LSO loses principal second
OrchestrasThe violinist David Alberman , who has been principal second violin of the London Symphony Orchestra for 25 years and chairman for the last four stressful years, has left the orchestra to ‘pursue some of his own projects’.
His successor as chair is second violinist Sarah Quinn.
We think she is the first woman to chair the orchestra in almost 120 years.
Former LSO cellist and chair Clive Gillinson went on to become Carnegie Hall’s CEO.
Fantastic violinist, he was also 2nd at the Arditti quartet for years (86-93) !
I’m sure his successor will do a bang up job, but.. was there even an audition held to fill this vacancy? There ought to have been, otherwise this is the LSO subtly telling all the musicians in town not to bother trying to earn a position if they’re not already tight with the section principals…
What Norman means is that Sarah has been appointed Chair of the Board of the LSO – by vote among the membership – not appointed to the Principal Second Violin chair. Julian Gil Rodriguez is Principal Second Violin along with David, that position is unchanged, Sarah is Sub-Principal Second Violin, also unchanged.
No. Not from the vote amongst the membership. Tenuous days at the LSO.
“I feel that Michael’s music is blazingly honest, strongly crafted music with a powerful intellectual rigour: the world is the richer for having it!”
– DAVID ALBERMAN, Violinist – Arditti Quartet, Leader 2nd Violin – London Symphony Orchestra
https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_1EMRZW
https://youtu.be/C4A0nFO0cZw
But it (the Martland) lacked the genuine musical impulse behind Michael Rosenzweig’s Symphony in One Movement (Song of the Universe) in which the Bergian sounds were controlled by a keenly imaginative mind. One felt that this was music the composer had to write, and his ear for orchestral timbre, keen as it is, was subservient to a larger grasp of first principles.
Michael Kennedy (late editor Oxford Dictionary of Music),
The Daily Telegraph
25 November 1985
I feel that Michael’s music is blazingly honest, strongly crafted music with a powerful intellectual rigour: the world is the richer for having it!
– DAVID ALBERMAN, Violinist – Arditti Quartet, Leader 2nd Violin – London Symphony Orchestra
https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_1EMRZW
“I must say I find them (your compositions) wholly admirable…which contained so many of your orchestral compositions and I certainly found them extremely striking in their concept with also a vivid sense of tone colours with their beautiful contrasting and mixing. You are obviously a man of huge talent”
– CHARLES MACKERRAS, International Conductor
https://youtu.be/C4A0nFO0cZw