I'm probably missing some, but here are some more music directors in motion:
- Semyon Bychkov to leave the Czech Philharmonic when his contract expires at the end of the 2027-28 season.
- Alexander Shelley departs the National Arts Centre Orchestra of Canada in 2026.
- Kazuki Yamada to step down from the Orchestre Philharmonique of Monte-Carlo when his contract ends in August, 2026.
Open positions:
- Orchestre Philharmonique of Monte-Carlo, in August, 2026
- National Arts Centre Orchestra of Canada, in 2026 when Alexander Shelley leaves.
- Czech Philharmonic, when Semyon Bychkov leaves in 2028
- Symphony Tacoma when Sara Ionnides leaves in 2026
- Boston Baroque, when Martin Pearlman leaves.
- Berkeley Symphony, when Joseph Young leaves.
- Milwaukee Symphony, when Ken-David Masur leaves.
- New Jersey Symphony, when Xian Zhang leaves at the end of the 2027-28 season.
- Ulster Orchestra, when Daniele Rustioni leaves
- Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, when Daniel Harding leaves
- Oslo Philharmonic, when Klaus Mäkelä moves on in 2027
- Orchestre de Paris, when Klaus Mäkelä moves on in 2027
- Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, when Santu-Matias Rouvali leaves in 2025
- Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra because of the departure of Lorenzo Viotti in 2025
- Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, because of the departure of Lorenzo Viotti in 2025
- Dutch National Opera, because of the departure of Lorenzo Viotti in 2025
- English National Opera
- Bergen Philharmonic
- LA. Opera, at the end of 2025-26
- San Francisco Symphony, at the end of 2024-25
- Phoenix Symphony
- Cleveland Orchestra, as of June, 2027
- Lahti Symphony, when Dalia Stasevka leaves.
- Antwerp Symphony, with the departure of Elim Chan.
- Paris Opera is currently without a music director.
- Nashville Symphony, when Giancarlo Guerrero leaves.
- Deutsche Oper Berlin, when Donald Runnicles leaves.
- Rottedam Philharmonic, when Lahav Shani leaves.
- Los Angeles Philharmonic, as of 2026-27, when Gustavo Dudamel leaves for NY.
- Teatro Regio Turin: Open now with departure of Gianandrea Noseda. The Teatro Regio has not named a new music director.
- Marin Symphony, at the end of 2022-23.
- Vienna Staatsoper, when Philippe Jordan leaves at the end of 2025.
Conductors looking for jobs (that is, as of the near future, or now, they do not have a posting). The big mystery, to me, is why an orchestra hasn't snapped up Susanna Mälkki. Slightly lesser mystery: Henrik Nanasi, whose superb Cosi fan tutte is still lingering in my ears.
- Ken-David Masur
- Joseph Young
- Kirill Karabits
- Marc Albrecht
- Markus Stenz
- Esa-Pekka Salonen, if he wants such a position again
- James Conlon, if he wants such a position again.
- Dalia Stasevska (though her contract at Lahti has been extended by a year)
- Elim Chan
- Kirill Karabits
- Tito Muñoz
- Andrey Boreyko
- Osmo Vänskä
- Susanna Mälkki, who left the Helsinki Philharmonic at the end of 2022-23.
- MGT (apparently does not want a full-time job, as of early 2022)
- Miguel Harth-Bedoya (seems settled in at Baylor)
- Sian Edwards
- Ingo Metzmacher
- Jac van Steen
- Ilan Volkov
- Aleksandr Markovic
- Lothar Koenigs
- Henrik Nanasi
- Philippe Jordan, eventually
- Franz Welser-Möst, if he wants such a job
And closed:
- Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, with the appointment of Markus Poschner
- Orquesta y Coro Nacionales de España, with the appointment of Kent Nagano
- Eugene (OR), with the appointment of Alex Prior
- Utah Symphony, with the appointment of Markus Poschner.
- Bournemouth Symphony appoints Mark Wigglesworth as Chief Conductor (some time ago).
- Colorado Symphony appoints Peter Oundjian, effective with the 2025-26 season.
- Pacific Symphony appoints Alexander Shelley to succeed Carl St. Clair, starting with the 2026-27 season.
- Milwaukee Symphony, when Ken-David Masur leaves at the end of 2025-26.
- Seattle Symphony, with the appointment of Xian Zhang as of the 2025-26 season.
- Edward Gardner starts as music director of Norwegian National Opera this season,
- Sarasota Orchestra: Giancarlo Guerrero has been named music director, as of 2025.
- Hong Kong Philharmonic: Tarmo Peltokoski becomes music director in 2026.
- Tokyo Symphony, with the appointment of Lorenzo Viotti.
- Oakland Symphony, where Kedrick Armstrong succeeds the late Michael Morgan.
- Minnesota Opera: closed with the appointment of Christopher Franklin.
- The Chicago Symphony Orchestra gets to share Klaus Mäkelä with the Concertgebouw.
- The Hallé Orchestra's next conductor will be Kahchun Wong.
- Marin Alsop becomes principal guest conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, I believe succeeding Nathalie Stutzmann.
- Simon Rattle becomes principal guest conductor of the Czech Philharmonic.
- John Storgards will becomes chief conductor of the Turku Philharmonic.
- Update and correction: San Francisco Chamber Orchestra was unable to hire Cosette Justo Valdés. Instead, Jory Fankuchen, a violinist in the orchestra, has been named Principal Conductor and will lead this season's programs.
- Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra: Cristian Mačelaru becomes music director in 2025.
- Indianapolis Symphony hires Jun Markel, effective September 1, 2024.
- Andris Nelsons renewed his contract with the Boston Symphony. He's now on an evergreen rolling contract, which will continue as long as he and the orchestra are happy with each other. MTT had one of these at SFS.
- Shanghai Symphony, with the appointment of Long Yu.
- Virginia Symphony, with the appointment of Eric Jacobsen.
- Warsaw Philharmonic, with the appointment of Krzysztof Urbański.
- Bern Symphony, with the appointment of Krzysztof Urbański.
- Berlin State Opera, with the appointment of Christian Thielemann.
- Dresden Philharmonic, with the appointment of Donald Runnicles.
- New York Philharmonic, with the appointment of Gustavo Dudamel. Note that Jaap van Zweden leaves in 2024 and there will be a two-season gap before Dudamel arrives.
- Helsinki Philharmonic: Jukka-Pekka Saraste to succeed Susanna Mälkki.
- Staatskapelle Dresden, with the appointment of Daniele Gatti.
- Seoul Philharmonic appoints Jaap van Zweden.
- Royal Opera appoints Jakub Hrůša to succeed Antonio Pappano.
2 comments:
Some updates for your list:
English National Opera: Andre de Ridder becomes music director in 2027
Antwerp Symphony: Marc Albrecht becomes chief conductor in 2026
Teatro Regio Turin: Andrea Battistoni became music director this past January
New for your list:
Residentie Orchestra, The Hague: Jun Markl is now chief conductor, after Anja Bihlmaier finished her 4 years there
Freiburg Philharmonic Orchestra: Andre de Ridder will leave in 2027 to go to ENO
Teatro alla Scala: Riccardo Chailly leaves at the end of 2026. Myung-Whun Chung begins at the start of 2027
Norwegian Radio Orchestra: Holly Hyun Choe becomes principal conductor in January 2026
Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie: Marzena Diakun becomes chief conductor in 2026
Delaware Symphony Orchestra: Michelle Di Russo becomes music director this fall
Korean National Symphony Orchestra: Roberto Abbado becomes music director in January 2026
Forgot to comment about Elim Chan before, but IMVHO, any orchestra interested in her as its next music director needs to watch her carefully, because of her career-hopping habits. She has a history of cutting her tenures short with organizations early, like Norrlands Opera (gone after 1 year) and the Antwerp SO (she stepped down 1 year ahead of her contract).
While you've daisy-chained your thoughts about Susanna Malkki before (and I probably commented on the situation before), if we go with those comments a while back from "Harper" on CKDH's blog, granted that "Harper" (and presumably CKDH) evidently does not like Malkki at all, "Harper" may be on to something as to whether no orchestra or opera house wants her as its musical boss, i.e. none of them like her enough either to want to hire her as a musical head. She will take over from Sakari Oramo as a conducting professor at the Sibelius Academy soon, which certainly isn't chopped liver as an appointment. But that doesn't quite have the cachet of chief conductor of (fill in the blank), to be sure.
This may be a similar situation to David Robertson, whom Anthony Tommasini at the NYT championed back in the day in his artistic man-crush way as the next big thing among American conductors, and as someone worthy of a Big Five appointment. But that never happened, and it seems in hindsight that it was never going to happen. It never happened either with other American conductors of that generation like Alsop or Spano, or earlier generations like Zinman or Slatkin. If human civilization survives long enough, we'll have to see what happens with Karina Canellakis.
Thanks so much! I'd heard about Chung (La Scala) and de Ridder at the ENO, but not the others.
That is a good point about Chan. I can't imagine David Robertson helped his career with his early departure from St. Louis. I think he's very good, but yep, no major U.S. post. I've also wondered why James Conlon never had a big-orchestra appointment. He's been great most times I've seen him.
"Harper" seems to also strongly dislike Alex Ross and seems to give him credit for power no critic actually has.
Interesting news about Mälkki, whom I like a lot, though she has not been back to SFS since before the pandemic (and I think since before Salonen's appointment).
I've been very mixed about Canellakis; I don't think she has a particularly good ear for orchestral sound qua sound, based on her SFS appearances.
I am of course concerned with who the SFS Board will eventually appoint as the next music director.
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