The Solti that keeps on giving

The Solti that keeps on giving

News

norman lebrecht

May 31, 2023

The Solti Foundation US has named 22 young conductors to receive a 2023 Career Assistance Award. They are:

Elias Brown, Austin Chanu, John Gennaro Devlin, Nathaniel Efthimiou, Kevin Fitzgerald, Stefano Flavoni, Taichi Fukumura, Gerald Karni, Nicholas Koo, Geoffrey Loff, William Long, François López-Ferrer, Benjamin Manis, Jacob Niemann, Nico Olarte-Hayes, Tristan Rais-Sherman, Michael Repper, Jacob Schnitzer, Euan Shields, Matthew Straw, William Walker and Alyssa Wang (pictured).

Georg Solti, alive, never turned away a musician who was down on his or her luck. His name lives on through perpetual generosity.

Comments

  • Just sayin says:

    I know some of this year’s grant winners and wish them all luck. That said, predicting who will be successful is notoriously difficult, no less than finding and nurturing young writing or composition talent, for example – ask any book editor. (it’s ‘obvious’ why the great writers are great now, but it was far from unanimous when the great ones were starting out, contrary to what everyone wants to believe post factum.)

    This list is essentially about who in the industry has potential, according to its insiders. So the insiders trying to do a little something for them with grants and the presumed upper leg they provide to the recipients. Nothing more. Conducting history is littered with those who were deemed talented and able to go far and never ever came close.

    Don’t forget, Simon Rattle didn’t get into Tanglewood as a conducting fellow. I thought it was apocryphal until I saw Gunther Schuler talk about it in an interview….

  • guest123 says:

    so. many. men.

    • another guest says:

      Very few women apply, by my understanding. I remember a representative from the foundation made a comment about this last year on SD.

    • Dennis Pastrami (they/them) says:

      To assume that those with traditionally male or ‘masculine’-sounding names would identify as such is disgusting and bigoted.

      Get a GRIP, guest123!

      • Calm Your Tits says:

        so.much.rage. #getoveryourself

        • Leopold Lampe-Schäde says:

          Your name and comment are disparaging to womyn, and you misspelled ‘ovary’ in your hashtag. I sincerely cannot believe the scum Norman lets comment on this blog.

          #disgutsing

          • Stuart Chesterfield says:

            Don’t clutch your pearls too hard there Lamp-Shade. Don’t want you having another stroke over nonsense on the internet.

          • Sue Sonata Form says:

            Yeah, but what about the pearls around the neck!!??

    • man says:

      they do exist

    • BP says:

      I was going to respond snarkily, then I looked more closely at the list. One woman out of 22 conductors ? That feels a bit extreme, even if it reflects the pool of applicants to some extent.

  • James says:

    21 men and 1 woman. Really? How can they possibly defend that in 2023? It’s an outrageous misrepresentation of the orchestra world in a time when there is more female talent on the podium than ever before. Just shocking.

  • Martin says:

    I don’t consider myself a culture warrior or diversity fanatic – but one woman and 21 men is utterly ridiculous in this day and age. There is no excuse.

    • Em says:

      Do you mean that they should choose women conductors just because they are woman ? Isn t it about music at all?
      Beeing a woman I really find this argument stupid

      • Peterpe says:

        Because the system has been sexist and misogynistic for over a hundred years. The powers that be can NOT be trusted. THAT is why you have to put marginalized people forward. Wake up!

        • AD says:

          I don’t know. There are too many elements in this story that we don’t know about. For instance it may be that the ratio of males/non-males candidate was indeed 21 to 1, or close to it (hence the ratio of winners simply respected that of the candidates). Or, it may be that really nearly all the non-males were not at the same level as their male colleagues (hence the choice was indeed based on merit only). Or it may be that the jury was indeed made up by a bench of mysogins. But assuming the latter option without even considering the others (or more probably a combination of them) is not fair I think. And in my very humble opinion, it would be not fair to push forward a minority in order to artificially adjust the balance with criteria different than merit alone.

  • Rameau says:

    Maybe because the other female conductor they picked last year was atrocious.

  • Michael says:

    Tiffany Chang received one of their opera residencies this year.

  • MOST READ TODAY: