Pointer Report on Jaap van Zweden

Pointer is a platform in The Netherlands that describes itself this way:

Pointer is the platform for investigative journalism of KRO-NCRV on TV, radio and online. TV and radio makers, data journalists and researchers bring revealing, in-depth stories, with social impact. A platform that makes modern investigative journalism such as crowdsourcing and open source intelligence accessible to all Dutch people. In the middle of society, for and by the people.

Today, they released a report on Jaap van Zweden, the Dutch conductor who has been the music director of the Dallas Symphony, NY Philharmonic, Hong Kong Philharmonic, and Seoul Philharmonic (among others) and who has guest conducted worldwide. Next year, he's conducting four concerts, including the opening gala, at the San Francisco Symphony, which has also announced that over three seasons (2025-26, 2026-27, and 2027-28), he'll be leading a cycle of the Beethoven symphonies.

Here's the start of the article on Pointer's web site:

In several orchestras where Jaap van Zweden was the conductor, there has been evidence of transgressive behavior. This is evident from research by Pointer (KRO-NCRV) based on conversations with dozens of musicians and other insiders. They outline a pattern of fear in places where the most famous conductor in the Netherlands has been in charge. Watch the extra long broadcast of Pointer on the YouTube channel of Pointer this afternoon at 4 p.m. and on Sunday evening on NPO 2.

In recent months, Pointer journalists spoke to more than 50 musicians, directors and staff members from seven of the orchestras that Jaap van Zweden conducted in the Netherlands and abroad over the past 25 years. Van Zweden's tough, sometimes intimidating manners keep recurring. Individual musicians from the Netherlands and abroad tell of being insulted and belittled in front of colleagues. For a number of them, working with the Dutchman has had a lasting impact.

There were reports about van Zweden behaving in a borderline abusive manner when he was at the Dallas Symphony before he was appointed to the NY Phil position. It was clear at the time that Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim had him in mind when she wrote her comments for this article, for example. And a friend mentioned that the Dallas News reported on these issues as well; here's a 2014 article about van Zweden.

I own that I have no idea what to make of "the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra became the best orchestra in the world under his leadership in 2019." Maybe Google Translate didn't accurately render that in English, but I do not think it likely that the Hong Kong Phil was somehow better than the Berlin Phil, the VPO, the LSO, Cleveland, etc., etc.

Over the last few years, U.S. musical institutions have shown at least some increased willingness to do something about abusive conductors and musicians. Plácido Domingo was disinvited from San Francisco Opera, Charles Dutoit has barely worked in the United States, the NY Phil appears to have finally fired two of their musicians, etc. I don't know what impact this report will have on van Zweden's future engagements at the San Francisco Symphony, but I do hope it means that he has no chance of being the next music director of SFS. I've never heard any rumors of abusive behavior on the part of Herbert Blomstedt, MTT, or Esa-Pekka Salonen, and I hope that SFS will continue to hire music directors of unimpeachable character.

San Francisco Symphony 2025-26

Davies Symphony Hall

Photo by Lisa Hirsch

Well, SFS's 2025-26 season dropped last week. I started buying a more or less full subscription when Salonen arrived, despite my status as a member of the press, and today I called the SFS box office and told them I wouldn't be renewing.

I don't know what the hell they were thinking when they put this season together. 

To start with, I have to assume that a bunch of programs originally assigned to Esa-Pekka Salonen were redistributed to other conductors. We know, for example, that the SFS music director typically conducts the gala, the first several weeks of programs, and the last several weeks of programs. That concert in June with Stephane Deneve leading two French works with major organ parts, both played by Olivier Latry? I would bet $100 that it was originally a Salonen concert and that one work on it was his own organ concerto, because Latry has played it with Salonen conducting. That concert in late September with Donald Runnicles, consisting of Mahler 6 and Berg songs? I leave more of this game to you.

To continue, what the actual fuck with the "focus on Beethoven and Mozart"? Four Beethoven symphonies will appear this season, conducted by Jaap van Zweden, James Gaffigan, and John Storgårds. 

And for some reason, they decided that van Zweden will conduct a full cycle of the Beethoven symphonies over three seasons. He is leading a total of four concerts in 2025-26, and....I don't get it. I've seen him conducted live twice, once with the CSO and once with SFS, and thought he did not have any special insights into what he led. I also reviewed his recordings of Das Rheingold and Die Walküre (note that at that time he had never conducted a staged Wagner opera, only in concert) for the Wagner Society journal, and declined to continue with Siegfried and Götterdämmerung. 

It's worth noting that Gaffigan gets three concerts. I know that some of the undoubted scramble to find guest conductors, 23 of them, depended on who was available when. I hesitate to read too much into how this shook out, except maybe for the apparent commitment to van Zweden over three seasons.

It is so much a season of dead white men: do we really need the fourth performance in the last five years of Beethoven's 9th, previously performed by Xian Zhang, MTT, and Daniel Stewart, or the fourth performance of Dvořák's Symphony No. 9, From the New World, previously conducted by Xian Zhang, Joshua Weilerstein, and Dalia Stasevska?

No. We do not. And yet here it is.

Some statistics about the season (you bet I'm glad I hung onto that schedule for 2014-15):

• 49 composers whose works are performed, of whom....
• 37 are dead white men, 12 aren't
• 1 is a dead black man (Duke Ellington)
• 1 is a dead white women (Barbara Strozzi)
• 2 are living Black men
• 1 is a living Iranian-Canadian man
• 1 is a living Hispanic man
• 4 are living white men
• 2 are living white women
• In terms of number of works by a single composer:
• Mozart: 8 (this includes a big all-Mozart program conducted by Harry Bicket, featuring the wonderful soprano Golda Schultz)
• Beethoven: 5
• J.S. Bach: 4
• Dvořák: 4
• Tchaikovsky: 4
• Prokofiev: 3
• Saint-Saëns: 3
• Gershwin, Mahler, Ravel, Shostakovich: 2 each
• 26 weeks of orchestra series concerts, down from 28 last season and a staggering 39 in 2014-15. I have to note that 2014-15 included the big MTT Beethoven festival, which included several one-off programs, Fidelio, the staged Missa Solemnis, and other great stuff.
• Women conducting in the orchestral series next season: 4 (Canellakis, Young, Glover, Lu)
• 10 chamber music concerts, same as last year.
• 8 Great Performers concerts, down from 10 last year and 15 in 2014-15
• Two chamber orchestras are visiting, but no full-sized orchestras
• 8 special events, including the June program with Yo-Yo Ma, the opening gala and more.
• Prices are eye-watering for Ma, going up to $420, and gosh, $89 for a single ticket in the second tier to see a film with live orchestra.

Honestly, it feels as though MTT and Esa-Pekka Salonen never set foot in Davies.

Media round-up:

• Lisa Hirsch, S.F. Chronicle news report
• Joshua Kosman, S.F. Chronicle rant analysis. You'll be shocked, shocked, to hear that I agree with every word and punctuation mark.
• Janos Gereben, SFCV
• Gabe Meline, KQED. His headline says it all: "San Francisco Symphony Announces 2025–26 Season of ‘Just Play the Hits’"

I don't disagree with either Janos or Joshua that there are bright spots in the season, from Gabriella Smith's SoundBox to Mahler by Donald! Runnicles! and Herbert Blomsted to the new work by Outi Tarkiainen to the Ibert flute concerto with the fabulous Yubeen Kim. But still. Who planned this thing? And, you know, here's what Matt Spivey, CEO (and former artistic administrator) said about the music director hunt:

“Most importantly, we’re looking for someone with exceptional talent and a strong artistic vision who will inspire our musicians, audiences and community,” Symphony CEO Matt Spivey told KQED on Wednesday. “We can’t share more specifics while the search is underway, but we’re looking forward to sharing more when we’re ready to make an official announcement.” 

Seriously, folks: you had someone who met those criteria and you let him go.
 

Van Zweden Takes the Fifth

 

Davies Symphony Hall

Jaap van Zweden, the outgoing music director the NY Philharmonic, was the guest conductor last week at San Francisco Symphony.

I heard JvZ live only once before, at the Chicago Symphony in November, 2016. At that concert, he conducted the instrumental version of the Prelude and Liebestodt fromWagner's Tristan und Isolde, Mozart's Masonic Funeral Music, and the Brahms Requiem, the big piece on the program. I don't seem to have written a blog post about it, and it was months before I blogged about the primary reason I was in Chicago, performances at Lyric Opera of Berlioz's Les Troyens. 

I do remember not really liking anything on the program. The Wagner was stodgy, the Mozart had little sparkle, the Brahms was at best okay. The orchestra's ensemble wasn't great; nothing seemed to hang together.

My other experience with van Zweden was reviewing the first two installments of his concert performances, with the Hong Kong Philharmonic, of Wagner's Der Ring des Niebelungen. I though the casting a very mixed bag (Matthias Goerne as Wotan? Petra Lang as Brünnhilde??); I thought the orchestra had a poor sense of style; I thought the conducting off in various ways. I was not at all surprised to learn that he'd never conducted a staged Wagner opera. They lack drama, and I disliked them enough that I declined to review Siegfried and Götterdämmergung. (Those reviews were published in Leitmotiv, the journal of the Northern California Wagner Society; if you'd like copies, let me know.)

All of this throat-clearing is prefatory to saying that did my best to go into Thursday's performance with an open mind, because you never know when you're about to see a great performance. Performers can surprise you!

And indeed, I was very, very pleasantly surprised by van Zweden's account of Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony. It was colorful, flexibly conducted, well paced, and with plenty of drama. It was an excellent performance and I have no complaints about it. I wasn't taking notes, and I also haven't got a lot of details to provide about it.

On the other hand, wow, the other big 5 on the program, the one by Beethoven? Ooof. I didn't like it at all, although I'll note that nearly everyone else in the audience gave it a standing ovation.

What didn't I like? Well, the whole darned thing sounded grayish, without a lot of color; the tempos, while not in Norrington territory, were fast and did not work well, because van Zweden trampled on a lot of fermatas and rests and did not give the music room to breathe or space for the fermatas and rests to make their various structural points. The gorgeous second movement came off as perfunctory and without nuance. There was little mystery in the initial statement of the scherzo, or in its ghost, which returns in the last movement.

It was not anywhere near as bad as the truly dreadful Schubert Great C Major Symphony that Manfred Honeck conducted last year, which was super-fast for its own sake and consequently lost all detail. It just wasn't really good, and the Shostakovich showed what van Zweden is capable of. I don't know if the Beethoven just got the short end of the rehearsal time stick, or what. 

I was also reminded that I missed the last performance of Beethoven's 5th, two years ago during the Omircron COVID surge. I believe that it was on a program with the Nielsen Fifth, a quirky and fabulous symphony, and that Herbert Blomstedt conducted it. I turned in my ticket, which I deeply, deeply regret.

Elsewhere:

• Joshua Kosman, SF Chronicle, is more enthused about the Beethoven than I am. I agree completely about principal flute Yubeen Kim, who has a gorgeous sound that he can vary at will.
• Rebecca Wishnia, SFCV
• DB at Kalimac

Previously:

• Alex Ross, TNY, on van Zweden's appointment. Note the remarks in both New Yorker articles about Salonen, for whose presence in SF I am grateful, however long his tenure here might be.
• Alex Ross, TNY, on various issues around the NYPO's search for a music director, including a review of a JvZ concert that included Beethoven's Fifth.
• Zachary Woolfe reviews the same concert in the NY Times (gift link)

David Geffen Hall Round-up

David Geffen Hall

View of the stage and some of the seating

Photo by Chris Lee, courtesy of the N.Y. Philharmonic

The day has arrived or is arriving: the gut-renovated David Geffen Hall, reduced by about 500 seats and now more of a grapevine theater, the staged moved way out from the rear wall, is re-opening. Everyone has been complaining about the acoustics of the theater since it opened nearly 60 years ago, and everyone is hopeful that the new theater will sound good to the audience* and that musicians on the stage, crucially, will be able to hear each other - particularly the musicians of the NY Philharmonic, who've suffered for all that time. Their first concert is on Wednesday, October 12, in two days.

• Highlights from the re-opening of Geffen Hall, various NY Times reporters. Note that the musicians quoted sound happy!
• Michael Kimmelman, A Notoriously Jinxed Concert Hall is Reborn, Again, NY Times. A superb survey of the hall's history.
• Javier C. Hernandez, A Pioneering Orchestral Boss Had `Unfinished Business`, So She Returned. Look, if anyone is entitled to use "The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba" as their ringtone, it's Deborah Borda.
• Rivka Galchen, The Science and Emotions of Lincoln Center’s New Sound, The New Yorker
• Justin Davidson, The New David Geffen Hall is Here. How Does It Sound?, New York Magazine 
• Zachary Woolfe, NY Times, How the Philharmonic’s New Home Sounds, From Any Seat
• Zachary Woolfe, NY Times, After Decades, the Philharmonic’s Hall Sounds and Feels More Intimate
• Zachary Woolfe, NY Times, Critic's Notebook: The Philharmonic Tests Its New Home With the Classics
• Josephine Sedgwick, The Philharmonic's Home Gets a Tune-Up
• Michael Andor Brodeur, Washington Post
• Alex Ross, The New Yorker

Watch for updates to this post; I imagine that others will weigh in on the new hall.

UPDATED: November 10, 2022. Seven articles from the Times! Well, it's good publicity.

* I was most recently there in 2017 for a concert performance of Das Rheingold. Sitting in a seat that would have had great sound in most theaters...I could barely hear the six harps on the stage. The orchestra sounded fabulous when I heard them at Carnegie Hall in 2010.

Jaap van Zweden to Seoul.

Ahem, well. After stating rather clearly that he was leaving the NY Philharmonic because the pandemic led him to reconsider his priorities, and to spend more time with his family in The Netherlands, Jaap van Zweden has accepted a post with....the Seoul Philharmonic, succeeding Osmo Vänskä, who decided not to renew his contract there. Van Zweden says that he is going there to build the orchestra, as he did in Hong Kong, a position that he is leaving when he leaves the NY Philharmonic.

Open positions:

• Marin Symphony
• Indianapolis Symphony
• Sarasota Orchestra, following the death of Bramwell Tovey
• Seattle Symphony: open right now (January, 2022)
• Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra: open in 2024
• Staatskapelle Dresden: open in 2024
• New York Philharmonic, when Jaap van Zweden leaves in 2024.
• Hong Kong Philharmonic, when Jaap van Zweden leaves in 2024.
• Oakland Symphony, owing to the death of Michael Morgan in August, 2021.
• Royal Opera, Covent Garden, when Sir Antonio Pappano leaves for the LSO in September, 2024.
• Teatro Regio Turin: Open now with departure of Gianandrea Noseda. the Teatro Regional's has not named a new music director.
• Minnesota Opera: Michael Christie has left. MO has not named a new music director. 
• Virginia Symphony: JoAnn Falletta is now laureate, but no successor has been named.
• Shanghai Symphony Orchestra
• San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, at the end of 2022-23.
• Marin Symphony, at the end of 2022-23.

Conductors looking for jobs (that is, as of the near future, or now, they do not have a posting): 

• Osmo Vänskä
• Alasdair Neale
• Ben Simon
• Susanna Mälkki, who leaves the Helsinki Philharmonic at the end of 2023-24
• Jaap van Zweden, who leaves the NY Phil at the end of 2023-24
• MGT (apparently does not want a full-time job, as of early 2022)
• Krzysztof Urbański
• Miguel Harth-Bedoya
• Lionel Bringuier
• Ludovic Morlot
• Sian Edwards
• Ingo Metzmacher
• Jac van Steen
• Mark Wigglesworth
• David Robertson
• Peter Oundjian
• Philippe Auguin
• Kwame Ryan
• Ilan Volkov
• Aleksandr Markovic
• Lothar Koenigs
• Henrik Nanasi

And closed:

• Garry Walker: now full-time music director of Opera North
• Jun Markl: music director of the Malaysian Philharmonic
• Juanjo Mena: music director of the Cincinnati May Festival
• Eric Jacobsen is the new music director of the Virginia Symphony Orchestra.
• Andrés Orozco-Estrada is now music director of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra (not to be confused with the Vienna Philhamonic).
• James Gaffigan appointed Music Director of the Komische Oper in Berlin, succeeding Henrik Nanasi, who left several years ago. 
• Royal Stockholm Philharmonic: Ryan Bancroft is chief conductor designate. He starts in 2023-24.
• Anja Bihlmaier is the new chief conductor of the Residentie Orchestra, The Hague.
• Dalia Stasevska is the new chief conductor of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra.
• Daniela Candillari named principal conductor of OTSL.
• Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, where Klaus Mäkelä, now their artistic partner, becomes chief conductor in 2027.
• Jonathon Heyward becomes music director of the Baltimore Symphony, succeeding Marin Alsop. Baltimore is not in great shape; they've had terrible management and terrible financial problems, although they've also hired Mark Hanson, who is known to be competent.
• Thomas Søndergård becomes music director of the Minnesota Orchestra, succeeding Osmo Vänskä. (The NY Times can manage the umlauts in Vänskä, but not the diacriticals in Søndergård. C'mon, you can do better than that.) Two interesting things about Søndergård: he was a timpanist, unusual among conductors, who tend to be pianists; he married his partner, a baritone, less than two weeks ago. Me, I'm wondering whether he was worried that Obergefell might be overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, given Justice Thomas's threat in Dobbs.
• Michigan Opera Theater: new principal conductor is Daniela Candillari.
• Teatro Comunale, Bologna: Oksana Lyniv becomes music director.
• Sarasota Orchestra: Bramwell Tovey becomes MD in 2022-23.
• Atlanta Symphony: Nathalie Stutzmann to succeed Robert Spano in 2022-23.
• Carlos Kalmar is now Director of Orchestral and Conducting Programs and Principal Conductor of the Cleveland Institute of Musicas well as Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Grant Park Music Festival in Chicago. 
• Houston Synphony: Juraj Valčuha to succeed Andrés Orozco-Estrada.
• Opera de Paris: Gustavo Dudamel succeeds Philippe Jordan.
• Melbourne Symphony: Jaime Martin becomes chief conductor in 2022. Sir Andrew Davis left at the end of 2019. 
• City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra: Kazuki Yamada replaces MGT when she leaves at the end of 2021-22
• London Symphony Orchestra: Sir Antonio Pappano becomes Chief Conductor Designate in September, 2023, Chief Conductor the following year.
• Fort Worth Symphony: Robert Spano to succeed Miguel Harth-Bedoya.
• Oregon Symphony: David Danzmayr succeeds Carlos Kalmar at the beginning of the 2021-22 season.
• Scottish Chamber Orchestra: Maxim Emelyanychev has succeeded Robin Ticciati
• Orchestre de Paris: Klaus Mäkelä to succeed Daniel Harding
• Montreal Symphony Orchestra: Rafael Payare has succeeded Kent Nagano.
• Richmond Symphony: Valentina Peleggi succeeds Steven Smith.
• Singapore Symphony: Hans Graf succeeded Lan Shui.
• BBC National Orchestra of Wales: Ryan Bancroft succeeded Thomas Søndergård
• BRSO hires Sir Simon Rattle to succeed the late Mariss Jansons, effective 2023.

Someone's Priorities are Right.

Lincoln Center Fountain

Photo by Lisa Hirsch

No sarcasm here: Anthony Tommasini reviewed the NY Philharmonic's opening program for 2021-22, spending three paragraphs on the concert and eleven evaluating Jaap van Zweden's tenure and speculating on the future. 

He raises the important issues: was van Zweden the right conductor at the right time? He doesn't explicitly answer, but he's obviously thinking "no" or maybe the more equivocal "probably not." His evaluation is really interesting, because he found JvZ most persuasive in new music and wanting in "core repertory." I don't think that is what anyone expected when the conductor was appointed to the post.

In any event, this does bring up the question of who will be next in one of the hottest seats for a conductor.  Whoever it is has to take into account these things:

• The orchestra has a reputation for being difficult to work with. I have no specifics on this; I just know it's been their reputation for as long as I have known they existed. You have to wonder about the social culture of the group if they've managed to stay difficult to work with for forty or fifty years.
• The orchestra has been playing in a terrible hall, though this might be fixed: it's currently under renovation and should re-open in September, 2022. It's an ill wind, etc., and the lack of performances during the pandemic sped up the renovation process by eighteen months.
• The orchestra had weak management for decades before Deborah Borda's return.
• Borda has evidently been hinting that she might step down after the renovation is done. She is 72 and so one can understand that she is considering when to retire. But she's also in a position to be a genuinely transformative CEO for the organization.

So who might be willing to take this very difficult position? Tommasini more-than-hints that he'd like the orchestra to have a woman as its music director. Let's consider some possible candidates, not all of them women; I will note that there are some female candidates I'm not saying anything about because I don't know enough about their careers. Some of the possibilities are conductors suggested by friends. In all cases, you should ask yourself why the NY Phil is a good career move for the possible candidate and whether they already have any kind of working relationship or history with the orchestra.

• Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla. MGT has given notice at a really great post, with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. The CBSO is an excellent orchestra with a long history of launching the careers of top-notch conductors: going back a ways, we have Simon Rattle, Sakari Oramu, Andres Nelsons, and MGT. Brexit might well have something to do with this; also, her two young children, also, having a partner whose job is in Germany, if I have this right. She is a huge talent who could be hired by any number of orchestras in Europe.
• Susanna Mälkki. Well, she's music director at the Helsinki Philharmonic and principal guest conductor of the LA Phil. Gustavo Dudamel, that orchestra's music director, has a new job at the Paris Opera. He might not want two jobs that are five thousand miles apart, and Mälkki could very well be next in line to be music director of a well-managed, forward-looking, financially-sound orchestra that plays in one of the greatest halls in the world. If you had a choice, would you take the NY Phil over that? I sure wouldn't, although it's true that New York is closer to Helsinki than LA is.
• Marin Alsop. She'll be out of the Baltimore job at the end of this season. She's a New Yorker with deep NY roots; her parents were both professional musicians in NYC, with each having a long career with the orchestra of the New York City Ballet. The NY Phil has already tried this with Alan Gilbert....and that didn't last.
• Barbara Hannigan. She conducts, she sings, she's a fantastic musician and was amazing the one time I've seen her live. Does she want to be a full-time music director of a difficult orchestra?
• Vladimir Jurowski. He has one of the best jobs in the opera world, at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, succeeding Kirill Petrenko. Would he consider adding the NY Phil to that?
• Jeri Lynne Johnson. Music director of the Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra. I have never heard her conduct and haven't read much about her; a friend who is familiar with her work said "She has cross-section of skills that fit with what the new music director is going to need in terms of background, key mentors, ability to present new music, while maintaining a schedule with older works, and ability with community outreach."
• Krzysztof Urbański. Here's another huge talent; anyway, that's my view based on the astonishing concerts he has led with the San Francisco Symphony. He's currently the music director of the Indianapolis Symphony and very likely would be available for a job at a bigger and more important orchestra. I'm counting him as a candidate because Deborah Borda already has a proven record of hiring a young talent who doesn't have a lot of music director experience.
• Gustavo Dudamel. Well, he does have this big job coming up in Paris, where there are two opera houses and a gigantic budget. Would he leave LA for NY? It's closer to Paris but a much bigger headache than LA. Of course, Deborah Borda is a great administrator, so maybe it will be less of a headache than it has been.
• Manfred Honeck. Has a great reputation, but just re-upped in Pittsburgh. Presumably not taking the CSO job (see below), maybe not available for NY.
• Osmo Vänskä. He's the outgoing music director of the Minnesota Orchestra, where he has done great work. I believe that he is generally considered to be demanding, but in adult ways: he isn't a bully, just knows what he wants and how to get it. He is probably tough enough for the NY Phil, but didn't they try this with Masur?
• Riccardo Muti. They could try again, I guess! His contract at the CSO will be up fairly soon, but he is 80, his programming at the CSO has been incredibly dull, and he's probably not the kind of transformative talent that the NY Phil needs.
• Esa-Pekka Salonen. Forget it. He made it pretty clear that he didn't want this job, and as you know, he likes California.

Big News: Jaap van Zweden to Leave NY Phil

Jaap van Zweden

Photo courtesy of NY Philharmonic

 © Bert Hulselmans

Well, here's a major change: Jaap van Zweden and the NY Phil announced today that he will leave the orchestra at the end of the 2023-24 season. He originally told Deborah Borda that he'd be leaving when his first, five-year contract ran out, at the end of 2022-23, but she talked him into a one-year extension.

From The NY Times article that I linked to above:

Van Zweden, 60, said in an interview that the upheaval of the pandemic had prompted him to reconsider his relationship with the orchestra, which he has led since 2018, as well as with his family, which he rarely got to see during his globe-trotting days before the Covid crisis. He said he felt it would be the right moment to move on, with the orchestra set to return to the newly renovated David Geffen Hall next fall, a year and a half ahead of schedule.

Later in the article:

Freed from an intense performing schedule during lockdown in the Netherlands, van Zweden underwent something of a transformation. At one point, he contracted Covid. He began to focus on his health, losing about 70 pounds. He tried his hand at composing, and listened to more popular music, including Frank Sinatra, Van Halen and Lady Gaga.

He spent more time with his family, including his wife, father, children and grandchildren. He also put new energy into his foundation, which is focused on using music to help families of children with autism.

One can hardly argue with these reasons and with rethinking one's life. I'm sorry to hear that he contracted COVID-19.  (I regret that the Times automatically associated weight loss with "focussing on health" but maybe that's how JvZ put it.)

He's also stepping down from the Hong Kong Philharmonic at the same time. I'm not surprised; it's a long commute from NY or the Netherlands.

I wonder whether the orchestra is having any regrets about whatever it was that led to Alan Gilbert's departure and about not having hired....someone else. Now they'll be doing it again.

Open positions:

• New York Philharmonic, when Jaap van Zweden leaves in 2024.
• Hong Kong Philharmonic, when Jaap van Zweden leaves in 2024.
• Oakland Symphony, owing to the death of Michael Morgan in August, 2021.
• Royal Opera, when Sir Antonio Pappano leaves for the LSO in September, 2024.
• Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, when Robert Spano leaves at the end of 2021-22. 
• Baltimore Symphony, because Marin Alsop did not renew her contract there
• Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra following the firing of Daniele Gatti
• Opera Theatre of Saint Louis: Stephen Lord resigned following accusations of sexual harassment. OTSL has not named a new music director.
• Michigan Opera Theater: Stephen Lord resigned following accusations of sexual harassment. MOT has not named a new music director.
• Teatro Regio Turin: Open now with departure of Gianandrea Noseda. the Teatro Regional's has not named a new music director.
• Minnesota Opera: Michael Christie has left. MO has not named a new music director. 
• Virginia Symphony: JoAnn Falletta is now laureate, but no successor has been named.
• Shanghai Symphony Orchestra
• Minnesota Orchestra, when Osmo Vänskä leaves in 2022.

Conductors looking for jobs (that is, as of the near future, or now, they do not have a posting):

• Jaap van Zweden, who leaves the NY Phil at the end of 2023-24
• Andrés Orozco-Estrada 
• Miguel Harth-Bedoya
• Lionel Bringuier
• Juanjo Mena
• Ludovic Morlot
• Sian Edwards
• Jun Markl
• Ingo Metzmacher
• Jac van Steen
• Mark Wigglesworth
• David Robertson
• Peter Oundjian
• Philippe Auguin
• Kwame Ryan
• Ilan Volkov
• Aleksandr Markovic
• Lothar Koenigs
• Henrik Nanasi
• Carlos Kalmar

And closed:

• Opera de Paris: Gustavo Dudamel succeeds Philippe Jordan.
• Melbourne Symphony: Jaime Martin becomes chief conductor in 2022. Sir Andrew Davis left at the end of 2019. 
• City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra: Kazuki Yamada replaces MGT when she leaves at the end of 2021-22
• London Symphony Orchestra: Sir Antonio Pappano becomes Chief Conductor Designate in September, 2023, Chief Conductor the following year.
• Fort Worth Symphony: Robert Spano to succeed Miguel Harth-Bedoya.
• Oregon Symphony: David Danzmayr succeeds Carlos Kalmar at the beginning of the 2021-22 season.
• Scottish Chamber Orchestra: Maxim Emelyanychev has succeeded Robin Ticciati
• Orchestre de Paris, Klaus Mäkelä to succeed Daniel Harding
• Montreal Symphony Orchestra: Rafael Payare has succeeded Kent Nagano.
• Richmond Symphony: Valentina Peleggi succeeds Steven Smith.
• Singapore Symphony: Han Graf succeeded Lan Shui.
• BBC National Orchestra of Wales: Ryan Bancroft succeeded Thomas Søndergård
• BRSO hires Sir Simon Rattle to succeed the late Mariss Jansons, effective 2023.
• Jader Bignamini is now Music Director of the Detroit SO, succeeding Leonard Slatkin.
• Opera North: Garry Walker is music director designate
• Sydney Symphony Orchestra names Simone Young their chief conductor; she takes over in two years, succeeding David Roberts.
• San Francisco Opera appoints Eun Sun Kim its music director, starting August 1, 2021. She succeeds Nicola Luisotti.
• Philharmonia Orchestra names Santtu-Matias Rouvali as its next Principal Conductor, starting in 2021-22.

Now We Know

Geffen Hall

Courtesy of the NYPO

It's just about four years since the New York Philharmonic announced that Deborah Borda would return to the orchestra from her wildly successful time at the Los Angeles Philharmonic. I wrote about it then, in a post called I Did Not See This One Coming. 

Matthew VanBesien's departure had been announced in January, and somehow, in the interval, the orchestra had managed to get Borda under contract. (Yes, I did wonder whether VanBesien had been shown the door, but he resigned to take a job elsewhere, so that seems doubtful.)

Anyway, I quoted Anne Midgette on the subject of why Borda accepted a job with an orchestra that was not in great shape, to say the least, and among the reasons she mentioned was the Board offering her "boatloads of money."

The 990 forms have been published for the period ending in August, 2019, and Borda's salary is published there, along with that of Music Director Designate Jaap van Zweden. Borda was paid $1,431,771 plus an estimated $23,823 in "other compensation." Van Zweden made $816,375 as MDD.

Contact! New Music Series Survives Attempted Murder

Last week, the NY Times ran an excellent, though surprising, article by Michael Cooper about the last-minute reprieve for the NY Philharmonic's Contact! new music series.

This is one of outgoing music director Alan Gilbert's new-music initiatives for the orchestra. It's not so hard to see why the orchestra almost killed it: it's a chamber music series, with concerts given in small spaces, and it had an audience of around 800 annually.

On the other hand, it didn't cost very much, between $150,000 and $200,000/year, or one veteran orchestra member's salary, roughly speaking. For perspective, the orchestra's 990 form for 2013-14 shows total revenue of around $70 million. $200,000 is about .3% of the total annual budget, that is, one third of one percent. From a visibility viewpoint and from the perspective of giving the musicians the chance to play new music, the series is a win all around.

Note also the four guys who stepped forward with the money to keep the series going: Alan Gilbert, Jaap van Zweeden, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Matthew VanBesien. That would be the orchestra's outgoing music director, its incoming music director, its composer-in-residence (who just happens to be a great conductor and composer), and its executive director ("who reluctantly made the decision to suspend [Contact!]").

He really must have been reluctant, since he ponied up to keep it going. This makes me wonder whether it was pressure from the Board to drop Contact! that resulted in the initial decision. In any event, I'm glad the series will go forward and hope that it continues and even expands. And good for these four, especially JvZ, who is an unknown quantity when it comes to new music.

Holy Mother of God!

@Jaap van Zweden, © Bert Hulselmans

Forgive my expletives, but Drew McManus just published the music director segment of his annual orchestral compensation reports (these are for the 2013-14 season). Read the whole thing at your leisure, but I absolutely must comment on one music director in particular.

That would be Jaap van Zweden, who is now the outgoing music director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. His pay during the 2013-14 season? A cool $5,110,538, and no, I did not misplace a punctuation mark when I typed that number.

Did the DSO board and chief executive have any idea of how stupid this was? He's getting paid nearly 14% of the orchestra's budget, he's getting paid a multiple of what such greats as Riccardo Muti are being paid, and the DSO is single-handedly about to start a compensation war among top-level music directors.

What I most want right now is to see his NY Philharmonic contract.

Update: Kalimac points out that the article includes a clarifying quotation from the DSO. Van Zweden's salary was actually $1,788,997, and most of the rest was a one-time signing bonus paid for by a restricted contribution rather than by other orchestra income. STILL, it's an awful lot of money.