Gail Samuel to the Boston Symphony

Gail Samuel in Copley Square, Feb. 17, 2021 (Photo by Aram Boghosian)

Courtesy of the Boston Symphony Orchestra

It's just over a year since Mark Volpe's retirement from the Boston Symphony was announced, and today the BSO named his successor: Gail Samuel, who has been an executive at the LA Philharmonic for some 25 years, most recently as Chief Operating Officer. She was one of the two strong internal candidates to take over as CEO when Deborah Borda returned to the New York Philharmonic after many years at the LA Phil. (For reasons nobody could fathom, the LA Phil's Board went with an outsider, who was replaced less than two years later by Chad Smith, the other strong internal candidate.)

Mark Volpe has been a strong manager* at the BSO, which has had good labor relations and has an enormous endowment, more than $500 million.  The orchestra has had the same problems during the pandemic as every other full-time U.S. orchestra, and negotiated musician pay cuts as a result.

It's great that the BSO has named such a strong and experienced leader to this important position. Congratulations to Ms. Samuel on her new job!

More:

• BSO web site
• BSO Press room; there's a link to a PDF of the press release
• NY Times (photo is a Times photo taken outside WDCH, which amuses me a bit)

* Yeah, James Levine's troubled tenure as music director of the BSO owing to his health problems, I know, I know, But I don't know what the BSO knew.