Maestro move: Dallas offers Luisi deal

Maestro move: Dallas offers Luisi deal

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norman lebrecht

January 14, 2021

The Dallas Symphony has extended Fabio Luisi’s contract as music director for five more years, through to 2029.

He has launched into a 10-year plan to present 20 premieres of commissions by US composers.

Prss release here.

The long-term renewal is an indication that US orchs are nailing down the better music directors as vacancies loom at Chicago and elsewhere.

 

Comments

  • Kevin B. says:

    Luisi is a stunning musician: great news for Dallas.

    • Tiredofitall says:

      And to think the Met had Maestro Luisi for a hot minute. Peter done him bad…

      • John Kelly says:

        You’re right. I enjoyed many of his performances – superb in Italian repertoire but also just a wonderful Wagner conductor – amazing pacing and quite different from Levine’s approach.

        • Herr Doktor says:

          In my opinion, Luisi’s installments of The Ring were better than Levine’s, and not by a small margin either. Levine’s Die Walkure in particular suffered from turgid tempos and lifelessness. Luisi’s Siegfried was particularly wonderful!

  • Sir David Geffen-Hall says:

    I doubt anyone of note is going to be “nailed down”.

    I’ll bet that all contracts have an escape clause that will allow the MD to accept an offer from a more illustrious orchestra should the opportunity arise.

    • J Barcelo says:

      If by illustrious you mean the Big Five, you should go to Dallas and hear the orchestra – it’s not inferior to Chicago, Boston etc in any way. It’s hall is superb and the audiences enthusiastic. I’m looking forward to hearing them give Franz Schmidt’s 4th in April. Meanwhile Boston, New York, Cleveland, Chicago and Philadelphia remain silent.

      • Hayne says:

        Absolutely right.

      • Old Man in the Midwest says:

        Indeed. I have played with the DSO in the past as a sub. It is a great orchestra.

        But trust me. There is still prestige in conducting a Big 5.

        Or why would Jaap or Solti jump when the opportunity presented itself?

  • RW2013 says:

    “He has launched into a 10-year plan to present 20 premieres of commissions by US composers.”
    I can hear the U.S. and A. rejoicing from here (20 of them at least), but asking themselves why they won’t be hearing the new music from last year, or 5 years ago, or…

  • IntBaritone says:

    Luisi is one of the most boring conductors I have sung for. Perfectly adequate and exactly the same in a short rehearsal period or a long one. Give me excitement over this any day (and it shows why he ends up in Dallas…)

    • John Kelly says:

      Sorry you have that experience – not mine as an audience member I can tell you.

    • Tiredofitall says:

      So Maestro Luisi’s experience informs him how to adjust to time constraints of various given rehearsal schedules? How professional of him.

      P.S. If you’ve not been to Dallas, it’s orchestra is not be be sniffed at.

    • BruceB says:

      Oh, well.

      (Actually a comment like this, considering the source, makes me interested in hearing more from him)

  • Anonymous says:

    “… and new orchestral works by Bruce Adolphe scheduled to be premiered in the orchestra’s 2021/22 season …”

    The Piano Puzzler arranges songs from Hamilton in the style of Brahms!

  • Karl says:

    Italians have such cool names. Fabio! Vincenzo. Ildebrando!

  • Edgar Self says:

    Good news. Congratulations to Fabio Luisi. The last mention of him here was of a positive test for the virus several weeks ago. Is there anything new on that?

  • Emil says:

    Great news for him. That being said, what kind of premieres are we talking about? And how many concerts a season does Dallas play? If we’re talking mostly 10-odd minute concert pieces, 2 per season sounds hardly ambitious (the OSM does more than that – 3-4 per season – without having a press release about it). If there are larger pieces, concertos, symphonies, then that’s better. But as a number, 20 over 10 years is not in itself any significant.

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