San Francisco Symphony music director Esa-Pekka Salonen. Chris Pizzello/Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP hide caption toggle caption Chris Pizzello/Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP San Francisco Symphony music director Esa-Pekka Salonen. Chris Pizzello/Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP The San Francisco Symphony announced Thursday the resignation of its music director, Esa-Pekka Salonen. The famed Finnish conductor and composer said he plans
Tag: Symphony
Esa-Pekka Salonen to Leave San Francisco Symphony
Esa-Pekka Salonen, the music director of the San Francisco Symphony since 2020, announced on Thursday that he would step down when his contract expires next year, citing differences with the orchestra’s board. Salonen, 65, a groundbreaking conductor who has promoted new music and experimented with virtual reality and artificial intelligence,
A Symphony of Resistance (Throwback)
An anti-government protester is carried on shoulders in Tahrir Square in the afternoon before a speech by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Tahrir Square February 10, 2011 in Cairo, Egypt. Chris Hondros/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Chris Hondros/Getty Images An anti-government protester is carried on shoulders in Tahrir Square
Seiji Ozawa, longtime conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, has died at 88
Seiji Ozawa led the Boston Symphony orchestra for nearly 30 years. Boston Symphony Orchestra hide caption toggle caption Boston Symphony Orchestra Seiji Ozawa led the Boston Symphony orchestra for nearly 30 years. Boston Symphony Orchestra Seiji Ozawa, the conductor who led the Boston Symphony Orchestra longer than any other music
Raven Chacon’s Sound-and-Art Symphony at Swiss Institute
As to the work’s duration and execution, the only directions Chacon gives are that it should run “at least 13 minutes” and be performed by “any number of musicians with any number of non-musicians.” Indeed, one of Chacon’s guiding principles is that much of his work be available to amateur
Review: The Boston Symphony Plays a Sober ‘Lady Macbeth’
The Metropolitan Opera’s production of Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” is a garish explosion, its imagery drawn from cartoons and the Keystone Kops, its madcap energy never-ending. It’s fabulous, but the score can feel whooshed into a blender’s whirlwind. That was very much not the case on Tuesday at Carnegie
As Changes Come to Boston Symphony, Conductor’s Contract Is Extended
The tenure of Chad Smith, the innovative arts leader who last year left the Los Angeles Philharmonic to run the comparatively old-fashioned Boston Symphony Orchestra, is beginning to take shape. In an announcement on Thursday, the Boston Symphony said that Andris Nelsons, its music director, would move to a rolling,
At Tanglewood, the Boston Symphony Displays Its Heritage and Uncertain Future
After the retirement of Mark Volpe, who served as the orchestra’s president and chief executive for 23 years until 2021 and amassed an endowment of around half a billion dollars, the Boston Symphony turned for inspiration to Gail Samuel, the chief operating officer of the daring Los Angeles Philharmonic, where
Her Symphony Reclaims an Ancestral Story, and Classical Music
When the composer Tamar-kali goes fishing in the South Carolina low country, she thinks about her ancestors — the Gullah Geechee — singing spirituals like “Wade in the Water.” And she pictures Harriet Tubman arriving with Union gunboats in the summer of 1863 when those ancestors actually had to wade
Turning 100, the New Jersey Symphony Sticks to Home
When the New Jersey Symphony was planning this season’s centennial celebrations, which come to a close this weekend, a question kept coming up: Would the orchestra be going to Carnegie Hall? After all, appearing at Carnegie — even if that means renting the hall — is a mark of excellence