Met concertmaster gets 7-year conductor’s contract
mainThe Met Opera’s concertmaster David Chan has been extended as music director of the Montclair Orchestra for 7 more years.
David has lately been guest-conducting in Liège (Belgium), the Malta Philharmonic, l’Orchestre Dijon Bourgogne in France, and the Grant Park and Classical Tahoe summer festivals. He’s also Music Director of Camerata Notturna, a New York City chamber orchestra.
Impressive given the MET is a pretty busy gig, though he only has to play every other show so I guess there’s some downtime.
Interesting headline, I misread it as “Concertmaster gets 7 years”.There’s a lot of it about.
His main job is concertmaster for the Metropolitan Opera. I fully understand if he were to take a soloist gig now and then. That said, if he wishes to become a conductor he should resign his gig with the Metropolitan and pursue a career as a conductor. I feel the same way about conductors who are music directors of multiple important orchestras and or opera companies, or a combination of both. That’s going on at the Metropolitan Opera as well today. In a desperation to draw tickets boards of directors have been willing to take on “it names” as part timers in full time jobs. All of the institutions that conductor works for ends up suffering in one form, or another. These musicians are being well compensated for their work.
Interesting. 7 years is a mammoth extension (what conductors have a signed MD/AD/CC contract for 2027? I can think of one, and that’s Nézet-Séguin at the OM, music directeur “for life”).