NY Phil is close to naming new boss
OrchestrasWe hear the orchestra will ppresent its next CEO before the month is out.
The key factor for the seach committee has been to recruit someone who has the trust of incoming director Gustavo Dudamel.
The only name we have seen in the frame is the Philadelphia Orchestra chief Matias Tarnopolsky, who worked closely with Dudamel when he was director of Cal Performances in Berkeley in the last decade.
Tarnopolsky has turned Philly around over the past three years with music director Yannick Nezet-Seguin.
Will they let him go so soon?
“who has the trust of incoming director Gustavo Dudamel”
it is always, always a mistake to hire around the maestro, much less a temperamental one who has a proven record of breaking his contract within the first year and who has already said in published interviews that LA remains his home
I give Dudamel one season, if not one year in NY, before he quits in a huff, not unlike his mentor in SF.
Temperamental? Dudamel is a lot of things but I’ve never heard complaints that he’s anything of the sort. Most know him as an affable guy, if overextended. Paris Opera is a notorious s**tshow (it’s French and it’s opera, after all), which is more the root of the issue there.
“notorious s**tshow”
But a notorious shitshow he signed a contract with.
If Paris’s reputation is so notorious then why did he sign on with them?
Breaching your contract for no reason is the very definition of temperamental.
Throwing a hissy fit to get rid of the prior CEO is the very definition of temperamental.
Supporting a murderous dictator is the very definition of temperamental. My bad, that’s just grovelling immoral opportunism, nothing to do with being temperamental.
Alexander Neef certainly didn’t seem sorry to see Dudamel leave the Paris Opera. It just wasn’t a good match, and once that was clear, it was good to move on.
Please don’t compare Dudamel to Salonen. Salonen, for example, forced out an amazing concertmaster shortly after he arrived in LA and replaced him with a mediocre one. When people became unhappy about the switch Salonen then threatened Fleischmann that he would resign if people kept complaining. To my knowledge there has been no prima-donna behavior from Dudamel on this level. You can however compare Salonen to his other and closer mentee, Klaus Mäkelä.
Well, he turned around the Philadelphia Orchestra despite YNS. Everybody knows that Yannick is a me-myself-and-I person who is pleasant and fun, but he doesn’t care about his orchestras, as I have heard. But yes, Tarnopolsky is a good manager, well-liked and competent.
I think you would find the members of L’Orchestre Métropolitain would disagree with you.
You might be right. They are friends who helped him at the beginning of his career. However, what he did not do for his musicians at the Met (the Metropolitan in NYC) during the COVID tragedy speaks volumes. Good conductor, of course. But I expect more from a MD. And I am not alone in this opinion.
Well, YNS was also music director when Allison Vulgamore was administrator. In fact, if my memory is correct, she was the one who may have hired YNS as music director.
In any case, the attendance at Philadelphia orchestra concerts is around 78%. Nothing to brag about.
Matias is one of the very best in the business. This would be a devastating loss for Philadelphia.
Let’s see, the orchestra is currently “between” artistic directors, is being sued by a couple of its members (including one of the most highly paid) and is undergoing a comprehensive legal investigation seeking to ferret out misconduct allegations. Their most recent CEO quit at short notice. One assumes they must be offering a truly *enormous* salary if they expect to lure anyone into taking such a horrendous job.
Wishful thinking by the NYP. Is Allison Vulgamore available?
Mattias is not going anywhere.
Why leave Philly? Because Philly is irrelevant and overrated. That’s why I jumped to Bel-Air. Yo holmes, smell ya later!
Best comment on this site ever!