I (Sort of) Called This One

Symphony Hall, Boston

Photo by Lisa Hirsch

April, 2025

Me to a friend, January, 2026:

I will say that when Chad Smith got that job [CEO of the Boston Symphony] and Salonen decided to leave SFS, I wondered whether Smith would try to recruit Salonen for the BSO. If he did, it didn't work, but I did notice that Nelsons is now on an annually-renewable contract. Smith can cut him loose any time he has someone in mind as a replacement.

And to a different friend in July, 2024:

I have been wondering whether Boston would make a play for Salonen. They can say good-bye to Nelsons easily, and Smith presumably has a good relationship with Salonen.

Earlier today, in the NY Times (gift link):

Boston Symphony Abruptly Ends Its Music Director’s Contract

The orchestra’s leadership announced on Friday that it and the conductor Andris Nelsons “were not aligned on future vision.”

The Boston Symphony Orchestra abruptly dismissed its music director, Andris Nelsons, on Friday, in a harsh public split between one of the nation’s leading orchestras and the man who has led it for 12 years. The orchestra said that it and Nelsons were “not aligned on future vision.”

His tenure with the Boston Symphony will end in summer 2027, at the end of its Tanglewood season. The announcement — in tone and timing — was startling in a world in which such personnel shifts are typically done delicately and over the course of a few years.

“The decision to not renew his contract was made by the B.S.O.’s board of trustees because, beyond our shared desire to ensure our orchestra continues to perform at the highest levels, the B.S.O. and Andris Nelsons were not aligned on future vision,” the board and Chad Smith, the orchestra’s president and chief executive, said in a letter to patrons. A similar note was sent to members of the orchestra.

"Not aligned on a future vision," hmm, where have I heard this before? Oh, right, Esa-Pekka Salonen about the relationship between him and the SFS Board of Directors.

We won't know for a while whether Smith has someone in mind. It's not likely to be Salonen, although, hmm, Salonen was just appointed to a position at Tanglewood, as director of the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music in 2026."

Okay, even Salonen can't manage positions at three orchestras at once, so probably someone else will get the BSO job. 

Related:

• The Boston Musical Intelligencer reports on the story and includes Nelsons' letter to the BSO musicians.