We just sacked the maestro
OrchestrasThis message came in from Montreal:
The Orchestre Classique de Montréal (OCM) announces the departure of its Artistic Director and Principal Conductor, Maestro Jacques Lacombe. Over the past season, the OCM is proud to have been able to count on the services of Maestro Lacombe, who shared his passion and talent with the musicians and audiences alike.
That’s it. No explanation, no word of a successor. Just: we fired the chief.
Lacombe offers this account on his social media:
“Over the past year, several employees and ex-employees have informed me of the existence of a harmful work climate imposed by the management style of the general director within the orchestra’s administration. The members of the Board of Directors, notably through their inaction, tolerated this situation which even recently led to the resignation of two members of the administrative team. This is all the more unfortunate since the general manager also has several good qualities and good growth potential which he does not seem to wish to promote, nor thus aspire to the rigor and excellence which should be the trademark of the CMO. On the other hand, numerous actions and decisions contrary to recognized good practices in the professional environment in which I have been operating for nearly 40 years were made by the general manager, some of these actions and decisions even significantly encroaching on my prerogatives of artistic director.”
And we thought Canadians were meant to be the nice guys.
Sounds like the Columbus Symphony in Ohio.
Which is looking for a new CEO President. I wouldn’t touch that with a ten-foot titanium pole while wearing a level 10 hazmat suit.
Second chamber orchestra in Montréal to have an acrimonious split with its MD, after I Musici, who sacked Jean-Marie Zeitouni (and by most accounts are doing well now under Jean-François Rivest).
It’s a shame for the OCM (formerly Orchestre de Chambre McGill, the late Boris Brott’s orchestra), who were doing high-quality music and forming an outstanding orchestra. Hopefully they can recover, clean up administrative issues (including the GM if needed) and get back to making music. I’m curious to see what their next season will look like – it hasn’t been announced yet.
The upcoming season had been published on the website until just a few days ago. Some of the individual concert programs are still visible through direct links if you have the urls, but all references to the conductor have been expunged, as well as some of the concert progrmming that was obviously tied to the conductor’s personal repertoire choices.
There is an interesting and fun book written by an old Juilliard cellist who later went into IT. It’s a good, quick, read and one of the chapters he describes “an orchestra in the Midwest” and the vicious, music director there. No names, no locations but it sounds so much like the Columbus Symphony’s reign of terror in the 80s.. “Digial Grace Notes -One Cellist’s Journey” Amazon.
Is this just another instance of cloth-eared, self-regarding, incompetent administrators versus musicians?
The general manager, in this case, is Taras Kulish, who has a long career as a baritone and as a music administrator, including at the OCM (I remember seeing him as a very decent Leporello many years ago). He’s certainly not clueless about music. No idea what happened here, but the transition from Boris Brott to an external MD with experience in large institutions might have something to do with it.
As always when situations like these arise, the music-making is not the problem. There is Mr Kulish, a former singer, and then board members who see the orchestra as a business and nothing else. The artistic vision of a given music director is not a priority, unless the said MD says “yes” to every demand of the board, however futile.
Jacques Lacombe is an excellent conductor with a wide knowledge of the repertoire and artistic vision. Most importantly, he is well liked and respected by musicians. If Kulish and the board (who actually picked him) want Lacombe to do things only for their sake, he is better off somewhere else.
I find it ironic that the Board of Directors of the OCM handled this so badly. I grew up with the late and much-missed Maestro Boris Brott as a family friend. He led the OCM so brilliantly. But surely management knew that the same thing had been done to him while he was Musical Director of the Hamilton Symphony. He came back from a trip to find out that their Board had met, behind closed doors, to replace him, despite how much renown he had brought to the orchestra and to Hamilton. I feel strongly that Jaques Lacombe has a right to defend his reputation. Every story has two sides.