Looking for a New Music Director? Look to Motor City

Detroit Symphony Orchestra's World Music Series with the African Children's Choir

So the Eugene Symphony search for a new music director has begun. Right now, the search committee (with six musicians and an assortment of board members and interested community members) has been sifting through the almost 300 applications and making phone calls to references. (I'm not allowed to know more than that because of the Super Sekrit Search Protocol.)

Read more here!

I met with the symphony's executive director, Paul Winberg, the other day (for a Q&A to appear right here! In mid-April! Watch for the new See/Hear series ... ), and we briefly talked about the ways outgoing symphony music director Giancarlo Guerrero has won over the Eugene audience and how good he is with the media (true!). I know from many musicians that he's not as popular with them — Winberg suggested that part of that might be due to GG's desire to raise the level of musicianship expected from the part-time orchestra — and I hear from some audience members a desire for a more apparent "feel" for the music. But the man is enthusiastic, and as Winberg noted, the audience goes c-r-a-z-e-e when GG zips out onto the stage at the beginning of each performance. And the composer-in-residence program definitely gives the otherwise rather "curatorial" programs of the Eugene Symphony a new look. (I'll keep saying this: Jennifer Higdon is our composer-in-residence next year! WOOT!)

But, like many music directors, GG doesn't live where he conducts — his house and family are in Minneapolis, not Eugene (I hear the fam's moving to Nashville when he starts up there for the 2009-2010 season). For us, he's a parachuter — we're not going to run into GG in The Kiva or at school board meetings — which is probably what a town this size with a part-time symphony can expect from a music director with any kind of ambition.

The Eugene Symphony has distinct advantages over many other smaller city/town orchestras:
• It operates in the black.
• It's got the massive talent pool concentrated around the UO to draw from.
• Portland. Close and also a massive talent pool.

When we (the press, i.e KWAX's Caitriona Bolster, a quite vocal Bob Keefer, an extremely vocal Tom Manoff and a very quiet Suzi Steffen) met with Henry Fogel, president of the American Symphony Orchestra League League of American Orchestras, Fogel talked a lot about how much he admired the Eugene Symphony's ability to conduct a music director search.

And he talked about it again last October when I was at the NEA/Columbia University Arts Journalism Institute for Classical Music and Opera — he spoke at length to a room full of arts journalists from around the country about what a super smart place Eugene was because, he said, the hiring committees "think they have failed if the director stays for 10 years." That means that the ES looks for music directors on their way up so that they don't stay for very long. Marin Alsop would be the best example here, but Bill McGlaughlin's no slouch; nor is Miguel Harth-Bedoya or, of course, GG, headed off to Nashville in the fall of 2009. We're a stepping stone, in Fogel's eyes, and he thinks that's smart. Winberg wasn't so sure — but again, more on that in a few weeks.

Meanwhile, chew on this: Leonard Slatkin, new music director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, hits the ground running.

Some worthy tidbits:

• Slatkin, who conducts his first DSO subscription concerts this week since being appointed music director last fall, doesn't officially begin his tenure until fall. But he is already putting his stamp on the orchestra's daily life. He has visited Detroit six times since October, each trip stuffed to the gills with orchestra business. From new education initiatives and artistic planning to a promising early bump in fund-raising and ticket sales, the Slatkin era is underway.

• "People are going to blame me, anyway. The music director becomes the voice of the orchestra. If something goes wrong, people are not going to say, 'Well, it's the manager.' They'll say, 'It's under the music director's watch.' If I'm going to be held responsible, I want to be involved in it."

• Slatkin hit the ground running in terms of fund-raising. He has met a parade of major donors at one private dinner after another. His unpretentious air, sharp mind and varied interests -- from music to the world of ideas and baseball -- has had a charming effect, and his passion is contagious, said board chair Jim Nicholson. When Slatkin headlined a fund-raising brunch at the MGM Grand Detroit casino for donors who have given $6,000 or more, he helped spark $1.7 million in early commitments to the annual fund, including $200,000 in new gifts.

Again, the Eugene Symphony has been sailing on smooth seas, monetarily speaking, due to extraordinarily hard work from everyone on the staff, the board and the volunteers, not to mention the musical quality coming from the orchestra. But it couldn't hurt to have a great fundraiser on hand.

So many things to think about in the music director search! Stay updated right here, readers. 'Cause I'll be a-bloggin' about it from now 'til the hire gets made (unless I use Eugene as my jumpstart and light out for Baltimore like Marin Alsop ... ).

*B&W image from Wiki Commons