Friday Photo

Moon and Jupiter over a tree outside Grace Cathedral

San Francisco

January, 2025

 

The Fires

Oakland, CA

September 9, 2020

I took the photo above in September, 2020. It's a view up the street from my house, showing a couple of rooftops, some trees, and the sky, which is eerily orange, turned that color by smoke from the fires then burning to north of us. The great city of Los Angeles, 350 miles to the south of me, has now been suffering for a week from major fires in Pacific Palisades and Altadena, and smaller fires in other locations. Fire warnings for tomorrow, at levels from elevated to extreme, have been issued for everywhere in the huge geographic triangle bounded by San Diego, Bakersfield, and Santa Maria. (Gift link; scroll down to find the map with that area.)

The losses so far, in human life, in homes, in art and music, in community and the built environment, are incalculable, and I fear they will only worsen. Alex Ross, who has an abiding love for the architecture of Los Angeles and the city's deep cultural history, has posts about lost architectural sites and about Villa Aurora, which still stood as of Saturday, January 11.

The fires are a consequence of global warming and the failure of governments worldwide to take action soon enough and with sufficient vigor. The risks have been known to some for fifty years or more, yet preserving the Earth and its people has taken a back seat to profit. One of this country's major parties acts as though climate change isn't real, though its leaders must know differently. They have managed to persuade numerous U.S. citizens that it's not real.

If you're writing about the fires and about the losses, I encourage careful fact-checking. A couple of days ago, the destruction of Belmont Music, housed in a building at Larry Schoenberg's home in Pacific Palisades, led to fears that the manuscripts of Verklärte Nacht and Pierrot Lunaire had been lost. The former manuscript is in the collection of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. and the latter is in the Morgan Library, New York City. 

According to the NY Times (gift link), Belmont Music lost its entire inventory of performing materials for Arnold Schoenberg's works, as well as digital backups that were housed on site, plus letters, memorabilia, and related material. It is a tremendous loss for the family, for performers, and for all who care about the composer. It is likely to affect performances for some time, as Mr. Schoenberg rebuilds the collection –– but the composer's original manuscripts are safe in archives and libraries around the world. The Arnold Schoenberg Center has a helpful online database of the composer's compositions and the locations of the manuscripts.

The effects of the fires will be felt for years and likely decades, owing to the scope of the destructions, the number of people affected, and the economic and cultural importance of Los Angeles. I recently started listening to the podcast Not Built for This, which is about United States infrastructure and climate change. The second episode is about the ripple effects of the Camp Fire (Paradise, CA) and its impact on those who lost homes and the city of Chico. The podcast is sobering and frankly terrifying, well worth listening to regardless of where you're located.

Museum Mondays

Italian single-manual harpsichord, c. 1680

Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

July, 2024

 

SF Symphony: James Gaffigan with Ray Chen

James Gaffigan

Photo copyright Miguel Lorenzo / courtesy of San Francisco Symphony

James Gaffigan, once an associate conductor of San Francisco Symphony, currently music director of the Komische Oper, Berlin, was back this week, leading a program of, really, pretty standard stuff and also chatting with Iris Kwok of SFCV. I went to the second of three performances last night, and you bet I was surprised: I was mostly bored.

What didn't bore me at all was the first work on the program, Missy Mazzoli's Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres), which was about ten minutes of purely gorgeous sound, rotating slowly around the orchestra and with a remarkable concluding sonority that included a bunch of harmonicas. Looking at the instrumentation, which called for one member of several sections to play harmonicas, I'll note that, perhaps respecting the sheer size of Davies, two members of each section played harmonicas.

I do not really get people's love for the Barber Violin Concerto, here well-played by Ray Chen. It is kinda dull, with pretty moments. The last movement is extremely perky and ends abruptly. I was expecting something resembling a development and didn't get it. Back to the drawing board, Sam! Or maybe not; he's long gone. Chen's Bach encore was imaginatively and flexibly played; he's good.

The Prokofiev Fifth Symphony came across as noisy, musically incoherent (the composer's fault, I'd guess), and uninteresting (the conductor's fault, because I can certainly imagine it working a lot better in someone else's hands).

I'd definitely encourage you to read the interview with Iris Kwok, in which Gaffigan some interesting things and others that maybe he could have thought through a bit. Here he's talking, generally, about SFS's music director search (a job I'd guess he would be interested in):

This could be dangerous for an institution because then you’re just checking off boxes — we want an old European conductor, we want a young female conductor, or we want a person of color. Those things have nothing to do with what the institution needs artistically. For me, I don’t care what gender, what color skin, what nationality you are — you have to fit the mold as a musician first and foremost for the institution, and you need to have the same values and mission statement as the institution.

He's not wrong about having the same values and mission (a severe divergence is why we're losing Salonen) but also: representation does matter. It would have been wild if the Oakland Symphony had hired a white guy to succeed Michael Morgan, for example. 

I must also note that Gaffigan is very clear that it's easy to find worthy music by women:

In Missy Mazzoli’s case, she’s a dreamer, and her music is always filled with fantasy. Her piece is abstract: about orbits, space, the way things come around and meet with one another again, how things get faster and accelerate with time. She just writes great stuff, whether it’s five or 10 minutes or a [longer] symphonic piece. As a conductor, I’m always looking for modern music. The funny thing is, all the artistic administrations are always like, “We need more female composers.” And I’m like, “There’s no problem finding them. There’s so many great female composers.” She got to the top very quickly because she’s a natural.

He's got some rightfully pointed things to say about American orchestras and their apparent love for European conductors versus Americans, and how he felt he had to have European credentials to eventually land a music director job here. I'm with him all the way on this: he doesn't say "this is ridiculous," because he can't, but it is. 

There is a lot of conducting talent in the United States, but how many of the major (and major-ish) orchestras are currently or recently led by U.S.-born music directors? The Baltimore Symphony (Jonathon Heyward, previously Marin Alsop); Buffalo Philharmonic (JoAnn Falletta; previously MTT); Metropolitan Opera (previously James Levine); SFS (previously MTT); Boston Symphony (previously James Levine); NY Philharmonic (previously Alan Gilbert, previously Lorin Maazel); St. Louis SO (previously David Robertson). How many others? The article I link to below lists a few, but note that Carl St. Clair is retiring, and will be replaced at the Pacific Symphony by a British.

I'm reminded that last March, the NY Times ran an article (gift link) about why Americans have such a hard time getting hired at orchestras here. Mostly, they talked with, or were only able to quote, conductors! For crying out loud: talk to orchestra boards and CEOs about this. They're the ones hiring music directors. 

Elsewhere:

• Rebecca Wishnia, SFCV/Chronicle, who dismisses the Prokofiev in just a couple of sentences, like me.
• DB at Kalimac's Corner
• Michael Strickland, SF Civic Center
• Joshua Kosman, On a Pacific Aisle
• Previously, Joshua Kosman on MTT's Prokofiev 5. 

Music Executive Moves

Gary Ginstling, who left the NY Phil last year, has been appointed Executive Director and Chief Executive Officr the Houston Symphony, effective February 3, 2025.

From the press release:

Houston Symphony Board President Barbara J. Burger, on behalf of the Board and Music Director Juraj Valčuha, announced today the appointment of 25-year veteran orchestra leader Gary Ginstling to the position of Executive Director & Chief Executive Officer of the Houston Symphony. In this position, Ginstling will hold the Margaret Alkek Williams Chair and will begin his new post on February 3, 2025. Ginstling succeeds John Mangum, who stepped down from this role at the end of September 2024 to lead the Lyric Opera of Chicago.

Ginstling has held several leadership roles at major American orchestras. Most recently, he spent two years at the New York Philharmonic, serving in the roles of executive director and, until July 2024, as president and CEO. Previously, Ginstling served as executive director of the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) in Washington, DC, from 2017 to 2022, and as CEO of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra (ISO) from 2013 to 2017. His prior orchestra leadership positions include general manager of The Cleveland Orchestra; director of communications and external affairs of the San Francisco Symphony; and executive director of the Berkeley Symphony.  

Recently appointed:

• Matias Tarnopolsky to the NY Philharmonic, commencing January 1, 2025
• Kim Notelmy to the Los Angeles Philharmonic, commencing July 8, 2024
• Brent Assink to acting CEO of the Minnesota Orchestra, August, 2024
• John Mangum to CEO of the Lyric Opera of Chicago, commencing fall, 2024, leaving the job at Houston open
• Michelle Miller Burns to the Dallas Symphony, leaving the Minnesota job

Open positions:

• Minnesota Orchestra, following Michelle Miller Burns's move to Dallas
• Philadelphia Orchestra, with Matias Tarnopolsky's appointment to the NY Philharmonic
• Dallas Symphony, with Kim Notelmy's appointment to the LA Phil
• Cincinnati Symphony, following the retirement of Jonathan Martin in February, 2025
• St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, after Jon Limbacher retires next year
• New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, after Gabriel van Aalst left for a different job

Friday Photo

Mushrooms

Berkeley, CA

December, 2024

 

Can We Blame Prop. 13 for the LA Fires? (And So Much More?)

I think we can. 

Proposition 13 made it harder, much harder, to raise taxes of any kind in California, and limited property taxes and reassessments. Basically, taxation can't keep up with the population growth of the state or with its infrastructure needs.

Take this, for example, from the NY Times:

Traci Park, the Los Angeles City Council member whose district includes Pacific Palisades, said the city’s water systems were among several pieces of critically underfunded infrastructure.

“There are environmental catastrophes waiting to happen everywhere with our water mains,” she said, adding that some were a century old. “As our city has grown, we haven’t upgraded and expanded the infrastructure that we need to support it.”

Consider the crumbling schools and roads in much of California, including Oakland, where I live. Californians voted for it because they'd rather have cash than infrastructure and because of concern trolling about older people threatened with losing their homes because of high property taxes. Blanket limitations on taxes weren't the right way to deal with that particular issue, of course: a split property tax roll dividing up commercial and personal real estate, or even some kind of age-based cap, would have done it, but no.

The Biden-Harris administration is jumping in feet first with aid for the state and city, as it would for disasters anywhere in the country. They believe that we are all in this together. Don't expect the same from the incoming administration.

Of course, there are other issues with fires and fire safety:

Greg Pierce, a researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, who studies water resources and urban planning, echoed the concerns over water systems that are designed for urban fires, not fast-moving wildfires. But redesigning water systems to allow firefighters to take on a broad wildfire would be enormously expensive, he said.

A more fundamental question, he said, is whether it’s a good idea to rebuild neighborhoods adjacent to wildlands, an issue that has been broadly debated across the West as climate change increases the frequency and intensity of fires on what is known as the wildland-urban interface.

Museum Mondays

Gustav Moreau

King David detail

Armand Hammer Museum

Los Angeles, CA

December, 2024

 

Friday Photo

View from the Hammer Museum

Los Angeles, December, 2024

 

Brandeis University Destroys Its Music Department

Slosberg Music Center, Brandeis University

Photo: Kenneth C. Zirkel

Used with permission under the terms of the 

Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International CC BY-SA 4.0 Deed

No changes have been made to this photograph.

I'd reported in 2023 that the Brandeis University administration was threatening to shut down the graduate programs in music. I neglected to report that it appeared, after protest, that these programs, which cost about $300,000/year, were going to be retained.

Ultimately, though, the university decided to shut down the graduate programs and also to lay off the Lydian String Quartet, which has been in residence for forty-four (44) years. In that time, the Lydian has been an advocate for new music and hugely valuable as coaches and teachers as well as performers. The cost of the Lydian was about $275,000/year.

This is truly terrible: what it means is that in the future, the faculty won't have graduate students to teach and the undergraduates won't have the vast wealth of teaching and performing experience of the Lydian. It will be nearly impossible to attract top scholars and composers to Brandeis because there won't be graduate programs.

This has already resulted in the decision of longtime faculty members Eric Chasalow and David Rakowski to accelerate their retirement from Brandeis.

I was an undergraduate at Brandeis in the late 1970s, and my teachers there included musicologists Joshua Rifkin, Edward Nowacki, and Margaret Bent, composers Harold Shapero and Arthur Berger, and conductors James Olesen and David Hoose, who provided a first-class music education. I remain grateful to them all to this day and I deeply regret that future Brandeis students won't have the opportunities that I had.

I sent printed letters in August to various high-level administrators and heard nothing. (The president of the University was on the verge of announcing his resignation, so it's not a surprise that he didn't respond.) I wrote again in October to most of the same group and added a few members of the board of trustees. Only one person bothered to respond; her line was "hard decisions must be made." Note that there was no outreach to music department alumni about the status of the department and no attempt made to raise funds from us.

I did tell each person I wrote to that I had planned a substantial bequest to Brandeis, but I had called off those plans and would never donate another cent. I hope that other Brandeis alumnae who studied in the music department will do the same.

 

Museum Mondays

 

Henri Fantin-Latour, Peonies in a Blue and White Vase

Armand Hammer Museum, Los Angeles

December, 2024

Lookback 2024

What a year it has been, in every area that interests me. This post is both personal and professional.

Looking at my list, I see that this year I wrote 45 paid reviews, previews, and articles, up from 30 last year. Twenty-five were written after I retired. They sort out this way:

• Three previews, summer, holiday, and early 2025, all for the SF Chronicle
• Thirty-two reviews, some for SFCV, some for the Chronicle, some for both. This includes my review of the Eun Sun Kim film.
• Three big features and one small one.
• "Backstage at SF Opera" (SFCV)
• "The Scorekeepers," about music librarians, for SFCV
• Shawna Lucey & Opera San José, for Opera. It's available on line now, behind a paywall, and will be in print in their February issue.
• Featurette about the orchestra's role in the SFO Tristan und Isolde. SFCV and the Chronicle.
• I contributed to SFCV's 2024 round-up of best performances.
•  Five news articles, one for the Chronicle, four for SFCV.

In the last two years, I've discovered that my sweet spot is 1500 to 2500 words; I've written a bunch of features of that length and really like it.

The Good

• I retired from technical writing, after years on an unfulfilling project and multiple frustrations with so much at my former employer.
• I'm having a lot more fun with music writing than I'd had in years with technical writing.
• Joshua Kosman got to retire, and he's clearly having fun with puzzles, writing about classical music on his own schedule, and reading Trollope.
• San Francisco Opera's artistic (and probably financial) success. Yes, I'm making some assumptions / guesses about the money side of things, but from what I've been told and what I have seen, The Magic Flute and Carmen sold like hotcakes, whatever you thought of them artistically, and the artistic strengths of Innocence, Partenope, Ballo, The Handmaid's Tale, and Tristan und Isolde were clear. I'll probably have to do a separate post about Tristan because on balance it was the best, overall, of the seven productions I have seen live, and I want to substantiate that.

The Great Performances

• Chanticleer and Alkemie's Machaut program at the Berkeley Festival
• Erin Morley's fabulous recital
• Raehann Bryce-Davis's superb recital
• Innocence, SF Opera
• Partenope, SF Opera
• The Handmaid's Tale, SF Opera
• Tristan und Isolde, SF Opera
• Don Giovanni, Merola Opera
• Salonen Cello Concerto, SF Symphony (Salonen)
• Mahler 3, SF Symphony (Salonen)
• Erwartung and Ma Mère L'oye, SF Symphony (Salonen)
• All-Mozart program, SFS (Labadie, Lucy Crowe; I did not hear better singing this year.)
• Wild Up's two Julius Eastman programs
• Kronos Quartet 50
• The Daughter of the Regiment, LVOpera, two hours of frothy delight.

The Bad

• San Francisco Symphony's numerous institutional failures
• Alienating Esa-Pekka Salonen to the extent that he didn't renew his contract.
• Waving bye-bye to him as if it were no big deal.
• Going to the brink with the AGMA choristers.
• Cancelling the Verdi Requiem instead of talking.
• Not returning the musicians' pay to pre-pandemic levels.
• Apparently putting renovating Davies above the musicians, who are the orchestra.
• The shorter season; cancelled projects; cancelled tour.
• Threatening to ban a thirty-year patron who displayed a protest sign about Salonen.
• I repeat: letting Esa-Pekka Salonen go.
• San Francisco Opera is also having problems.
• The 2024-25 season is just six operas and three concerts. Don't count on next season being any better.
• The orchestra staged some kind of labor action on opening night.
• Their contract has been extended multiple times since then.
• Currently, the deadline is toward the end of May, meaning that unless there's a new contract before then, the summer season (La Bohème, Idomeneo, Pride Concert) could be affected.
• The company took a bath on the centennial season, losing $13 million.  It is genuinely shocking that the big donors didn't pony up enough to cover this deficit.
• There are 17 season substitutes this year, which is something around a quarter of the orchestra.
• The Bay Area music press lost yet another member with Joshua Kosman's retirement from the Chronicle. I love his newsletter, which I hope that you're reading, but it's not the same as having a consistent voice reviewing two to four times each week at the big local paper. It is not good that the Chronicle no longer has a full-time music critic, someone close to the vast panoply of organizations here and able to report on and review them with long experience and deep knowledge backing the reviews up. A decade or so ago, you'd have reviews of an important performance by Joshua, Georgia Rowe, Richard Scheinin, Janos Gereben, someone from SFCV, various bloggers, and occasionally out of town critics. The Mercury-News sent Rich to real estate; the East Bay Times and Merc have dropped regular reviews; a few bloggers have stopped writing or moved. SFCV is still here and for the last several months there has been a content-sharing arrangement with the Chronicle. It's just not good to have so many fewer voices weighing in on what's going on in the classical music scene. [I hope that it's clear that I do not in any way begrudge Joshua his well-earned retirement.]
• Brandeis University is consciously destroying its music department.

Friday Photo

Tree bark, Los Angeles

December, 2024

 

Museum Mondays

Gustav Moreau, Salome Dancing for Herod, detail

Armand Hammer Museum, Los Angeles

December, 2024

 

MTT is 80!

Michael Tilson Thomas

Photo by Brandon Patoc (c), 2019

Courtesy of San Francisco Symphony

MTT turned 80 today! What a great life and career he has had, from southern California to Boston and Buffalo to London to the Bay Area. I had my beefs with programming at SFS during his last five years as music director of SFS, but whatever: he's a great conductor and a deeply loved person in San Francisco.

SFS has just scheduled a concert in honor of his 80th birthday - for April! - and tickets go on sale on January 28 at 10:00 a.m. The concert will include Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (Variations on a theme of Henry Purcell) and Respighi's Feste Romane Festi Romani.

Friday Photo

 

Los Angeles City Hall

December, 2024

Music Executives Moving In and Moving On

I have been thinking that I need a music executive equivalent to the regular listings of conductor appointments, so, here we go. This is mostly from memory and I welcome updates from others.

Recently appointed:

• Matias Tarnopolsky to the NY Philharmonic, commencing January 1, 2025
• Kim Notelmy to the Los Angeles Philharmonic, commencing July 8, 2024
• Brent Assink to acting CEO of the Minnesota Orchestra, August, 2024
• John Mangum to CEO of the Lyric Opera of Chicago, commencing fall, 2024
• Michelle Miller Burns to the Dallas Symphony, leaving the Minnesota job

Open positions:

• Minnesota Orchestra, following Michelle Miller Burns's move to Dallas
• Philadelphia Orchestra, with Matias Tarnopolsky's appointment to the NY Philharmonic
• Dallas Symphony, with Kim Notelmy's appointment to the LA Phil
• Cincinnati Symphony, following the retirement of Jonathan Martin in February, 2025
• St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, after Jon Limbacher retires next year
• New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, after Gabriel van Aalst left for a different job

Updated December 18 to include Michelle Miller Burns and Gabriel van Aalst items.

Museum Mondays

Doctor Pozzi at Home, detail

Armand Hammer Museum

Los Angles, CA

December, 2024

 

Friday Photo

Cactus

Kew Gardens, Richmond

London, July, 2024

 

Santa Rosa Symphony Plays Mahler's Second Symphony, "Resurrection"

I'm having some difficulty finding downloadable press photos of either Esther Tonea or Gabrielle Beteag, the soloists in the Santa Rosa Symphony's Mahler 2 plus Jonathan Leshnoff's brief Warum hast du gelitten?, so you'll have to settle for a screen shot of an early printing of the title page of the score. Anyway, two reviewers were there:

• Lisa Hirsch, SFCV (Saturday)
• Joshua Kosman, On a Pacific Aisle (Sunday)

And there are two upcoming opportunities to hear Mahler's Second, with different orchestras (very different orchestras). I expect to attend both.

• Eric Kujawsky conducts the Redwood Symphony, Sunday, February 16, 2025 at 2 p.m. in San Mateo. This is a volunteer orchestra...and they're on their third traversal of the complete Mahler symphonies. Alex Ross spoke well of them some years ago.
• Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts the San Francisco Symphony, June 12, 13, and 14. This will be Salonen's last concert as the music director of SFS. Yes, you should be up in arms over his premature departure. 

Previously:

• Lisa Hirsch, SFCV, Esa-Pekka Salonen leads SFS in Mahler 2; September, 2022
• Joshua Kosman, SF Chronicle, Esa-Pekka Salonen leads SFS in Mahler 2; September, 2022
• Lisa Hirsch, SFCV, MTT leads SFS in Mahler 2, May, 2011
• Joshua Kosman, SF Chronicle, MTT leads SFS in Mahler 2, May, 2011

Anthony McGill and the Pacifica Quartet

Anthony McGill

Photo: Martin Romero

My next-to-last paid review of the year came out last week:

• Lisa Hirsch, SFCV and SF Chronicle
• Joshua Kosman, On a Pacific Aisle
• Michael Strickland, SF Civic Center
• Stephen Smoliar, The Rehearsal Studio

 

Museum Mondays

The Ninth of November, 1888, detail

by William Logsdale (1859-1944)

Guildhall Art Gallery, London

July, 2024

 

Releases of Note

Of possible interest:

•  The Merian Ensemble, The Book of Spells, Navona Records. "Comprised entirely of world premiere recordings, with works by Clarice Assad, Nicole Chamberlain, Jennifer Higdon, Mary Kouyoumdjian, Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti, Soon Hee Newbold, Kimberly R. Osberg, and Lynne Plowman,  each but one commissioned by the Merian Ensemble, The Book of Spells offers a gripping and intimate portrait of modern chamber music, performed with brilliance and precision by an ensemble of world-class soloists who are dedicated to the elevation of women’s voices in classical music." I've listened to the preview of this recording and liked it a lot.
• Shiuan Chang (composer), Earthing. William Wei, violin, and Evan Wong, piano. "Commissioned in 2020 by Dun Ren Hospital, a psychiatric facility in Taiwan, this album is a unique exploration of memory, understanding, and healing through music. Created for the hospital’s patients, the compositions are both a musical aid in their journeys and a reflection of composer Shiuan Chang’s own. Early in the composition process, Shiuan began to experience severe panic attacks, which transformed his creative path into one of personal introspection and resilience. The compositions resonate with empathy and connection, drawing from Shiuan’s experiences and the lives of Dun Ren’s patients, aiming to bring a sense of peace, familiarity, and shared understanding." I'm awaiting information on where this release can be purchased.
•  Zhenni Li-Cohen, A Letter, plays music of the Ukrainian composer Sergei Bortkiewicz (1877 - 1952). Lovely music in a 19th c. vein, beautifully played. Found on Spotify and YouTube Music.

Friday Photo

National COVID Memorial Wall

South Bank of the Thames

London

July, 2024

 

NY Phil New Executive Addendum

NYC Subway Stop

Photo by Lisa Hirsch

I expect that many readers of this blog are following Baltimore Symphony principal oboist Katherine Needleman on Facebook or her Substack. For a few years now, she has been a fearless public crusader about the sexism and abuse that's rife in the classical music world.

After the announcement about Matias Tarnopolsky, she was characteristically straightforward about a problem in his statements to the NY Times. Here's the bit she quoted, which is about the firings of Matthew Muckey and Liang Wang years after they allegedly raped Cara Kizer, who went to the police and was then denied tenure by the orchestra:

Tarnopolsky said he agreed to take the job partly because the misconduct case seemed to be resolved for the moment. (The two players are considering further legal challenges.)

“We begin with a clean slate,” he said. “And that’s really important.”

Her response:

My dear, dear hombre: you are not beginning with a clean slate. You may wish to be beginning with a clean slate, but you are not. Your dear partner, Gustavo Dudamel, may also wish for the same. But pretending you are beginning with a new slate sucks to women throughout the industry looking at your organization as a leading one. Maybe you don’t think any of us are running triple digit IQs and will fall for this line.

She is 100% correct. The culture of the NY Phil will take years, decades to repair.

She also wrote this:

The first issue is the way this upcoming partnership of Gustavo Dudamel and Tarnopolsky is described. It is as if this pair of men are the most important people in an orchestra. Music Director and President/CEO are the (usually, not always) white men who get up and make speeches, wear ties if they’re doing it right, shake hands, and raise money. (This is super important! Don’t misunderstand me.) They stand up, wave their arms, conduct 8-15 weeks out of about 42 per season, and come up with some idea of “sound” they will try to impose upon or develop with (if they are of the nicer ilk) the orchestra. They hire and fire people (kind of) and “oversee” programming, as if any one of them ever has employed some sort of true innovation. But I’ve sat in the same orchestra long enough—for almost a full generation now—to tell you that music directors and CEOs come and go. They are not the orchestra. They’re just not. Everyone is of course important—the janitors cleaning the hall, the people doing the significant organization and administration needed to run an orchestra, the teams of people raising money and writing grants, and the parking lot attendants and crossing guards. Everyone is important and necessary. But the people who are the orchestra are the people who have devoted their lives to it, who play there for their career, and watch multiple music directors and CEOs come and go like clouds passing in the sky.

She's correct in the above, as well. But it's also true that the wrong CEO and wrong music director can do damage to an orchestra. I'll list a few past and current situations where someone, usually the CEO and board, did lots of harm.

• Gerard Schwarz was mighty unpopular when he left the Seattle Symphony.
• Krishna Thiagarajan, the current chief executive at the Seattle Symphony, has apparently caused a huge amount of turnover and turmoil in the administration there.
• Michael Henson, the board, and administration of the Minnesota Orchestra locked the musicians out for more than a year.
• Matthew Spivey, Priscilla Geeslin, and the board of the San Francisco Symphony have managed to chase away one of the great conductors of our time, who is also one of the great composers of our time; they have failed to reach a fair agreement with the AGMA chorus members and are deep in talks with the orchestra.