Nice to have a hometown chief
NewsThe Mayor of Nice has upgraded Lionel Bringuier to principal conductor of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Nice, replacing the Italian Daniele Callegari who lasted less than two years.
Bringuier, 37, has been biding his time since leaving Zurich’s Tonhalle orchestra, moving back to his birthplace Nice and filling in as associate artist at the Opéra.
It’s nice in Nice.
Excellent conductor & a wonderful & kind person!
Anon, you shall keep your opinion to yourself, for us at the Tonhalle Orchester, Lionel’s short tenure was quickly forgotten and considered unworthy holding the Chef Dirigent post. He is someone who was pushed way much too early by the corrupt music business (with Mark Newbanks making all sorts of deals incl. a few unremarkable recordings with us) that led to a disastrous end of a young conductor…..from Zürich to Nice, that’s equal to going 5 steps down under
Thanks for the clarification, Tonhalle Orchester musician. A few hours ago there were over 100 ‘dislikes’ and fewer than ten ‘likes’ for Anon’s post, which suggested an orchestrated (sorry!) attempt to vilify M. Bringuier. I hope that the orchestra would not stoop to such a trick. Curiously the scores are now even, so maybe NL took pity on the poor man and manipulated the figures.
Let us wish Lionel well in his future endeavours, and let’s not offend Nice by implying they are FIVE notches below Zurich. I heard the Tonhalle in the lovely Tonhalle playing Rachmaninov under Paavo Järvi earlier this year. They sounded magnificent, and are surely entering a golden age under their current chief conductor.
We don’t manipulate the comments section. Lionel is a decent man and a good conductor. The Zurich orchestras are an embittered lot.
Norman, how do you explain that Anon’s post has received over than 120+ dislikes apparently very very quickly ?
No idea. Might be a Russian troll farm.
The question that needs to be asked is, how very very quickly (in a matter of minutes) the post from Anon could match up the number of dislikes with the same number of likes ?
The trolling is clearly done from the PR camp of Mr. Bringuer, not the other way round, this is truly shameful.
Excellent question.
There’s someone here who has a grudge against this conductor who is being superstitiously vigilant that the no. of likes on any pro-Bringuier post is always matched by the same no. of dislikes.
I think the clinical name for that is “arithmomamia” & it’s a type of OCD. It’s a mental illness. If someone believes that the no. likes on a blog comment truly reflect a conductor’s worth, I’d urge them to seek help.
Based on the pompous & over-the-top response from a member of the Tonhalle Orch here, I’d say that’s where the culprit is.
Hey, Norman! As a Zurich orchestra musician I don’t feel at al embittered. I would be curios to know how you came to this conclusion.
Greetings,
Cosmin
Cosmin, just read the comment above from your colleague “Tonhalle Orchester Musician”. It’s self-explanatory. Norman’s comment is 100% on point.
It looks to be shifting now with a newer generation, but your orch has had, for quite a while now, a reputation for not exactly having the nicest musicians. I’m not talking about what conductors say, this is among other pro orch players. Tonhalle musicians are famous for being full of themselves, hostile, prone to in-fighting, with an artistic level which, until recently hasn’t always lived up to that attitude. And yes, above all, bitter.
The original Tonhalle commenter here seems to be from that older, embittered generation of players in your orch, with an inflated self worth who remain just plain nasty.
I’m so glad that things are changing for the better in your orch. The comment from your Players’ Chair, below, is a lovely and appropriate statement, much appreciated by all.
Agree about Newbanks not the rest.
Tonhalle, you only got him because Newbanks, due to his own ambition, pulled him out of our orch very abruptly. Our orch preceded yours. We really liked him & we were sorry to see him go. He’s a fine conductor, a wonderful person & his tenure with our orch was a success. We were less prestigious than you so Newbanks took him from us & placed him with you. I’m sorry it didn’t work out. It did for us.
The musicians of the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich warmly congratulate Lionel Bringuier on his appointment as principal conductor of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Nice.
They would like to make it clear that the recent comment made by a so-called “Tonhalle-Orchester Musician” in no way represents the opinion of the Tonhalle-Orchestra.
We distance ourselves in all forms from that comment.
Sincerely,
Kaspar Zimmermann
Chairman of the Orchestra Committee, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich
Bravo, Mr. Zimmermann.
All the best to him – he is a lovely and talented chap.
Poor guy though, what a fall from grace…
Yes, but conductors can bounce back. Frankly Worse-than-Möst was savagely mauled by the London critics, but has subsequently done excellent work in Vienna and Cleveland. His recent recording of Tchaikovsky 4 is brilliantly (and unexpectedly) passionate and impassioned!
Some good conductors and good orchestras have terrible chemistry. It can happen.
Also, conductors can and have to develop over long time.
I have no insight into what happened at Tonhalle back then but I wish the very best to Bringuier to find his way. Tonhalle seem to have found their way anyway, so why complain now, after so many years?