Music Director Franz Welser-Möst and the Cleveland Orchestra have added Yann Ghiro to the clarinet section, playing bass clarinet.
Yann, originally from Nice, has been principal clarinet of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra since 1998.
photo: Roger Mastroanni
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Please clarify: did he pass an audition for this position? If not, why not? Surely there must be a number of well-qualified American bass clarinetists.
He almost surely won an audition with dozens of players. Norman is just doing the usual attention-grabbing headline to suggest that Cleveland sought him out.
Interesting to me that with his background of training and playing he would be the choice to fit in an orchestra of such deep tradition of ensemble playing and style. I’m not aware that they’ve made such choices in their wind and brass players in recent years, but tend to assume he’s up to it…
Why are foreigners getting American Jobs? Out of ~330,000,000 American Citizens, all the US unis and conservatories, and those who are just plain talented–they cannot find a US citizen to play bass clarinet? Foreigners—LA Principal Horn, LA Opera Princ Horn, and now this nonsense. Moreover, 94,000,000 Americans of working age are without jobs.
An American just was appointed principal horn in the Berlin Philharmonic…after a search lasting several years [exact number of years eludes me]. And for what it’s worth, Brexit is going to seriously handicap the European orchestral scene, I should imagine [opinions vary, needless to say].
Sara N.: All of the current wind and brass principals in the Cleveland Orchestra are Americans except for trombone and tuba. Ghiro”s predecessor held the bass clarinet position for over 30 years, and she was an American. I don’t think that any of the other principal wind and brass players in Cleveland in the last 40 years have been non-Americans. The decisions on whom to hire are not based on political issues such as “Buy American,” and they should not be.
What is your problem??
Because they win blind auditions, as do all the Americans in American orchestras. *shrug*
For the sake of clarity and fair debate: although “94,000,000 Americans of working age are without jobs” might be a technically accurate statement, it is being used for another meaning, and thus misrepresents the truth.
The number cited includes all those over age 16 not in the labor force, and counts everyone in secondary-level, vocational and university education, everyone over 65 (there are nearly 40 million people in this age group) and now retired, the disabled who cannot work, and those not currently employed because they have chosen parenting. The number of those “out of work” as most people understand it is calculated to be 20-25 million.
Just wondered……..have any of you actually heard him play? Surely then, and only then, you can pass judgement…….