Thomas Dausgaard, 51, will succeed Donald Runnicles at the head of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.

press release:

Thomas Dausgaard will take over from Donald Runnicles as the orchestra’s Chief Conductor in September 2016.

Renowned for his creativity and innovation in programming and his extensive range of critically-acclaimed recordings, Dausgaard has appeared with orchestras around the world and is currently Chief Conductor of the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, Principal Guest Conductor of the Seattle Symphony and Honorary Conductor of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra.

As a guest conductor with the BBC SSO Dausgaard has performed a wide range of repertoire from Dvořák and Tchaikovsky to Ives, Lindberg and Schnelzer, and in a range of settings from the City Halls in Glasgow to the St Magnus International Festival in Orkney.

On his appointment Dausgaard said: “The infectious joy of making music with the BBC SSO makes it a great honour and pleasure to become its Chief Conductor from 2016/17. I am a fond admirer of the orchestra’s creativity, team-spirit and excellence, and I look forward very much to exploring all the exciting possibilities which lie ahead of us.”

Ken MacQuarrie, Director of BBC Scotland, said: “Creativity is the lifeblood of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Thomas Dausgaard will ensure the orchestra continues to be one of the most dynamic and boundary pushing orchestras in Scotland and the world.”

The Malaysian Philharmonic, under boycott by international musicians organisations for unfair dismissals, is advertising a new round of auditions in Germany. Don’t say you haven’t been warned. A corrrespondent writes:

With great concern I see the MPO advertising for a new round of auditions in Germany at “muv.ac”, in “Das Orchester” and at the MPO website. Muv.ac. What really bothers me is the fact that the positions at muv.ac are advertised as “permanent” This is simply misleading. Those are two year contracts and technically you can be fired anytime without any reason given with 6 months’ notice.

There are around 30 vacancies to fill (comparing the current listing on the website with the original size in 1998) and the fact that – with exception of the double bass – ALL string principal positions are vacant speaks volumes about the current state of affairs.

Dominique Meyer has announced an opera on Virginia Woolf’s Orlando by Olga Neuwirth, due in December 2019.

The composer says: ‘Ever since I was a child I have always been interested in everything, from arts to politics, sciences to human psychology. Passionate towards everything. I let myself be inspired in the same way by the small and big things that the world has to offer, by the wonderful diversity of life, and that is something that I see reflected. The essence of this fictional biography is the love for oddities, the supernatural, deceit, virtuosity, exaltation andexaggeration. It’s also about remembrance, about a sophisticated form of sexual allure and against the restraint toward a single gender. Another important topic is also the refusal to be patronised and to be treated in a condescending way, which is something that happens over and over again to women and will keep on happening. Virginia Woolf questioned the roles of man and woman, the status of women in society and their approach to literature. My musical theatre won’t be about a theoretical proof, but about different possibilities that unfold – also musically – scene by scene. For me Orlando and music are very similar: through the centuries the story of Orlando conveys, in the same way as (classical) music, on the one side the bittersweet pain that goes beyond words, and on the other hand the precise structures, proportions, abstraction and mathematical-scientific thinking and solace. Each life arises from a process of self-creation. As we live, we create our own world. In the same way as we do with music, or with and through Orlando’.

John Oliver, founder of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus in 1970 and its leader ever since, will steo down after this summer. Press release follows.

John Oliver, the Founder and Conductor of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, will step down from his leadership position with the ensemble as of the end of the 2015 Tanglewood season.  Mr. Oliver’s final concert as Conductor of the chorus will take place on Sunday, August 16, in connection with a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, featuring the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Tanglewood Festival Chorus, and soloists, under the direction of Asher Fisch (further details available at www.tanglewood.org).

Mr. Oliver, who has consistently garnered high praise from critics and audiences alike for his work with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, founded the ensemble as the official chorus of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1970.  He has prepared the TFC in more than 200 works for well over 1000 performances, including appearances with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Symphony Hall, Tanglewood, Carnegie Hall, and on tour in Europe and the Far East, as well as with visiting orchestras and as a solo ensemble.  The TFC, under the direction of Mr. Oliver, has been featured with the BSO in more than forty commercial releases, as well as on the BSO Classics label, with James Levine, Seiji Ozawa, Bernard Haitink, Sir Colin Davis, Leonard Bernstein, Keith Lockhart, and John Williams.  Click here to view John Oliver’s bio and photos.

In honor of his 45 years of service to the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, the BSO will give Mr. Oliver the Tanglewood Medal at a ceremony to take place during the 2015 Tanglewood season.  Mr. Oliver is only the second recipient of the Tanglewood Medal; Seiji Ozawa was the first recipient of the awardin 2012, when the medal was created as a new tradition in honor of the festival’s 75th anniversary that summer. In addition to taking on the newly created lifetime title of Founder and Conductor Laureate of the TFC, John Oliver will also assume the title of Master Teacher Chair at the Tanglewood Music Center, the BSO’s preeminent summer music academy, beginning in summer of 2016.  In this new role, Mr. Oliver will work with TMC Fellows in a variety of capacities, the details of which will be announced at a later date.

Someone speculated the other day that David Whelton, nearing 30 years as chief exec of the Philharmonia Orchestra, must be the greatest current survivor in orchestral administration, with the exception of Avi Shoshani at the Israel Phil.

And maybe not just current.

Arthur Judson sets the benchmark. He managed the Philadelphia Orchestra 1915-35 and the New York Philharmonic from 1922 to 1956 while also running America’s biggest artists agency on the side).

Has anyone managed longer?

Let start a list.

Ten years ago, classical labels were squandering their budgets on anything-but-classical, meandering into a dead-end alley where they made neither money nor friends.

That trend came to an eventual end.

I’m wondering whether we’re seeing a revival of sorts in the quirky sort of thing I’ve chosen as my Album of the Week on sinfinimusic.com. See what you think. Click here.