Young local conductor spares Canellakis tour embarrassment

From the Athens website Ekathmerini:

On Friday night, we waited in the packed Christos Lambrakis Hall for conductor Karina Canellakis to take the stage to conduct the London Philharmonic in a much-anticipated concert. The president of Greece, Katerina Sakellaropoulou, was also present in the main box.

But instead of the renowned Greek-American conductor, and while the musicians waited in their seats, Janis Vakarelis, the artistic director of the Megaron – as the Athens Concert Hall is known – appeared on stage with a momentous announcement: Canellakis’ sudden illness would unfortunately prevent her from performing.

The news was followed by an exclamation of disappointment from the audience. For a brief moment, we wondered if we should leave as we had arrived. The prelude from Modest Mussorgsky’s opera “Khovanshchina,” which was to open the concert, was not to be played at all; Dmitri Shostakovich’s Violin and Orchestra Concerto No 1 was to be performed by solo violinist Christian Tetzlaff, who now also took on the role of conductor.

And what about Brahms’ Symphony No 4, which was to be the second part of the evening? The musical direction would fall to the young Greek conductor Dionysis Grammenos….

Read on here.