Philadelphia lands a spare music director
mainTemple University has appointed a new music professor and artistic director, a full-time, year-round job.
He is the German conductor Andreas Delfs, formerly music director of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra (1997 -2009) and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra.
It’s highly unusual for an active conductor to move in mid-career to an academic post. Delfs, 55, gets to conducts seven concerts a year with the university orchestra. And he’s available if anyone drops out at the Philadelphia Orch.
I don’t know if this is a sign that his conducting career has sort of run itself out, or if he just didn’t enjoy it anymore and wanted something a bit more stable.
But as far as I know he’s a terrific musician. I hope it goes well for everyone.
Maybe Temple was just smart enough to get him.
Andreas is a fabulous musician and conductor. We premiered Lowell Lieberman’s Third Concerto in Milwaukee for three performances. He is equally adept with new music as he is in standard rep. All I can say is the Temple University orchestra is indeed very fortunate. What I see is a trend in our society in universities bringing on seasoned conductors as their guiding light for tomorrow’s orchestral players. Andreas will take them to new heights.
The Berlin University of the Arts has made a similar move, appointing Steven Sloane to create and head its new conducting program while continuing a very active international conducting career.
They’re lucky to have him.
I agree — Bravo to Temple for choosing him, they are most fortunate.
For excellent music schools, Temple is the best kept secret it the USA. It draws its faculty for orchestral instruments mostly form the Philadelphia Orchestra — basically the same faculty as Curtis. I believe that after one year of residency in Pennsylvania, one can qualify for in-state tuition. For very reasonable prices one can study with some of the best musicians in the country. The major draw back is that it is more-or-less in the midst of one of the worst ghettos in America — though the school does what it can to counter the effects. And that isn’t so unusual. Even Yale is situated next to a terrible ghetto. Check out the amazing faculty roster here:
http://www.temple.edu/boyer/about/people/faculty.asp
Philadelphia: run by Democrats since 1952.
Did you mean this post for another article?
Bravo to Temple! Their music program is excellent with a killer jazz band and an orchestra that’s been nominated for 3 Grammy awards. Go Owls.
I disagree with you but agree with one of the comments: Temple was smart enough to get him. End of story.