Maestro marks 80th birthday on tour

Max Grimm says:

The Dresdner Philharmonie is (imo) a very good orchestra, although often overlooked and underrated, but Janowski didn’t give up the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin for Dresden (he left the RSB three years before he signed – again – with the Dresdner Philharmonie).
Janowski had been chief conductor of the Dresdner Philharmonie once before, in the early 2000s but left ahead of time over some disputes he had with politicians and delegates.
A large part of this stemmed from the fact that his acceptance of the position hinged on Dresden building a concert-hall that the Dresdner Philharmonie could call its own, a project that had been discussed previously but always postponed due to financial constraints and political posturing. Then, when the massive floods in August 2002 came and not just Dresden, but Saxony on the whole suffered several billion € in damages resulting in massive debt, Janowski was first strung along by politicians, before being informed that a concert hall would not be built and he resigned with immediate effect in 2003 (I believe).
Now, Dresden is free from flood-related debt, the old Kulturpalast has been renovated, its ~2.500 capacity multi-purpose hall has been dismantled and rebuilt into a 1.800 seat concert hall and Marek Janowski has returned.