Xian Zhang to Seattle

Xian Zhang

Photo by Cherylynn Tsushima, courtesy of the New Jersey Symphony

Two and a half years after the departure of Thomas Dausgaard, the Seattle Symphony has named Xian Zhang, currently music director of the New Jersey Symphony, as their next music director. Zhang will join Seattle for the 2025-26 season and will remain music director of the New Jersey Symphony until the end of the 2027-28 season.

Open positions:

• New Jersey Symphony, when Xian Zhang leaves at the end of the 2027-28 season.
• Ulster Orchestra, when Daniele Rustioni leaves
• Utah Symphony
• Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, when Daniel Harding leaves
• Oslo Philharmonic, when Klaus Makela moves on in 2027
• Orchestre de Paris, when Klaus Makela 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.
• Pacific Symphony, when Carl St. Clair retires.

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.

• Marc Albrech
• 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:

• Edward Gardner starts as music director of Norwegian National Opera this season,
• Sarasota Orchestra: Giancarlo Guerrero just got 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: Cristinia 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

 

Facepalm

Davies Symphony Hall

Photo by Lisa Hirsch

Found all over the place, on social media, in email, and elsewhere:

Crude as a gut punch, tender as a kiss, Verdi’s Requiem translates the medieval Latin mass for the dead into the vivid and visceral idiom of Italian opera.

Very seriously, who writes this stuff? That first clause is ridiculous, inaccurate, a likely turn-off to potential audience members, and frankly embarrassing. SF Symphony can certainly hire better people than this....well, wait, maybe they just can't afford to these days.

 

It Doesn't Have To Be This Way.

From the NY Times:

There have been about 70 shootings at K-12 schools in Georgia between early 1970 and June 2022, according to data compiled by the Naval Postgraduate School’s Center for Homeland Defense and Security. But none were as deadly as Wednesday’s attack at Apalachee High School in Winder, Ga., which killed four and injured nine others.

The United States is essentially the only country with such lax gun controls and with such high levels of gun violence. We can choose to live our lives differently. 

Ives at Indiana University

Ives image courtesy Charles Ives Papers / Irving S. Gilmore Music Library / Yale University

Indiana University is having what looks like an amazing Charles Ives festival from September 30 to October 8. Here's a chunk of the press release:

Throughout 2024 - the sesquicentenary of the birth of America's first great classical composer, Charles Ives - celebrations of the man and his work continue to proliferate - panels, colloquia, recordings, videos and concerts abound. The largest and most impressive of these efforts by far is an entire festival to be held in Bloomington, Indiana from 30 September through 08 October at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. Titled Charles Ives at 150: Music, Imagination and American Culture, the festival is organized by eminent Ives scholar J. Peter Burkholder, and author/broadcaster/producer Joseph Horowitz. Years in preparation, Charles Ives at 150 - all of its events over a 9-day period - will be offered free to all attendees. Registration (available through the festival website) is recommended, to enable festival updates on important details.

Highlights of Charles Ives at 150 include masterfully curated and themed concert programs with in-concert commentaries, colloquia, panels, and a round table discussion on performing the Concord Sonata. Featured artists include, among others, baritone William Sharp, pianists Jeremy Denk, Gilbert Kalish and Steven Mayer, violinist Stefan Jackiw, and the Pacifica Quartet. Concerts include performances of Ives's Second and Third Symphonies, Three Places in New England (including a new visual presentation by Peter Bogdanoff which helps audiences hear the events and images Ives describes), both string quartets, all three piano sonatas, all four violin sonatas, dozens of songs, and works for piano, chorus, and concert band.

Festival talks include presentations on "Ives and the Visual" by art historian Tim Barringer and "Charles Ives's Civil War" by Civil War historian Allen Guelzo, alongside talks by historian Alan Lessoff, musicologist Denise Von Glahn, Ives editor James B. Sinclair, Ives biographer Jan Swafford, geographer Mark Sciuchetti, and music theorists Chelsey Hamm, Derek G. Myler, and David Thurmaier.

The complete program of the festival can be found on the festival website: https://go.iu.edu/ives

Ticketing Fees, Once Again

Found on the Cal Performances website:

There is a $15 per order service charge on single ticket purchases that partially underwrites the cost of our ticketing platform, credit card processing, Ticket Office staffing, and ticket delivery. To avoid this fee, tickets can be purchased in person at our Ticket Office during our regular office hours. Note: there is a $20 service charge for all subscription orders.

It's nice to see an explanation, but for heaven's sake: credit charge processing and Ticket Office staffing apply even if you buy tickets in person, assuming that you use a credit card. For that matter, the ticketing platform has to be updated even if you buy in person. The seat or seats you just bought are no longer available. So I still don't get it.

Stones of Stennes

Over at The Rest is Noise, Alex Ross has posted a photo of the Stones of Stenness, a Neolithic monument on the island of Orkney. Click the photo to enlarge it, so you can see the Stones of Stennes in their full glory.

I previously posted my own photos from a long-ago trip to Orkney:

• October, 2020
• August, 2019

Museum Mondays

From La Cartonería Mexicana, an exhibit of Mexican paper and paste art

Museum of International Folk Art, Santa Fe, NM

August, 2024

 

The Quality of NY Times Reporting

I see a lot of complaining, much of it righteous, about the quality of NY Times reporting on politics and particularly the presidential election. There was that full-court press to get Biden to step aside; there's the constant normalizing of Trump's behavior and speeches even when he is outrageous and incoherent. And there there are specific stories that leave me pounding the table.

For example, take Jennifer Medina's story of August 22, Are Voters Ready to Elect a Woman? Democrats Say They Have No Doubt (gift link). Well, gosh. Medina goes into all kinds of twists and turns about why or why not this year is different from 2016.

What she doesn't mention: Hillary Clinton got three million votes more than Donald Trump. Americans were ready to elect a woman eight years ago. It's only the ridiculous and undemocratic Electoral College that kept her out of office. In any other country, she would have been elected president.

SFS: Eric Owens Withdraws from Verdi Requiem

Davies Symphony Hall

Photo by Lisa Hirsch

Bass Eric Owens has withdrawn, for personal reasons, from September's performances of the Verdi Requiem at San Francisco Symphony. He'll be replaced by Peixin Chen. The other soloists are soprano Leah Hawkins, mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill, and tenor Mario Chang, The program opens with three works for chorus and orchestra by Gordon Getty, conducted by Symphony Chorus Director Jenny Wong.

Friday Photo

 

Entrance to the Victoria Turkish Bath, Spitalfields

I believe it's now an event space.

London, July, 2024

Side view.

Musical Music Director Chairs

The latest news:

• Lorenzo Viotti will be the next music director of the Tokyo Symphony, commencing in the 2026-27 season. He succeeds Jonathan Nott, who steps down in March, 2026.
• Edward Gardner leaves the Bergen Philharmonic at the end of 2023-24.
• Robin Ticciati leaves the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin in 2025.
• Santtu-Matias Rouvali leaves the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra in 2025
• Lorenzo Viotti leaves next year)
• Daniel Harding leaves the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in 2025 (Daniel Harding leaves next year)
• Daniele Rustioni leaves the Ulster Orchestra at the end of this season
• Jessica Rivero Altarriba is the new Assistant Conductor of the Utah Symphony, which doesn't have a music director at the moment.

Open positions:

• Ulster Orchestra, when Daniele Rustioni leaves
• Utah Symphony
• Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, when Daniel Harding leaves
• Oslo Philharmonic, when Klaus Makela moves on in 2027
• Orchestre de Paris, when Klaus Makela 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.
• Seattle Symphony, following Thomas Dausgaard's abrupt departure in January, 2022.
• 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.
• Pacific Symphony, when Carl St. Clair retires.

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.

• Marc Albrech
• 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:

• Edward Gardner starts as music director of Norwegian National Opera this season,
• Sarasota Orchestra: Giancarlo Guerrero just got 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: Cristinia 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

Museum Mondays

 

National Gallery Facade and Trafalgar Square

London, July, 2024

Some News

How it started.

On November 13, 2006, I drove to Mountain View, CA, signed a lot of forms, made a bunch of benefit elections, got my photo taken, collected a laptop, put on a funny hat, and started working for a new employer. On July 5, 2024, after 6,444 days, 10 different physical locations in the Bay Area (not counting my WFH locations during the pandemic), 12 managers, and an awful lot of documentation written, I left that employer, the Google division of Alphabet.

Leaving Google left me both melancholy and relieved, weirdly for some of the same reasons: Google was an amazing place to work for most of my time there, a place where you could speak freely to whomever you wanted, up to and including the founders and senior VPs; where you felt that management treated the employees like real people whose opinions were valuable and to be welcomed; where management was incredibly generous about money, travel, and other perks; where the food was astonishing; where the technology was fantastic; where people were generally idealistic and thought that Google could do real good in the world with its technology.

Well, things changed a lot in the last few years. The layoffs, from the big layoffs of January, 2023, through the constant trickle of layoffs since then, left everyone in a state of fear that they might be next, especially because the severance pay got worse and worse. The founders and Eric Schmidt left; many of the most trusted people in the company left (I'm looking at you, Laszlo Bock and Alan Eustace, in particular). The internal culture deteriorated, with lots of moderation of mailing lists, masquerading as a way to protect people and keep us thinking about work. The ethical AI team was laid off by someone who had been regarded as one of the good guys. Women in upper management left. Bean counters took over: did you know that a company with $80 billion/year in profit has gotten stingy with its travel budget? and doesn't have enough technical writers?

So, I'm melancholy about leaving what was a great to good job for nearly 18 years, and I'm melancholy about not working with my colleagues (who were mostly great!), but more melancholy about the ways the company changed in that time. And I'm relieved to have left, because of those changes, and because I won't be around to see how LLM and AI change technical writing. 

I still like technical writing, which suited me very well for twenty-eight years, but at the same time, I have less interest than I used to in learning about new technology and documenting it. I worked on some amazing technology, such as the Google Search Appliance (RIP), many Google Cloud products, and optical circuit switching. The OCS project had the most amazing technology I worked on documenting; I honestly believed that Google would never go public about its use of optical circuit switches, but my link is to the very public paper that the technical wizards published a couple of years back.

What's ahead for me? Well, I effectively retired from Danzan Ryu jujitsu at the beginning of 2022. I started practicing in 1982, but was off the mat for six years in the middle somewhere, owing to work and family stuff and after having left my previous school. I temporarily shut Open Door Jujitsu at the start of the pandemic, then cautiously re-opened in late 2021, shut down again because of the first Omicron variant. I never re-opened. In the 18 months or so of closure, I lost more physical ability than I'd lost during six years off the mat during an earlier hiatus. My school was never big enough to break even and after ten years of struggling to find students, it seemed like time to throw in the towel.

So on my agenda is finding a Tai Chi teacher, preferably Chen style, and picking up my practice of that style. And possibly making music again in some form: singing in a chorus or restarting on the flute or starting a new instrument. And maybe taking some classes. And more travel and working in my garden.

But the biggest thing is surely that I have much more time for music writing, so I am going to be doing a lot more reviewing and feature writing. And I have a lot of time for get-out-the-vote work for the November elections. Those are my two priorities for the next few months.

Friday Photo

The London Eye

London, July, 2024

 

Museum Mondays

House of Worth Gown

Owned by Sybil Sassoon, the Countess of Rocksalvage

John Singer Sargent painted her wearing this gown.

Sargent and Fashion

Tate Britain, July, 2024