Or you’re always (playing) someplace in the middle.”

Besides teaching, conducting, and playing, Saeverud operates a bed and breakfast with artist wife, Joan Siem, in Robbinston. He loves cooking gourmet meals and working on the 200-year-old historic house – once the last U.S stop on the Underground Railroad, and also home to the only American female shipbuilder.

He seems to enjoy variety, and says that’s one thing he loves about conducting UMF’s 40-odd player orchestra, in which high school students, UMF students, and adult community members all play together.

“The atmosphere is very full,” he said, when the orchestra plays together.

As full as the sound is, Saeverud says he is seeking new members, especially string performers. “We are really, really inclusive,” he said. He welcomes even those who can’t play everything. “Some notes are better than none,” he said.