Orchestra is not so Egarr
NewsThe Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale have notified us that music director Richard Egarr has withdrawn from its Europe tour due to medical reasons.
He will be replaced in the UK and the Netherlands by John Butt (pictured), musical director of Edinburgh’s Dunedin Consort.
I wish Richard – one of the most inspiring musicians I know – a swift recovery!
I am less interested in Richard- of course I wish him well- than I am the insanity of bringing a CA based orchestra all the way to the UK and Amsterdam, when there are heaps of Baroque orchs all a train ride away. Serve your people San Francisco! Take a bus to Oregon! Do a project in Silicon Valley! Flying to the Uk is nutters. I cannot quite get the point of this.
Extraordinarily strong replacement. Butt’s conducting of the CBSO and Chorus in Handel’s Messiah recently was their finest performance of the season by some distance.
John Butt should be a worthy replacement and a joy to work with for the musicians in the orchestra.
I was lucky enough to be conducted by Butty as a student – electrifying, particularly in Bach.
NL, this has been one of your better puns in a long time.