Thursday, August 30, 2018

Oh, No: Robin Sutherland is Retiring!

San Francisco Symphony's annual personnel update came out today, and this was what first jumped out at me:
Longtime Principal Keyboard Robin Sutherland retires this season, following more than 40 years with the Symphony. Details of a celebration of Sutherland’s tenure with the Orchestra will be announced in the future.
He's been a member of the orchestra since 1972, and was hired right out of SFCM by Seiji Ozawa, who created the principal keyboard job for him.

I hope that celebration includes Sutherland performing whatever the heck he wants to play. He's a wonderful pianist and musician, and I will miss him so much.

And if you are wondering, the important solo piano part in the upcoming performances of Petrouchka will be played by John Wilson. I expect that at some point MTT will name a new principal keyboard [after the usual audition process, to make this clear!].

5 comments:

Tod Brody said...

Hmm. I'd expect a regular audition process to fill this position after Robin's retirement, not a Music Director appointment. It's been an official roster position for a long time. I don't have any inside information, though.

Lisa Hirsch said...

Oops, sorry, that is what I meant! I will clarify.

David Bratman said...

The way I heard the story of his initial hiring, SFS had needed a fill-in keyboard player for some piece, so Ozawa called the director of SFCM and asked if he had anybody. The director went out into the hall to look for the first piano student he could find, and saw Robin Sutherland. "Can you play such-&-such a piece?" he asked, and on getting a positive answer told him when to go over to the Opera House and play it.

Maybe it was a little more complicated than that, but not by much. Obviously Robin did a good job, which led to his permanent hiring.

Lisa Hirsch said...

Joshua has the story: the piece was Ives 4.

David Bratman said...

No, I find from actually following the link: it was Hindemith's Kammermusik No. 1. (But it wasn't at the Opera House, it was at the PFA.) After that, he was invited back for the Ives and others, which confirmed he was worth hiring.