Boston is road-testing five concertmasters
NewsJeremy Eichler reports in the Globe that the Boston Symphony ‘has narrowed its search down to five candidates’ for concertmaster. Two of them are already members of the orchastra. All five will be given opportunities this season before a decision is made about a successor to Malcolm Lowe, who retired in 2019.
The Boston Brahmins don’t do things in a rush. It’s unlikely we’ll see a new BSO president any time this year.
The organisation that Gail Samuel inherited was appalling. We hear from someone who applied for an office job at the BSO in January 2020: ‘The offices were shambolic. Really bad. I was interviewed by someone who wanted to talk about her family vacations. Mouldering carpet that stank. I was in disbelief.’
We have received reports that large numbers of staff departed during 2022. The BSO has refused to give us a number, but reveals that its staff complement had actually increased by 11 people in 2022, from 134 to 145.
The organisation remains in poor shape.
The quote is from the best movies about angry loser who didn’t get a job due to lack of skill. Therefore every carpet would be dirty. And if I’m right, you have to memorize person’s name, who is interviewing you. So “interviewed by someone” is just cherry on top.
Imagine the money the orchestra saves not hiring a concertmaster; now imagine the money it saves in hiring an internal member to play the role (easy negotiation); now imagine how much time it wasted for quality players over all these years who applied but were too good for the BSo. What relevance does this orchestra have? Does the orchestra find ways to sabotage outside applicants? Fascinating to wonder.
Imagine how far this orchestra is from the tenure of Joey Silverstein…
one would wonder if anyone left in BSo remembers him
Young people Mr. Silverstein taught at Meadowmount, Curtis, etc. are joining BSO and other orchestras these days. I am hopeful that his legacy goes on.
Joe Silverstein was an internal member when he became CM. I doubt it saved them any money over time.
Sasha and Eri from the BSO. Who are the other 3?
Sasha and Eri?
Heard that Alexander Velinzon and Elita Kang are the 2 candidates from the BSO
I am sure that the Boston Symphony will appoint a first class concertmaster.
As for the applicant’s comments – I find it incredible, given the resources and funds available to the BSO, that there is “mouldering carpet that stank” at the interview office.
Have the Boston contributors any views on this?
I have been in many of the administrative offices at BSO. Most of them are in perfectly good shape.
Quite a few of the offices are below ground, in an extension building next to Symphony Hall proper (connected by tunnels).
It’s certainly possible that an office these experienced a leak that led to mold that had not been addressed yet, but it is incorrect to say that the offices are generally in bad condition.
Now the organization itself ….that’s in poor shape.
Staff morale is generally poor.
In many cases, when someone leave, their responsibilities are simply divided among remaining in colleagues, rather than hiring a new person.
This is allegedly done to save money, but to consolidate power in certain departments.
In reality, Gail Samuel, who “stepped down” from the BSO suddenly after only 18 months in the job inherited an organization that had managed through COVID and was set up for a successful post-pandemic resumption of live concerts. When she arrived in Boston, there was a talented senior team, low turnover, a $500M endowment, a devoted and talented Music Director, a GREAT orchestra, incredible facilities/real estate including a beautiful new facility at Tanglewood. The previous CEO, who led the BSO from 1997 to 2021, grew the endowment from $180M to $500+M in his tenure and set many fundraising records (all public record in annual reports, IRS filings and reported on by the Boston Globe and NY Times). In in a little more than a year many highly regarded members of the staff resigned including: CFO, COO, VP Human Resources, Director of Events, Controller, Director of Education and Community Engagement, Director of Donor and Volunteer Enagement, Director of Operations, several key fundraisers, and the list goes on. After decades of stability, one of the leading orchestras in the world currently has three interim leaders and no head of education or the Tanglewood Music Center. Why is no one talking about the real situation?
The real situation is exactly what? I can’t figure out if Samuel was either greeted with a mess or ended up creating a mess.
As for a post below that mentions the seats in Symphony Hall, some of that’s due to the history of the 1900 funder Henry Higginson and acoustician Wallace Sabine. BSH is one of the great concert spaces in the world, so today’s creature comforts should always be set against that as a backdrop.
Thank you for this. She inflicted a lot of harm in a very brief tenure. They will come out of this better and wiser. Norman, once again, has a misguided bee in his nasty bonnet.
“The offices were shambolic.”
As for the hall, the pew-like seats are so thinly upholstered, you have to bring your own cushions.
And the same pew-like seats on the side balconies are *perpendicular* to the stage, so either you listen to the music through one ear and stare straight ahead at your neighbors across the hall, or you twist you neck 90 degrees and schedule an appointment with your chiropractor the next morning for an adjustment.
Is it a sin in New England to consider modern ergonomics instead of pews?
Hear Hear! I always found Symphony Hall a very uncomfortable place to hear music and the acoustics if you’re sitting under the balcony aren’t particularly impressive (and very distant).
I just want people like mem to be fully aware of the history of Boston Symphony Hall. Wallace Sabine in the early 1900s applied scientific principles to the house that Henry Higginson helped build. A bit of that and the capricious nature of good luck resulted in BSH’s acoustics.
Also, personal taste (in sound too) and politics have affected the way such places are judged or rated.
If recorded sound (since a person’s ears can’t be in different halls at the same time) is used as a grading scale, BSH (and the Concertgebouw, Musikverein, etc, too) may be beneficiaries of subjective old-time memories and subjective old-time standards. So a statement that acoustics “aren’t particularly impressive” is also accurate.
Another example: The way the sound in the newly re-opened Geffen Hall in Lincoln Center has been judged (I’ve seen both good and so-so or lukewarm reviews of it) is another example of how subjective and political (not wanting to bruise egos or sully reputations) things are.
It’s not science, it’s a basic sense of proportions, classical values and beaux arts decorations that spread the sound. Things that every new hall completely eschews.
Generally seats with little headroom is not great acoustically.
Not sure if it’s true, but I’m under impression that new concert halls tend to use more step-wise design to reduce those right under-the-balcony seats
Well, if you have a spare billion dollars, to get an inner city lot to build a new concert hall, with the help of the world’s best acousticians, and still most likely fall far short of the sound quality and ambience that is reality in the current “old” hall, which is steadily ranked in the top three best concert halls in the world, then go ahead and “consider modern ergonomics”, spending your billion for it.
If not, maybe develop some respect and awe for what has been achieved in the past and carry it with pride, that you are fortunate enough to be able to attend concerts in that hall.
You might also reach out to educated audiences in Vienna and Ansterdam, how they survive through the torture in their less than ergonomic seats in their respective best concert halls in the world.
And then reach out to the audiences in Hamburg and Helsinki, etc. in their brand new halls with ergonomic seats, great sight lines, and atrocious acoustics, and ask them if ignorance, narcissism and quite a lot of money are the most essential ingredients for erecting these concrete mausoleums of human idiocy and vanity.
(hint: you can’t change the upholstery of the seats without changing the acoustic properties of the hall.)
I would gladly suffer the discomfort of Symphony Hall’s seats in order to enjoy it’s perfect acoustic ambience!
The other disadvantage is the stage is somewhat on the small side. Sound not great under the balcony (per above). But every hall has something. I know people who’ve left Boston and really missed the acoustics – it’s a national treasure. Reiner and Karajan both considered best in country/world (respectively).
As for the orchestra – few do Ravel, or any French ballet music quite like Boston. If they could just do some Delibes…
A bigger stage would also come at the cost of the sound quality. Look at Musikverein Vienna. Compared to that, Boston‘s stage is humongous. ;-)(but then for Mahler 8 and Gurrelieder they have Konzerthaus in Vienna)
Munich Gasteig had a huge stage. And horrible acoustics.
Maybe nothing like a good orchestra sitting really tight and having good contact with each other?
But they play in great shape…That´s all what matters. Yeaterdays concert under Omer Meir Wellber was absolutely stunning
Hold on a golddarn second. I knew those offices — and yes, the building is “shambolic” around a brilliant room, among easily of three in the world. So what? It’s not about your office space.
Indeed. There are many great institutions in which some of the office space is dodgy. Once, I was hired as accompanist for a concert given by an amateur staff choir at a big (non-music) organisation of international renown, based in a suitably impressive building. Imagine my surprise to discover that the large meeting room at headquarters in which our rehearsals took place, whilst it had a nice carpet and portraiture on the wall, also had water dripping from the glass ceiling to a point on the floor about a metre from the upright pianoforte at a rate of about one drop per minute or two during rain (in other words, enough to be something you notice, but not enough to warrant a bucket)! The members of the choir confirmed that this was a well known and longstanding issue. (By the way, I should clarify that I enjoyed working with this choir, and the reason why I did just the one concert with them was nothing to do with the room, but simply because I was deputising for their usual accompanist.)
Well, at the end of the day, if you are a midlevel backstage employee, your office DOES matter. None of the greatness of the hall pays for your mental health, medical bills, quality of your retirement etc. It’s a different equation for someone never in the spotlight. The offices should be decent, if you don’t want to rely on emerging professionals only, who like to endure your shabby backstage only for getting the institutions name into their pedigree to move on to more pleasant locations.
I would say PARTICULARLY how an organization cares about its employees that are not in the public eye, divides them into more or less desirable employers.
If they only had a conductor…
They should promote Velinzon or Kang. The BSO has a tradition of promoting house in people… (Silverstein, Rolfs, Genis, Smedvig, and many more). Both do a great job. What happened to Tamara? I haven’t seen her playing in months. Sabbatical? Retirement?
Smedvig was not promoted. He went from assistant to acting principal to out.
So he was promoted. From assistant to acting principal. He then left to pursue a solo career and Empire Brass. I forgot Tim Morrison. 4th/utility to assistant principal. And I think principal cellist Blaise Dejardin also started as a tutti player.
Tradition of promoting from within? For everyone you named, there are many others who came from outside the orchestra: Lowe, Schlueter, Ferillo, Rowe and on and on. I’d like to think they pick the best player for the available position regardless of whether they were from within the orchestra or not.
And if there was ever a case to hire from within, Schlueter might be it.
I thought he was great.Fantastic sound,great musicality…Some of the greatest trumpet performances i heard were from him.There was a Mahler 6 i´ll never forget.
Well, a mouldering carpet might signify that they put their money where it matters, not into pampering mere administrative staff. This is the wealthiest orchestra in the USA, with the biggest operation, probably in the world. The BSO is actually multiple orchestras: the main BSO, the Pops, the Esplanade Pops, the touring BSO, Pops and Esplanade Pops, and the Tanglewood versions of the BSO and the Pops.
Who’s in the running these days?