Maestro collects cool million for not conducting
mainSwedish Radio reports that the Finnish conductor Hannu Koivula has been paid a million crowns ($119,000) over the past year, while not conducting a single concert in Jönköping.
Koivula was dismissed last January after what are described as ‘personnel conflicts’. He challenged the dismissal as unfair and the adjudication is working its way through the system. Meantime, he gets paid – and so do the other conductors who are brought in to replace him.
I would have not conducted for half that.
Maybe he was preparing a John Cage concert and practiced 4’33” on a grand scale (the version for orchestra).
Department of nice work if you can get it.
Is he looking for an agent by any chance?
Strangely, noone really knows why he was dismissed. Rumours say musicians were quite happy with his work. We have to remember that if his dismissal was unfair, he is entitled to that money, and the management of the orchestra are to blame for putting the economy at great risk through its actions.