Gilbert to Hamburg

Alan Gilbert, whose tenure as the music director of the NY Philharmonic just ended, has a new appointment: he will be the music director of the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, starting in the fall of 2019. He was their principal guest conductor from 2004 to 2015 and evidently it's a love-fest all around.

Here's what he has to say about this:

As I wrap up my time at the New York Philharmonic, very little would have tempted me to take on the challenge of a new position so soon. But the perfect confluence of circumstances seems to have come together with the Elbphilharmonie Orchestra. First of all, this is a group of musicians that I already know so well and love dearly. The musicians and I have shared a very special rapport and musical chemistry for many years. Furthermore, the environment surrounding the orchestra is uniquely exciting. The Elbphilharmonie is the perfect and already iconic physical space in which to play and present music, and the management team, headed by Achim Dobschall and Sonja Epping of the orchestra and Christoph Lieben-Seutter at the Elbphilharmonie, is the most inspired, ambitious, and forward-looking in the world of music. How rare it is to find a situation in which it is not only possible to imagine pushing the paradigm of orchestras in the 21st century forward, but one in which all constituent groups are demanding that this progress happen. I’m thrilled to have found such a place.

How rare, indeed. Congratulations to Maestro Gilbert, and thank you for giving me one more reason to visit Hamburg one of these days.

Here's Michael Cooper's NY Times article about Gilbert's new gig. Leaving a fixer-upper for a  brand-new house, yep.

Updated list of known openings:

• Seattle Symphony when Ludovic Morlot leaves
• Dallas Symphony Orchestra (when Jaap van Zweden takes up his new post at the NYPO)
• Milwaukee Symphony
• Shanghai Symphony Orchestra
• San Diego Symphony
• Orchestra Nationale de France
• Vienna Staatsoper / VPO (Dominique Meyer not planning to appoint a WSO MD; his contract expires in 2020.)
• Dresden Philharmonic: 2019 departure for Michael Sanderling
• MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony: 2018 departure for Kristian Jarvi
• Scottish Chamber Orchestra: 2018 departure for Robin Ticciati
• Orchestre National de Lyon: open now, with Leonard Slatkin's departure
• Brno Philharmonic: open since 2015
• Singapore Symphony: 2019 departure for Lan Shui
• Vienna RSO: 2018 departure for Cornelius Meister
• Toronto SO: 2018 departure for Peter Oundjian
• Winnipeg SO: 2018 departure for Alexander Mickelthwate
• Czech Philharmonic, following death of Jiří Bělohlávek
• Hamburg Symphony, following death of Sir Jeffrey Tate
• Washington National Opera, departure of Philippe Auguin at conclusion of 2017-18 
• San Francisco Opera, departure of Nicola Luisotti at conclusion of 2017-18
• * Opera North: open now, with Aleksandr Markovic's departure
• Bavarian State Opera: with Kirill Petrenko going to Berlin and KP's Munich contract through 2021, it's sort of implied that he'll give up Munich
• Opera Theatre of Saint Louis: 2017 is Stephen Lord's final season as MD

And closed:

• St. Louis Symphony Orchestra; Stéphane Denève to succeed David Robertson
• Hong Kong Philharmonic; Jaap van Zweden's contract extended through summer of 2022
• City of Birmingham SO; Mirga Grazintye-Tyla appointed 2/4/2016, succeeding Andris Nelsons
• New York Philharmonic; Jaap Van Zweden appointed, 1/27/16, succeeding Alan Gilbert
• National Symphony Orchestra; Gianandrea Noseda appointed, 1/4/2016, succeeding Christoph Eschenbach.
• Leipzig Gewandhaus: Andris Nelsons appointed, 9/9/2015
• LSO: Simon Rattle appointed, 3/2/2015
• Orchestra de Paris: Daniel Harding, 6/11/2015
• Berlin Philharmonic: Kirill Petrenko appointed, 6/22/2015
• BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra; Thomas Dausgaard succeeds Donald Runnicles in September, 2016
• NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, Hamburg; Alan Gilbert appointed starting in 2019.