5. DAWN UPSHAW WINS MACARTHUR - FOUNDATION GENIUS AWARD – The American soprano Dawn Upshaw has won the coveted MacArthur Foundation Genius Award. Presented each year to individuals who make significant contributions to the arts, sciences, and social welfare, the award comes with an annual five year grant of $100,000 which the recipient may use at their discretion. Upshaw was selected for her commitment to commissioning and nurturing the work of living composers. 

I first heard this wonderful soprano in 1984 at the New York’s Metropolitan Opera in a relatively minor role in Moussorgsky’s Khovanschina. (That production was conducted by Neemi Jarvi, not yet the international podium star he was to become.) At the time she was a member of the Met’s Lindemann Young Artists Program. Even then, she stood out for her pure, silvery vocal timbre, exquisite musicianship, and fervent delivery. It was obvious that she would not be doing small roles for long. Indeed her Mozart heroines became a mainstay of the Met and other major international houses. 

From the start, her vocal recitals always featured the works of American composers, John Harbison being a particular Upshaw favorite. (Harbison would compose the female lead in his opera The Great Gatsby for her.) In recent years Upshaw has transformed herself into a contemporary music specialist. She has commissioned and/or championed scores by Harbison, John Adams, Kaija Saariaho, Henryk Gorecki, and Osvaldo Golijov. She has also championed the great American songbook from Bernstein, Blitzstein, and Bolcom to Kern, Berlin, Weill, and Duke. Last season she collaborated with Harbison in a workshop for emerging American composers and vocalists at Carnegie Hall. In recent years she has turned to teaching, training a new generation of singers at Bard College and Tanglewood.

Upshaw’s commitment to gifted creative artists is unique. In typical fashion, she has stated she would use the bulk of the MacArthur Foundation grant to commission and record new vocal music. Upshaw has also become known as the “non-diva” – a good colleague and sensitive human being. This MacArthur Foundation Genius Award is well deserved recognition of one of America’s finest and most innovative vocalists. Congratulations to Dawn Upshaw – a true artist! 

6. NEW APPOINTMENTS – The career of the dynamic Scottish conductor Donald Runnicles has been gathering steam with a series of high voltage appointments. Renowned as a Mozart-Wagner-Strauss expert and a specialist in British music, Runnicles has made a series of distinguished recordings with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra – Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, Mozart’s Requiem in Robert Levin’s completion, an overview of British music from Elgar to James MacMillan and Mark Anthony Turnage. (Runnicles is Principal Guest Conductor of that ensemble.) As he winds down his tenure as music director of the San Francisco Opera (which concludes in 2009), Runnicles has been appointed Principal Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony (in Glasgow) and Music Director of Berlin’s venerable Deutsche Opera. He is also the director of Wyoming’s Grand Teton Music Festival. This season Runnicles returns to the podium of New York’s Metropolitan Opera for a new production of Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes. Now in his artistic prime, Runnicles’ career is definitely on the move.

A spurt of new music director appointments in America’s orchestral world gamble on youth and raw talent. (Perhaps not so incidentally, younger conductors work for a lower fee – no small matter in these economically uncertain times when major orchestras are running deficits.) The Los Angeles Philharmonic led off by appointing twenty-something Gustavo Dudamel as its music director designate. The consensus is that Dudamel is a major talent. Los Angeles has a history of success with young conductors. Both Zubin Mehta and Esa-Pekka Salonen (the orchestra’s outgoing chief) were signed by the orchestra when they were up and coming maestros, long before their international fame. Dudamel should fit in well with Los Angeles’ multicultural population and may be an innovative purveyor of musical outreach, increasing the audience for classical music. His record in Venezuela has been impressive in that regard.

The New York Philharmonic has chosen the American Allan Gilbert as its music director elect. Gilbert is a member of the orchestra’s extended family. A native New Yorker, his mother and father were both members of the Philharmonic’s violin section. He will be the first American since Leonard Bernstein to hold the post. Gilbert is a strong programmer who astutely mixes the new and the old, the standard and the unfamiliar. The orchestra’s PR machine attempted to paint him as a bold leap forward for the orchestra. But as music commentator and provocateur Norman Lebrecht pointed out, Gilbert was appointed only after the position was declined by several distinguished maestros. (The New York Philharmonic has ceased to be a desirable position for star podium talent.) Lebrecht also noted that Gilbert’s one orchestral directorship – the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic – was not with a world class ensemble and that his guest appearances did not set the world on fire. 

Veteran Atlanta Constitution music critic Pierre Rhue noted that Gilbert’s guest appearances with the Atlanta Symphony were uneven. I can not help but wonder why this high profile appointment did not go to the wonderfully talented Robert Spano (Atlanta’s current conductor) or the brilliant Marin Alsop (about to make history with the Baltimore Symphony). That would have really been in the Bernstein tradition. (Bernstein was Alsop’s mentor.) One can only hope that Gilbert will grow in this high profile position. If he succeeds, he can bring new artistic vitality to an orchestra that has been marking time.

The Dallas Symphony has taken a real leap in the dark. After Andrew Litton’s disappointing decade in the music director’s seat, the orchestra has appointed the Dutchman Jaap van Zweden as his successor. Currently holding positions with The Hague Residentie Orchestra and the Royal Flanders Philharmonic, van Zweden is the former concertmaster of Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Astonishingly, he was appointed after leading just one series of concerts – one program – with the Dallas orchestra. His resume is thin on major guest conducting engagements. Dallas has always been an orchestra with major, untapped potential; an orchestra waiting for the right conductor to move it into the major leagues. Much was expected of Litton in this regard. Despite some initial promise, his directorship ultimately settled into a pattern of routine performances and missed opportunities. Recently I found a recording of Baroque violin concertos with Van Zweden as soloist in a nifty record shop in the Berkshires. Since he is a comparative newcomer to the podium, is van Zweden that artistic force needed to push the Dallas Symphony into America’s orchestral top tier?

By contrast, the Pittsburgh Symphony has opted for an old school maestro with a long resume and real artistic authority. Austrian conductor Manfred Honeck will follow in the distinguished footsteps of Fritz Reiner, Victor de Sabata, William Steinberg, Andre Previn, Lorin Maazel, and Mariss Jansons. (This is an orchestra that historically has gotten its artistic priorities right.) Honeck brings long experience as conductor of several European ensembles and opera companies and guest appearances with major ensembles worldwide. During his recent guest engagement with Miami’s New World Symphony, he tamed the harsh acoustics of the Lincoln Theater, producing the softest pianissimos I have ever heard in that venue. Moreover the spiritual ecstasy he brought to Anton Bruckner’s massive 7th Symphony soared to incandescent heights. This was conducting in the grand manner. Pittsburgh’s venerable orchestra will be in very good artistic hands.

Leonard Slatkin has been appointed music director of the Detroit Symphony. (Slatkin has already signed on as Principal Guest Conductor with the Pittsburgh Symphony. It is expected that his emphasis on American music will counterbalanced Honeck’s expertise in the core Central European repertoire.) In more ways than one, this appointment could be interesting. The Detroit ensemble reached its performance peak in the 1950’s and 60’s under Paul Paray and Sixten Ehrling. After two decades of decline, the music directorship of Neeme Jarvi showed signs of resurgence – particularly in the offbeat Russian and Scandinavian scores that Jarvi championed; less so in standard symphonic fare. Slatkin achieved renown during his nearly three decades with the St. Louis Symphony, making numerous outstanding recordings and touring the orchestra around the globe. He was expected to do the same for Washington’s perpetually second tier National Symphony when he assumed that orchestra’s reins a decade ago. After some initial orchestral improvement, Slatkin appeared to lose interest. Recent reports indicate that he hardly rehearses the Washington orchestra and that his performances have tended toward the loud and blatant. His three year tenure with London’s BBC Symphony proved even less successful. A Detroit appointment will be an opportunity for Slatkin to redeem his career. If he applies the abundant talent, energy and imagination he brought to his St. Louis years, the Detroit Symphony could experience a renaissance. 

Slatkin has been acting as Artistic Advisor (interim Music Director) of the Nashville Symphony. This ensemble is amassing a growing reputation through a series of well received recordings for the Naxos label. Now the Nashville Symphony has announced that Giancarlo Guerrero will become Music Director effective in the 2008-2009 season. Guerrero has held that position with the Eugene (Oregon) Symphony, an orchestra that acts as a training ground for gifted young conductors. Guerrero's predecessors in Eugene were Marin Alsop and Miguel Harth-Bedoya, conductors who went on to major international careers. If Guerrero is in the same league, Nashville has scored a coup.

7. INTERIM APPOINTMENTS – Some orchestras have opted to buy time before making a music director appointment by choosing interim artistic directors. This allows for a more thorough search and test of candidates’ potential strengths and weaknesses during guest conducting stints. It is reported that the Philadelphia Orchestra is pursuing the young Russian conductor Vladimir Jurowski (who currently holds positions with the Russian National Orchestra, London Philharmonic, London’s Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and Glyndebourne Festival Opera). In the meantime, the veteran Charles Dutoit has been appointed to the interim artistic spot. While he had a stormy, bitter parting with the Montreal Symphony, Dutoit has been leading the Philadelphians regularly for three decades. He commands a vast repertoire which he leads with subtlety, refinement and artistic flair. Dutoit and the Philadelphians should be a great match. (The Philadelphia Orchestra’s management has also recently announced that outgoing music director Christoph Eschenbach will have a continuing relationship with the orchestra – his exact title to be determined. A splendid musician and bold interpretive spirit, Eschenbach is leaving mainly because of hostility from the musicians. It is only fair that this fine conductor should be given some consolation prize.)

8. From the San Francisco Classical Voice newsletter - Michael Tilson Thomas celebrated turning 61 on Dec. 21 by taking on Shostakovich's most Mahlerian Symphony No. 7 ("Leningrad") with his New World Symphony in Miami, getting such rave reviews as "monumental aural canvass ... proving an awesome vehicle ... [forming] a searing, emotionally powerful soundscape," wrote Lawrence Budmen in the Miami Herald. 

The unique thing about the high-achieving New World Symphony is that it is a post-conservatory training organization, called "America's Orchestral Academy." It is the first opportunity for many young musicians to play in a professional orchestra. For considerably longer than his decade in San Francisco, MTT has headed the New World, which he founded in 1987. Venturing out of its Lincoln Theater base in Miami (a former movie theater), the young musicians have performed in New York's Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall, London's Barbican Centre, Paris' Bastille Opera, and Argentina's Teatro Colón.