Joshua Kosman has picked up Dobrin's report. I have email out to Cal Performances but have heard nothing yet.
UPDATE: It's true. He'll have his work cut out for him at Philly. His predecessor might be characterized as union-busting, given her administration at Philly and at Atlanta. She took the orchestra into and out of bankruptcy.
The orchestra has had a problem board that let the organization drift for way too long. Note the five-year tenure of Christoph Eschenbach, followed by four years of acting MD Charles Dutoit (they might be regretting this now) before Yannick Nezet-Seguin was tapped.
This year's season is also notably dull, despite having an energetic young MD, and it's an all-male season. Let's hope Matias Tarnopolsky can turn the ship around.
Other coverage:
- Michael Cooper, Times
- Peter Dobrin, updated
- Joshua Kosman, updated
MATíAS
TARNOPOLSKY,
CAL
PERFORMANCES ARTISTIC AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,
to
step down AFTER NINE SEASONS
Berkeley,
March 26, 2018 — Cal
Performances announces today that its executive and artistic director
Matías Tarnopolsky will step down this summer, leaving the
organization to assume his new appointment as President and CEO of
the Philadelphia Orchestra. He will continue in his role at Cal
Performances through the end of June 2018.
Matías
Tarnopolsky
has
served
as executive
and
artistic
director
of
Cal
Performances
since
August
2009.
Situated on the vibrant
campus of the University of California, Berkeley, Cal
Performances presents the world’s leading orchestras, ensembles,
and soloists; dance and theater companies; jazz artists and speakers;
often in multifaceted residencies. It reaches
more than 150,000 people annually through concerts and campus and
community events, including talks, lecture demonstrations, and
academic courses created to connect with performances on the season.
Under the leadership of Matías
Tarnopolsky, the organization launched Berkeley RADICAL (Research and
Development Initiative in Creativity Arts and Learning) in 2015 to
cultivate the artistic literacy of future audiences and connect the
most innovative artists in the world with the intellectual capital of
UC Berkeley. Tarnopolsky brought Gustavo Dudamel and the Simon
Bolivar Orchestra of Venezuela to Cal Performances to launch Berkeley
RADICAL with a residency in September 2015. Orchestral residencies
rich with engagement opportunities for the students and greater
community at UC Berkeley have been a hallmark of his tenure on
campus. Tarnopolsky notably brought the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
to the UC Berkeley campus in March 2014; the Philharmonia Orchestra
of London and its principal conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen for two
residencies in fall 2012 and fall 2016; and Riccardo Muti and the
Chicago Symphony Orchestra for a memorable residency in October 2017.
Tarnopolsky has also been at the helm of
the organization’s artistic commissions, including underwriting
Robert Battle’s Awakening,
the first piece he choreographed for the Alvin Ailey American Dance
Theater after becoming its artistic director in 2011;
the revival of John Adams, Lucinda Childs, and Frank O. Gehry’s
Available Light
in honor of Adams’s 70th
birthday in February 2017; Mark Morris’s Layla
and Majnun which Cal
Performances gave its world premiere in September 2016; establishing
Cal Performances’ legacy partnership of Kronos Quartet’s Fifty
for the Future commissioning
project; and spearheading the commission of a new oratorio, Dreamer,
inspired by undocumented immigrants, from composer Jimmy López and
librettist Nilo Cruz to be performed in March 2019.
Also under his directorship Cal
Performances presented an exclusive engagement of Robert Wilson and
Philip Glass’s opera in four parts Einstein
on the Beach in October 2012,
and staged a collaboration with the San Francisco Opera of The
Secret Garden in March 2013.
“As
I embark on an exciting new chapter I would like to express my
heartfelt gratitude to the board and staff of Cal Performances, and
to my colleagues on the campus of UC Berkeley,” says Tarnopolsky.
“The last nine years have been extraordinary, surrounded by an
inspiring cultural and intellectual environment, appreciative and
engaged audiences, and artists and ensembles who give their best when
they perform under our auspices. Doing this kind of work, at the
heart of UC Berkeley, our great public university, is a rare
privilege and one which I have treasured.”
Susan
Graham, co-chair of Cal Performances’ Board of Trustees shares,
“Matías
has been a fabulous director and has elevated an already outstanding
performing arts organization to be the best at any university. Under
his directorship Cal Performances has become increasingly notable not
only for the performances we present, but also for the commissioning
of new works, for our artist residencies, and for our outreach to the
university and local communities. We're
very sorry to see him go. We know he'll be an enormous asset to the
Philadelphia Orchestra.” Graham co-chaired the search committee for
Tarnopolsky’s hiring and personally recruited him to Cal
Performances in 2009.
Cal Performances will announce its
2018-19 season on April 17, 2018.
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