Maestro move: Utah goes Posch
OrchestrasThe Utah Symphony has announced Markus Poschner as its next music director.
Poschner, 53, is presently chief of the Bruckner Orchestra Linz (to 2027) and Orchestra della Svizzera italiana (to 2025). He becomes chief conductor in Basel a year from now.
His official takeover date in Utah is 2027, but he’ll have a battle on his hands to stop developers knocking down Abravanel Symphony Hall and replacing it with a sports stadium.
“…but he’ll have a battle on his hands to stop developers knocking down Abravanel … Hall and replacing it with a sports stadium.”
This is old news: Salt Lake County government, which owns and operates Abravanel Hall as part of a group of Salt Lake County arts performance buildings, decided in September 2024 to keep Abravanel Hall as is, but most likely with significant upgrades/modernization being undertaken in about 3 years time.
https://kslnewsradio.com/2136255/mayor-wilson-confirms-future-of-abravanel-hall/
In any case, Markus Poschner most likely was the best choice for the next music director of the Utah Symphony, in terms of experience and energetic artistic outlook. He is the right conductor at the right time for this orchestra.
His two previous programs with the Utah Symphony, in late 2022 and 2023, witnessed two excellent performances of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, & two fine performances of Brahms’s Second Symphony.
Hasn’t Abravanel Hall been saved?
https://www.kuer.org/arts-culture-entertainment/2024-10-09/salt-lake-county-commits-to-abravanel-hall-thats-music-to-the-utah-symphonys-ear
Great choice. Markus is a superb conductor and a very nice man.
He will bring down the hall.
That is not a bad pun at all, but it is perhaps pushing the limits of “taste” regarding recent concerns about the survival of Abravanel Hall – which have now been settled in favor of its enduring legacy.
Still, I would say that Markus Poschner can often be an exciting conductor to watch in performance.
Not to be confused with Matthias Pintscher, also 53.
Matthias Pintscher is an excellent conductor as well.
He has guest conducted the Utah Symphony in two programs in two performances each, about 8-10 years ago.
The Kansas City Symphony made an excellent choice when it selected Pintscher as its next music director.
End-user experiences may vary stratospherically.
He is conducting the Symphony this weekend. Britten: Piano concerto & Beethoven: Symphony No. 3.
Indeed.
It is always an interesting vantage point into a conductor’s artistic perceptions when Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony is programmed and a companion piece is selected.
I believe that the programming of Benjamin Britten’s Piano Concerto (with Benjamin Grosvenor) as soloist is perhaps the Utah premiere of the piece, and perhaps the Utah Symphony premiere of it too. I know it has not been programmed since I began attending all programs/performances of the Utah Symphony Masterworks Series since the 2000-2001 season.
In any case, Benjamin Grosvenor is a fine pianist, and it looks like he has performed this Britten concerto a few times recently (with the Seattle Symphony, etc.). It is the type of piece that should suit him well stylistically, and one that he should also record for commercial release.
As for Markus Poschner, again, he is an excellent choice for the next music director of the Utah Symphony, and should complement in fine fashion what music director emeritus Thierry Fischer, the Utah Symphony musicians, and the Utah Symphony/Utah Opera organization achieved during his tenure as music director from 2009 to 2023.
Hopefully the Utah Symphony will continue to make commercial recordings, this time with Markus Poschner, perhaps on the ECM label.
Poschner released an excellent recording this year (late May 2024) on that label. It includes Paul Hindemith’s Symphony “Mathis der Maler,” “The Four Temperaments” for Piano and String Orchestra (with Anna Gourari), and Schnittke’s Concerto for Piano and Strings (also with Gourari) with the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana.
As an acquaintance has noted to me, the Utah Symphony has only performed the Britten Piano concerto previously in public performance once in its history.
Maurice Abravanel, the Utah Symphony’s then new music director, led a concert with the Britten Piano Concerto on the program, with soloist Jacques Abram.
The date for that performance was November 20, 1948.
As reported in the Salt Lake Tribune on November 21, 1948:
https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6r559b5/28984967