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.
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.
11 comments:
I suspect Salonen realized in San Francisco that he doesn't want an American music director job now. All his new positions are pretty much artistic-only, not all the extra stuff.
So if Nelsons' dismissal "was not related to artistic standards, performances, or achievements," what was it related to?
Differing "visions," which of course no one is describing. Chad Smith and the Board might want the BSO to look more like the LA Phil, which is where Smith was artistic administrator and then CEO. That is pure speculation on my part, and worth about five cents.
Here's a gift link to a new article by David Allen, a music journalist for whom I have great respect. A Maestro’s Fall From Grace Is a Cautionary Tale Worth Heeding
That link was amazingly hard to follow. The article would appear on screen for about one second and then disappear. Trying to bring it up on article.today sent me down a rabbit hole of repeatedly identifying pictures of motorcycles. Eventually, after several tries, I managed to highlight and copy the text during the one second before it disappeared, only to find, when I pasted it into a word processor, that it was only the first page. Nevertheless, it was clear from that first page that, in the author's opinion, Nelsons' dismissal was indeed "related to artistic standards, performances, or achievements."
I will get you the full text when I get home - out for a film at the Orinda.
No idea why you had that problem - it's a clickable link; on my home machine, it goes to a redirect notice, but the link to the Times page is clickable there as well and works. Anyway, sending you the full text momentarily.
Thanks for the full article; it just reinforces what I already perceived from it, that Nelsons' standards of artistry have plummeted, and while this can't prove that that's the reason he was dismissed, it seems to the author overwhelmingly likely to be the reason.
You're very welcome. There is a wild discussion on FB about the article, with various implausible claims being made, like that David Allen's vicious reviews of Nelsons are why the Board is letting him go. I asked the person saying that whether he thought the Board paid more attention to reviews than to what they hear with their own ears at concerts, and said that he was attributing more power to Allen than any music journalist actually has.
The Board doesn't have to be paying attention to Allen's reviews. Maybe they just heard the same problems he has.
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