Fabio Luisi commits to three orchestras
NewsWe hear that the Italian conductor has sorted out his commitmments to the end of the decade.
Luisi, 64, has just renewed with the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Japan until 2028 (started 2022) and Danish National Symphony until 2029 (start 2016). His contract with Dallas Symphony runs to 2029 (from 2020).
That amounts to a testament of continuity in an age of fly-by-night batons and frenetic agents.
With gigs in Japan, Gallas, and Denmark he is pretty fly-by-night too.
Gallas = Dallas
There is absolutely no reason for one conductor to be in charge of three different orchestras in three different continents. This oligopoly is ludicrous and doesn’t serve anyone but the pockets of a conductor. There are plenty of extremely talented conductors out there who struggle to find gigs. Let’s make make room to them.
Actually there are very few conductors out there who know what they’re doing, it’s rather alarming. Waving a stick in the air like Harry Potter does not equal conducting
“That amounts to a testament of continuity in an age of fly-by-night batons and frenetic agents.”
I suppose that’s a reference to the extended commitments being made here, and Luisi is indeed a very fine conductor.
But the choice of the term “fly-by-night batons” seems amusing, because any conductor with commitments to orchestras on three continents will indeed be doing a lot of “flying–in physical terms if not contractual ones. I question how much focused attention he can actually devote to any of these groups. And we seem a long way from the era when a music director considered an orchestra’s city to be his “home.”
I also continue to believe that if “the big names” weren’t hogging multiple orchestras, more opportunities would open for the next generation of talented conductors.
Well said!!
The cream always rises to the top.
Trouble is, cream is the wrong colour!!
SlippedChat clearly forgets that most of the top conductors regularly fly around the world for guest engagements. When you look at the NHK programmes over the 23/24 season, Fabio Luisi will spend 3 visits totaling around 8 weeks with several performances of each programme. Luisi is still relatively young. Some of this season’s guest conductors are far older and presumably far more prone to the effects of jet lag – 96 year old Blomstedt being one and 83 year old Eschenbach another.
For years Jaap van Zweden had orchestras in the US, Europe and Hong Kong – in the process making the Hong Kong Philharmonic Gramophone’s “Orchestra of the Year”. Years ago Leonard Bernstein was a frequent guest conductor in Japan as well as in Europe and America in the same years. Wolfgang Sawallisch spent four weeks annually as a Principal Guest with the NHK for some 30 years when at the same time he was MD in Philadelphia. Ozawa was MD of the New Japan Philharmonic at the same time he was leading Boston and guesting in Europe. Several other major western-based conductors have had titled posts with the NHK and other top Japanese Orchestras over many decades.
I cannot see how jet lag affects a conductor committing multi-week appearances compared to one who is around for one concert series. Or indeed for a soloist who traverses the world with considerable regularity giving what the great violinist Ida Haendel once described to
me as “one-night stands!”
The era when conductors devoted most of their time to one orchestra is all but over. I doubt if we will see the likes of Sir John Barbirolli and Sir Alexander Gibson again.
Well, Kirill Petrenko (per Bachtrack) does not move outside Germany/Austria this year, apart from a tour of East Asia with the Berliner Phil. Apart from the Berliners, he’s got dates in Munich with his former orchestra, Vienna, and the Karajan-Akademie. That’s all, until a run of Rosenkavalier in Milan in 2024.
Kirill Petrenko is already a massive legend.
He is going to Bergen Philharmonic in Norway in December doing Electra.
Lucky them, fabulous conductor! I’ve no idea why we don’t see him in the UK.
Pay better fees, Brits!
From Japan to Denmark to Texas. I hope he tolerates jet lag well. That’s also an eye-watering amount of flying. The classical world really needs to ask itself whether that is necessary, or acceptable.
The good news beneath the surface of this issue is flying itself, which is now safer than driving a car. It’s one of the great miracles of the last 30 years that hardly any planes ever crash.
Between now and June, the proverbially ‘overextended’ YNS will appear with six ensembles and fly over to Europe…twice (there’s a two week gap between Rotterdam and Berlin in May where he could in theory fly home, but no concerts which require that).
Of those six ensembles, he’s the head of three, one is a youth orchestra in NY, and he’s the former head of another (Rotterdam – the last is the Berliner Philharmoniker). The first trip is a lengthy tour with one of his ensembles. For nearly his whole season, Nézet-Séguin is not leaving the Philly-NY-Montréal triangle.
Luisi, meanwhile, by my calculations (via Bachtrack and the DSO website) is appearing with eight ensembles and will fly away from Europe seven times between now and June. Sure, he’s sticking to ensembles he’s had for a while, but it’s still a hectic schedule. And of course Luisi is not the worst offender in this regard, but three orchestras on three continents is nevertheless rather extreme.
He should be at the Met, but the idiot Gelb put an end to that. Everything he conducted was terrific.
Completely agree. YNS is very good in many things but Luisi was even better in Italian repertoire and Wagner
He was honorable in his negotiations with the Met. Gelb was not.
Quelle surprise!
I agree with you, and was disappointed when Luisi was not named music director at the Met. I thought he was terrific when he was there, and while YNS I suppose has a lot to offer-although I have never been really moved by his conducting. I’m sure it was part of Gelb’s strategy-which isn’t working anyway-but YNS could have been next in line. After decades with Levine-excluding many talented conductors-I would have thought the Met would have gone with someone who might not be there forever.
Luisi is the real deal, unflamboyant and a musical star (rather than a social media star) just wonderful in a wide range of repertoire – Wagner to Nielsen and of course a fabulous opera conductor as we all heard at the Met for a few short years a while back. I am a big fan because in 55 years of listening I know talent when I see and hear it.
Maestro Luisi is a gentleman of integrity as well as a musician and conductor with vast knowledge and capability. (And a man with curiosity about many far flung corners in life.)
These three orchestras are truly fortunate to have him as their musical/artistic leader.
Cappello, Fabio. Veramente Cappello!
Not to mention a testament to a very fine conductor.
Really, how serious a musician can this man be? His hair is a natural color, his fingernails lack color, and—by all reports—he does not sport any tattoos. I bet he even conducts his own rehearsals. What a sad state for classical music.
He probably also believes that “Radiohead” is a reference to some obscure fictional tale of a robot.
Well he does make his own line of perfumes and fragrances…………..
Those nine people who down-voted it need a lesson in sarcasm
And don’t forget money greed…. Ormandy, Szell, Reiner, how many orchestras?
And Koussevitzky!
Hey you kids get off of my lawn. Old hat.
Back in the late 1800s, the Viennese press were complaining about the rotation of conductors when the Berlin Philharmonic visited Vienna. It’s nothing new.
He’s a very fine conductor. Should have stayed at the Met.
We (the audience) wanted him to, believe me
Congratulations to a wonderful maestro who deserves all the opportunities that come along!
I’ve just heard him conduct Nielsen on the radio. I think it was the Inextinguishable . Normally, I don’t like the composer but this was fabulous.
It’s true this cycle is phenomenal. It’s from first love time with orchestra. Romance time. May it last!
Don’t forget that most of these conductors also have side hustles from all the soloists they demand be hired by the artistic and planning directors.