UK maestro quits in his second year
NewsIt looks like Covid’s to blame.
The British conductor Timothy Redmond was ushered in with fanfares as music director of the Winston-Salem Symphony in October 2019.
Most of his first season was lost to Covid. The second has not gone well. In a statement, Redmond said the frequent flying to and from Winston-Salem was no longer sustainable and he feared burnout.
His resignation takes immediate effect.
Timothy Redmond? Although COVID has clearly complicated the appointment the flying itself is as it was with added precautions?
“In a statement, Redmond said the frequent flying to and from Winston-Salem [in North Carolina, USA] was no longer sustainable and he feared burnout.”
As of this writing, the news of his resignation does not yet appear on this orchestra’s own website. But the site does say that Redmond “is Professor of Conducting at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Music Director of the Cambridge Philharmonic and is a regular guest conductor with the London Symphony and Royal Philharmonic Orchestras.” Perhaps that’s where the “unsustainable” “burnout” enters the picture, i.e., Mr. Redmond already had enough obligations in the UK without adding an orchestra on the other side of an ocean.
https://www.wssymphony.org/about/conductors/
Would be nice to see someone who lives fulltime in the USA have this gig. I mean, really? Commuting from U.K. for a tiny budget wise (yet very good)orchestra?
I’m available. Artistic Director of a fine community orchestra in Brooklyn NY. I have a good reputation.
Winston-Salem. Is that a tobacco consortium!! 🙂
In fact, Sue, the answer to your question is yes, more or less.
Winston-Salem, North Carolina has been a center of the tobacco industry since the 1870s. Both Winston and Salem cigarettes take their brand names from the city, and they were introduced by R.J. Reynolds, which was founded and is still headquartered in Winston-Salem.
Reynolds no longer owns the Winston and Salem brands, but they are still made in the nearby city of Greensboro, about half an hour away.
Quite frankly don’t blame him. The pandemic should make wise people take stock of thelr lives and decide what really matters and what doesn’t, and not just hold onto what isn’t there. A very talented guy. He will be snapped up elsewhere and hopefully be far more enjoyable and life-giving, not life destroying.
Shouldn’t he have realized that flying from the UK to Winston- Salem would be tiresome? More importantly, shouldn’t the people who hired him have realized that? To me, this looks like an easy excuse and the real reasons are not being given.
One more example of the European confidence-game the American orchestral system has become. All the young American conductors, who were taught to stay in America, work hard, get the doctorate, devote yourself to your communities — it was all a lie; so now, the new president of the League of American Orchestras — Mr. Simon Woods, of London, England — can herd us all into a Zoom meeting or a hotel ballroom in Denver, Chicago or Los Angeles and tell us what racists we are. European maestros were always part of the fabric of American orchestral life, and God bless them — but now it’s just gotten obscene. Portland, Oregon to Portland, Maine, and pretty much everywhere in between: basically every job, no matter how modest, under the shiny cover of wokester-ism actually goes to white European emigres from the British Commonwealth and the EU.