Why aren’t US conductors good enough for US orchestras?
OrchestrasThe New York Times has a periodic wringing of hands:
… Four of the 25 largest ensembles in the United States have an American at the podium, and at the nation’s biggest, most prestigious orchestras, American music directors are entirely absent….
…(Jonathon Heyward is one of those four American maestros at the largest ensembles today, along with Michael Stern in Kansas City, Giancarlo Guerrero in Nashville and Carl St.Clair at the Pacific Symphony in California).
… A number of vacancies loom: Roughly a quarter of the music directors at the top 25 largest orchestras in the United States have departed or are planning to depart over the next several years, in Los Angeles, Chicago, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Seattle and Salt Lake City.
Read on here.
Only the very best musical directors merit appointment to American orchestras. They have to be of continental European origin – preferably German or Hungarian – be at least sixty years old, and hold conducting appointments at at least two other prestigious European orchestras. Their salaries should come as near as possible to bankrupting the orchestra, and, last but not least, no Brits need apply.
“no Brits need apply.”
Blame that on the old porridge mix up. We used to have Barbirolli in New York and Beecham in Seattle. It should have been the other way around. 🙂
You also had Leopold Stokowsky, as memorably parodied by B. Bunny in ‘Long-Haired Hare’, who was advised by his American wife to adopt a pseudo-Polish accent even though he was born in London and was a native English speaker. Sadly, it was the wrong sort of English …
Well, yes, but Stokie was naturalized and spent most of his career in the US. Also, Barbirolli was for a time music director of the Houston Symphony as well – succeeding Stokowski! I don’t know how successful that tenure was as I am not aware that any recordings have been made.
P.S. As it happens, I am actually listening right now to Barbirolli’s NY recordings. Some are good, most are not, and it becomes clear why he was not considered an orchestra builder, whatever his other qualities may have been.
So far my favorites are the Mozart recordings, the concerto with Casadesus and the Symphony no. 25 – less so the Clarinet Concerto, but this is mostly due to Benny Goodman. Yes, Glorious John does everything that is verboten by the purist mob, but he somehow makes it work. I also have a nostalgic feeling for his Purcel and Elizabethan music arrangements, which of course he re-reorded a few times.
Then there was Leopold Stokowski, a native English speaker born and educated in London, but who, at the recommendation of Mrs Stokowski, attempted an indeterminate Baltic accent to disguise his origins once he crossed the Atlantic. Subsequently there was of course the Swinging Sixties when anybody with a North of England accent could sleep their way around Manhattan, but that came too late for Stokie.
My apologies for duplicated comments in this thread. What of course happened was that I submitted comments, saw that they were under review, and then they just disappeared. So I submitted revised versions.
I might add that my ironic comments about who gets to conduct in America are pretty close to those generally expressed by our old friend from Classics Today, although he did include JoAnn Falletta and Marin (not Madge) Alsop in his original list of Best Living Conductors.
Michael Stern is leaving Kansas City at the end of this season. From my perch in New York City Yannick Nezet-Seguin, born and raised in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, not mentioned in the article, seems much more ‘American’ than Giancarlo Guerrero, born in Nicaragua. And if he’s American, then isn’t Gustavo Dudamel, Venezuelan, also? Did the author just assume that Yannick, a native French speaker with a busy international career, is somehow not “American’.
I haven’t seen the list of orchestras, but I am surprised that Louisville (Teddy Abrams) and Buffalo (JoAnn Falletta), both mentioned in the article, aren’t included in that group.
What makes Yannick “seem[s] much more American than” Guerrero?
Yannick is Canadian, thus North American. Montreal is less than 400 miles from New York.
Because Canadians — even the French flavor variety, and yikes even the variety that curtsies to the bloodline of the Windsors — are just Americans without the attitude.
Correction: Canadians are Americans with that final 5% of excellence. Anyone in any other field knows this but we kid ourselves in thinking Canadians more benevolent or kinder. They’re just more passive aggressive about it. And the last said about Quebec, the better.
Also without the guns and with a better health plan.
The health plan is so good British Columbia is sending over two thousand cancer patients per year to Bellingham, Washington for treatment.
Nicaragua is not “American” in the way that the NY Times intends, nor is Canada or Venezuela. The focus is clearly on conductors born in the US, so Guerrero should not even be there.
I don’t think Louisville and Buffalo could fit into the 25 biggest ensembles in the country by any measure. Just by a random order, we’ve got the Big 5, LA, SF, National, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Minnesota, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Dallas, Houston, Seattle, Atlanta, Nashville, Baltimore, Kansas City, Salt Lake, Portland, San Diego, Pacific, Milwaukee.
That’s 25, without including the Met, SF Opera, Lyric, NYC Ballet, St. Paul Chamber etc. and there are probably many others that you could put in the 25 instead of some, the likes of North Carolina, Colorado, Columbus Fort Worth etc…
But good points about Dudamel, I don’t understand why Guerrero is considered American and Dudamel isn’t.
As of 2021 (the most recent year I found), Buffalo was the 19th highest revenue orchestra in the US. JoAnn Faletta is a big reason why this is true. When it comes to attracting top talent, I would think revenue would be a bigger factor than physical size of either the city or orchestra.
It’s debatable whether Giancarlo Guerrero should be included on the list, but I don’t think it’s really a great mystery why he would be considered more American than Yannick Nezet-Seguin.
Guerrero seems more American than Nezet-Seguin to me because the latter is a Canadian educated in Canada who started his career conducting Canadian orchestras, while the former grew up in Nicaragua and Costa Rica but got both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in the US and mostly stayed on and made his career primarily in the US for decades after that.
I believe Yannick went to Westminster Choir College in Princeton.
The article did make the point that 15 years ago a lot of U.S. orchestras had American directors. It fluctuates. But what is the short list of American conductors who don’t have a U.S. position and perhaps should? Gaffagan? Karen Kamensek? Anne Manson? Who after that?
I find, to my surprise, that Semyon Bychkov is American, and was a predecessor of JoAnn Falletta at the Buffalo Philharmonic.
If we are to include naturized conductors – and we should – then we should not forget the Järvis.
Robert Trevino is the only other name that comes to my mind.
Of course, the old lions are still out there: Slatkin, Zinman, MTT. Andrew Litton is still young enough to take over another directorship if he wants to / is appointed. And Alan Gilbert is still around; so is Marin Alsop. Just saying.
Not everyone above is equally talented, obviously.
MTT is dying and conducted his final concert in SF last month.
MTT is announced next season in Philadelphia.
They’d better start looking for a sub.
Add Carina Kanellakis.
Blame the American administrators and American orchestra musicians and their inferiority complex, and that very much includes Deborah Borda, who chose Dudamel twice for her orchestras on both coasts.
Cleveland and LA can still do the right thing, both orchestras have been hailed by the Infallible NYT as America’s “finest”, the former, and America’s “best”, the latter, so if you think you are, go ahead and prove it and lead the way for America: choose an American music director!
Too late for Chicago, its selection process is Finnish. ha ha, ha ha
We haven’t had any confirmation that Makela will indeed be the next MD, however to your point about appointing American conductors, show us one that’s in the same league as Hrusa, Honeck, Salonen, Bychkov, Thielemann etc… and we might just consider that. Gaffigan is alright, but not great, thank god Alsop is tied elshwere and someone above mentioned Abrams, please don’t bring him into this, it’s enough we’ve had to suffer him and his broken chicken feet hands in Ravinia, the guy is miles away from being a conductor, let alone a great one.
Only two Americans on the CSO guest list next season, Gaffigan and Canellakis. I think the combination of the CSO and Canellakis will bring back interesting programming and operas back onto the concert stage, and the superlative playing she tends to get from her orchestras. If they are ever to make an gamble, this would be it.
Why are you surprised? Your system does a totally lousy job of cultivating American talent. Makela is amazing and Hrusa and Honeck are absolutely wonderful, but Thielemann has issues and Bychkov and Salonen are hugely over-rated, due to Bychkov’s early-career success and Salonen’s easy facility and male-model looks. I’ve never seen Teddy Abrams but in certain areas of the repertoire Marin Alsop is top-notch and you can’t take that away from her. And once again, you’re giving Gaffigan a glorified pops concert……Stay classy, Chicago.
The comments in this article about the assistant track strike home for me. Let us compare:
In Europe, a young conductor wins an assistant conductor audition with a medium-to-large-sized orchestra, spends 2-3 years in that role, is picked up by a European management company and starts guest conducting subscription concerts among small orchestras in Europe…and after a year or so on the European junket, invitations from the US start to come. They become music director of a European radio orchestra and soon a B-group American orchestra, spending 5-7 years at each before stepping up to even bigger music directorships. A career is born.
In the US, a young conductor wins an assistant conductor audition with a medium-to-large-sized orchestra, spends 2-3 years in that role, *maybe* gets picked up by a US management company and starts guest conducting…movies. Pops. Family concerts. A subscription with a sub-million-dollar budget orchestra. After a year or so on this junket, they become typecast as a non-“serious” conductor on both sides of the pond and wind up music director of Suburban Symphony Orchestra USA for 10-15 years. Prospects of conducting classical music again at a major symphony dwindle significantly.
Assuming (boldly) that both hypothetical auditions are initially won on pure merit, talent is not part of the equation here. It’s about the leap of faith afforded in the European system to provide opportunity for growth after the conductor’s term as assistant is expired. The same opportunity is conspicuously absent in the US system.
Thank you for this comment. It’s also much harder for conductors who went through a USA assistant system to go over to Europe and start a small beginning career while lots of mid to big US orchestras consider a thriving European career heavily into a factor to bringing someone even as a guest conductor. Lots of these assistant conductor position crams in lots of staff position roles that has nothing to do with conducting to save money while not granting what is the most important thing that these young conductors need- subscription concerts. Good luck in inviting a manager from New York to check you out in a one hour school concert. I am happy that this article in the times came out to just raise the level of awareness in this subject. Of course it goes all the way down to the core system. Sometimes one has to have the leap of faith in young conductors to give them that opportunity when it is most needed.
Spot on. An assistant conductor position seems to be the kiss of death, which is ridiculous. In that position, one must learn how to manage a concert in one rehearsal, so you have to be efficient with both hands and time. I learned a lot covering for top conductors with a top orchestra. While being an assistant, I was able to work out pacing large works with good college and youth orchestras nearby. I studied like a bandit… Still, auditions for MD positions for former assistant conductors are rare.
Even at small orchestras, both professional and large community orchestras, there is a preference for decidedly mediocre conductors from abroad (with zero professional orchestra experience and often minimal instrumental qualifications). There were tons of gifted American conductors at all of the top-notch training programs where I trained. Most work in universities.
If it was as easy for American conductors to work abroad as it is for foreign conductors to work in the US, the situation would likely be much better. Alas.
Generally yes, but there are exceptions, Bernstein and MTT being the most famous. Also Leonard Slatkin was Walter Susskind’s assistant in St. Louis.
Also, Seiji Ozawa was Bernstein’s assistant in New York. Cristian Macelaru and Rossen Milanov had assistant, later associate positions in Philadlephia.
Absolutely correct and if you add age into the argument, things become more dire. There are quite a few excellent and worthy American conductors who merit consideration at this level but are middle-aged or older. Age and a lack of perceived glamor work to prohibit their consideration. As in so many other professions, unless you’ve already established level of notoriety by a certain age, no matter how great you may be, the best opportunities will not present.
Perhaps there’s an underlying assumption, in the New York Times article, that the United States is so populous, and has many music schools, and therefore ought to be able to furnish conductors for its own orchestras. Because I don’t read the kind of handwringing when the Concertgebouw appoints a conductor who isn’t Dutch or a German orchestra appoints an American.
There are also differing degrees of “connectedness” regardless of issues of nationality. For example, Louis Langrée, the music director in Cincinnati, bought a house in the city, his wife (whose profession was rather portable) worked there (with an American father, she already had dual citizenship), and the couple sent their children to local schools. I’d prefer that to a music director of any nationality who jets in for his own performance weekends but has no other stake in, or commitment to the community.
A bigger problem, in my thinking, is “big name” music directors, often backed by record labels and publicity machines (and enabled by orchestras wanting “big name” music directors for their own publicity machines) who hold multiple directorships, don’t actually live in any of the cities where they conduct, and suck the “opportunity air” out of the room for other highly talented conductors–of which there are many, both in the U.S. and elsewhere.
That’s why Cleveland should pick Alan Gilbert, former Assistant and regular Guest made good by becoming MD of New York, he richly deserves elevation to the post of director at the orchestra that trained him and launched his career.
Need someone like Jakub Hrusa to continue the Szell lineage and traditions….
Hrusa, though a fine conductor, is not musically similar to Szell.
TCO needs another FWM more than a Szell. They have a richer sound now and are still clean.
Don’t understand why the Times considers Giancarlo Guerrero to be “American.”
He lived for so long in the US, and he did his studies here. Could it be that he is naturalized? I am asking, I don’t know the answer.
Anybody born in North, Central or South America is American, period. No, he’s not a US native. But he is American.
As far as geography is concerned, you are correct. But ask anyone in the USA what “American” means, and they certainly won’t mention any other country.
Wrong.
Geographically, you’re wrong because people born in the western hemisphere are either North American or South American. And you are also wrong because the nation a person is born in is the determinant to whether they are ‘American’. Or to ask a pointed question, “Why would anyone discount a person’s birth country, i.e., Mexico, Guatemala, Peru, Brazil, Argentina by dismissing those nations and attempting to ‘dis’ them by not acknowledging them in connection with that individual’s identity”? No Mexican, Puerto Rican, Dominican, Ecuadorean or Argentinian I’ve met has ever called himself or herself an ‘American’. They are proud of their birth nation and they correctly reserve that name (‘American’) for citizens of the United States of America.
Because there are 3 Americas.
“we conductors” , please.
American public education does not value the arts generally and instrumental music in particular.
So I’d guess that western art music instruction is stronger in Scandinavian countries and some EU nations.
Just take a look at what the music schools in America are teaching. I’ll give you a hint: w.o.k.e.
“Woke” is definitely on the Juilliard audition. /s
This is not a new problem, it has always been an issue for an American conductor to break through as Music Director, or Principal Conductor of the major orchestras. The blue haired widows and the financiers who supported the orchestras from the beginning always wanted European conductors at the helm. Only rare American conductors like Bernstein, Maazel, Thomas and Robertson have held the major positions. The great names who helmed the American orchestras are all Western European or Russian, with the exception of Stoki and Barbirolli who were British.
The question should be: why aren’t Americans applying for U.S. jobs? Because overseas pay better.
When you say “American,” do you mean North, South or Central? If I were a conductor and offered a good paying job anywhere, I’d be thrilled.
The fact is that there are plenty of USA orchestras with American conductors, using any definition of “American” you please. The problem, if it is a problem, is that in Europe, and perhaps also in the U.K., there is an accepted progression, you start here, learn the craft, get noticed, then move up a step, and so on. Particularly for opera houses but also for symphony orchestras. And the progression seems almost 17th century in its origins. Maybe archbishops and other clergy had the exact same progression. Frieda Hempel’s autobiography indicates that for opera singers this progression was rigidly expected in Europe and that it was tied to general social status of the royalty of the time.
Natura non facit saltus.
So for example, a von Karajan starts at Salzburg, goes on to Ulm, Aachen, the Berlin State Opera and Prussian State Orch., then Berlin Staatskapelle, and so on until he got the big prize.
In the USA it almost seems like a progression of this sort is out of the question. That is, when Boston or Chicago or New York are looking for the next music director, they don’t look at the music hierarchy below them for prospects, because they do not regard themselves as being at the pinnacle of that progression. They are great so they want lateral hires from comparable ensembles. Stated another way, experience with lesser orchestras isn’t a credential or qualification — it’s more a kiss of death.
There are some very fine conductors in America/USA but they are stuck on this three-rung ladder it seems. Shouldn’t Paul Polivnick, James Paul, John Covelli or Elizabeth Schulze have risen further than they did? I don’t see this situation changing any time soon.
That evolutionary progression of conductors to the top works only, if the shape of the orchestra landscape is a pyramid.
Many smaller provincial orchestras and opera companies, a good chunk in the middle, and a few on top.
Not the US system, which is these days more like an ivory tower with a much smaller foundation on the bottom than a (European) pyramid.
NY Phil. Had Alan Gilbert but he didn’t last.
Not that Gilbert is anything special. Didn’tlike him in NY and even less with the Elphi in Hamburg.
must be hard for Gilbert cos his mum played violin in the orchestra
A pity for them. He’s now happily ensconced in Hamburg and Stockholm, and a welcome guest at many A-list orchestras.
Gilbert started Santa Fe and NY, but his career keeps moving forward, in Europe.
Not true. 8 years is 2 contracts
He is a great American and should have a great American Orchestra
It looks like Case Scaglione may be a leading candidate — at least at the moment — to succeed Louis Langrée as music director of the Cincinnati Symphony. He guest conducted that orchestra last December (2023), and is scheduled to appear again, in the 2024-2025 season, in April 2025.
Andrew Litton could be a candidate to succeed Carl St. Clair as music director of the Pacific Symphony — he led three concerts late this last February — although British conductor Matthew Halls may be on the inside track after his three concerts this past January. Litton certainly has far more experience as a music director than all of the other guest conductors that have recently led the orchestra or are scheduled to do so in the 2024-2025 season. But that factor is just one among many in a decision on the new music director.
The BIG 5 had very few USA born conductors at the helm since 1940. Simply, they could buy the best, and in classical music the best usually came from Europe. Make a list of 100 greatest conductors: How many were US citizens from birth? Not too many. Perhaps the rason is that for most Americans classical music is an import from somebody elses culture.
There are something like 700 professional orchestras in the US alone. But there aren’t 700 great or even very good conductors in the world. Most of those orchestras have to settle for mediocre. A foreign name add some mystique when great talent is absent. They are the fund raising.face of the orchestra.
Just insert a middle name.
For years, the Resident Conductor of the Dallas Symphony wasn’t just “James Jones”… it was “James RIVES Jones.”
Certainly worked for Franz Möst who added Welser as “an hommage to his hometown” on the advice of Andreas von Bennigsen, a wacky Lichtenstein baron who was his mentor and later adopted the budding conductor.
Because overrated Canadians are preferred.
Given the nature of our education system, culture, etc. I’m actually shocked that there are any.
What about the young conductor James Feddick.He is a quietly capable musician with experience in Europe as well
It’s an urban myth that has been around for decades. The public and organization administrators are brainwashed. They want to sell tickets and fund raise so they hire who they think will be able to make it happen. There are wonderful Americans and incompetent foreigners. There is more opportunity to get valuable experience abroad but it’s available for everyone. Like everywhere in life, politics is involved. American women are working their way up very fast.
Could it be something to do with the well-known fact that orchestras generally hate conductors who talk too much? A “non-native” might use their gestures and body language more to convert the music rather than resorting to hours of flowery language and imagery?
It’s not all that uncommon for artists of all sorts to be appreciated more abroad than they are at home. Start with the many jazz musicians or performers like Josephine Baker embraced by the French – and of course in this case it was also that Black performers were getting away from good old-fashioned American racism (I know, not that Europeans can’t be racist, too).
There are also a lot more orchestras and opera houses per-capita in Europe than in the United States, so more opportunities – for conductors, singers, etc.. So for whatever reason, a lot of American conductors have had better success building careers in Europe than in the U.S. or – James Conlon, David Robertson, Kent Nagano, James Gaffagan, Dennis Russell Davies, Karen Kamensek, and others; aside from Davies at St. Paul, they all if I’m not mistaken had their first major jobs in Europe. Some have never had a U.S. position (Nagano only in Berkeley).
And then there are those who once established seem to be appreciated there – Donald Runnicles, Leonard Slatkin, Alan Gilbert, David Zinman, and Marin Alsop.
So Europeans often have less hangup around hiring Americans, while American orchestras often go for the foreigners. Maybe on both sides of the pond they figure the person from abroad is more likely to bring something they don’t already have.
The problem is- there are lots of good conductors out there- particularly in the USA- trained in the best music conservatory system in the world (Juilliard, Curtis, Indiana, Peabody & others.But its more of a question of opportunity. Plenty of middle aged guys around (well past the ‘pretty boy’ marketable status) who could conduct the socks off anything given to them & do a great job in front of the Cleveland Orchestra for example. Trouble is also- mediocrities like Alsop because she’s a woman (& OMG- don’t well all know it) is grabbing opportunities denied to those who might be 50ish, white & definitively male in origin.
Its called the Maestro Myth- and still today to many people buy into it. As if these magical people pull performances out their extremities that us mere mortals can barely appreciate let alone have interpreted ourselves.