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Daniel Harding
Photo: Polly Brown, Courtesy of Los Angeles Philharmonic
No kidding: my summer vacation starts with an Air France flight from San Francisco (SFO) to Paris (CDG), and Harding is a part-time pilot for Air France.
I expect that Harding, who is also a conductor, will be spending a little more time, okay, a lot more time, in California than he used to, because he's just been named the next music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, effective with the 2027-28 season. He succeeds Gustavo Dudamel, who, after 17 seasons, is on his way to the N.Y. Philharmonic.
The LA Phil, as it styles itself, is about to have an interesting leadership structure, with Harding starting out with 8 weeks, increasing to 12, as the music director; Esa-Pekka Salonen, who was music director of the LA Phil from 1992 to 2009, as creative director, with approximately 6 weeks a year (he also has a gig at the Orchestre de Paris, and Harding lives in Paris – his four children are there – so perhaps they can have confabs in the City of Lights); and Dudamel with up to 4 weeks, plus there's conductor-in-residence Anna Handler, a position to which she was recently appointed.
Between Harding, Salonen, and Dudamel, they've got up to 22 weeks of the season covered, leaving the rest for guest conductors. I hope the three of them get along well. And I hope Handler gets in some conducting too.
The appointment didn't take me by surprise, because I read Mr. CK Dexter Haven's blog, All is Yar, and he handicapped the conductors he saw as candidates the other week, putting Harding on top. (Note that he also has a believable explanation of why San Francisco, not L.A., signed Elim Chan.) He has good access at the orchestra and has interviewed a number of incoming and outgoing musicians; I have fond memories in particular of a two-part interview with Michele Zukovsky when she retired from the principal clarinet chair after 55 years.
Is anyone taking bets on just how many reviews and articles about Harding will include piloting and flying metaphors?
Coverage elsewhere:
- LA Phil press release
- Adam Nagourney, NY Times (gift link)
- Mark Swed, L.A. Times (paywall)
- Richard S. Ginell, SFCV
- Brian Lauritzen, Classical California
- Laurie Niles, Violinist.com
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