Just in: London extends Karina
OrchestrasThe London Philharmonic Orchestra has added an extra three years onto Karina Cannelakis’s principal guest conductor contract.
Off the concert platform, Canellakis has been involved in ensuring the pipeline of talent into the industry by working with LPO Junior Artists, answering their questions via video recording. This scheme is the LPO’s free orchestral experience programme for talented young musicians from backgrounds currently under-represented in professional UK orchestras.
Can someone clearly define for me what “talented young musicians from backgrounds currently under-represented in professional UK orchestras” means!
I bet you can guess.
Bet these “talented young musicians” don’t come from economically challenged backgrounds which means they can’t buy a spot in the industry!
That is great news. It surprises me that the Americands havent appointed her as chief conductor to a major orchestra.
Unfortunately, although Ms. Canellakis is definitely an excellent conductor, she has two drawbacks as far as the boards of major American orchestras are concerned: she is female and she is an American. American orchestral management would give preference to any random assistant vice-Kapellmeister of the Kleinmachnow Philharmoniker over any American candidate.
Another possibility could be that she does not have anything interesting to say. I heard her conducting the National Symphony in Washington in Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra and got bored. Yes, technically things were OK, not better nor worse than for an average NSO concert – and since Noseda took over this average got higher. But I was waiting for some musical ideas. The selection of the opening piece, some Brett Dean trash, did not help either.
Of course, I am judging one single concert, but as they say, you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression. In any case, this confirmed once again how good Noseda is. And don’t even mention the great recordings of the Concerto for Orchestra from Fricsay and Reiner.
Yes. She is doing a guest gig at the NYPO in a few weeks, including the Poem of Ecstasy. I will put up with the execrable sound of the new organ at Geffen Hall…………..and I look forward greatly to attending that program.
Thank you. I believed I was the only person who thought that ‘digital’ organ in Geffen Hall was awful. It’s not even good for a digital one.
Plus the torture of the piece itself, right? Makes Tchaikovsky”s “Francesca da Rimini” a walk in the park.
And my favorite orchestral work is Schoenberg Op.31.
Chacun à son goût.
She’s my dark horse for Cleveland
You can’t say dark Jersey anymore.
Robin, Cleveland has someone already. I think LA.
Agreed. She is super duper talented! Get going U.S. Orchestras!!
L.A. Phil has a regular guest conductor from Finaland, Susanna Malkki. Grass is always greener on the other side of the pond.
I truly worship the difference between the word “scheme” in British and American English.
Don’t know where that came from, but he/she/it deserves acknowlegement.
Good call by the LPO; she clearly has a great rapport with the orchestra and they really respond to her. I just wish they’d do a few more concerts together each season.
Karina is the real deal. Incredibly versatile, learning an incredible amount of rep. also rarely performed(Janacek operas,Jörg Widman Arche), and delivering really freshly minted performances of the standard rep, always finding something new even in the most familiar scores others overlook. Fantastic stick, incredibly well prepared and a fantastic rehearser. And, like all really good conductors, she knows the orchestra from the inside, as a first class violinist in top orchestras.And she is an absolutely infectous personality, convincing everyone by her sheer love for the music and the players.And a charming, emphatic and a lovely person to boot. In my 45 years as an orchestra musician, she was one of the absolute highlights on the podium, as an artist and as a mensch.
Meanwhile, more than two years after the music director of the Seattle Symphony emailed in his immediate resignation, there is zero sign of progress on naming a replacement. Cannelakis conducted the SSO 6 years ago and was terrific, and SSO leadership should have been on the phone courting her within hours of receiving that email. But considering that the LPO’s current Artistic Director Elena Dubinets spent a good bit of time in Seattle, it’s probably safe to assume that Karina has been advised to stay away from the toxic sludge in the administration here.
Good call.
I just saw her in Boston and it looks like her style has changed a bit in the past few years. I always thought she was talented and would get a top notch orchestra someday.
It has changed greatly..She always had phenomenal talent, but experience has created maturity( she is 42 now).Especially at her home base,the Netherlands Radio Phil,she did an incredible amount of repertory, especially large scale works like Bruckner symphonies( she has an unbeliavable sense for large scale architecture,combined with absolute clarity of texture, fluidity and flexibility)…..to Janacek operas,Jörg Widmann´s monumental Arche, Wagner´s Siegfried, etc.
She has an uncanny knack for what makes a piece special…Great Sibelius, contemporary stuff, historically informed Beethoven(she got her major break as a conductor when Harnoncourt chose as his replacement for a Beethoven cycle with the Concentus Musicus during his final illness). Everything sounds totally natural under her hands..Her interpretations remind quite often a bit of one of her mentors,Bernard Haitink..No frills, just pure music coming from inside the score..And therefore, for the educated listener(and player), all the more satisfying and rich. And what a fantastic rehearser she is!