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All of the candidates for music director of the Florida Orchestra have taken the podium, and the front runner would be an excellent choice . . . if he accepts the job.
By JOHN FLEMING, Times Performing Arts Critic
© St. Petersburg Times, published April 21, 2002
Who will be the next music director of the Florida Orchestra?
The orchestra has completed its round of concerts under guest conductors deemed possible successors to outgoing music director Jahja Ling. The final one was Dmitry Sitkovetsky, the Russian violinist-conductor who appeared last weekend.
Sitkovetsky's work on the podium was perfectly fine, especially in Rachmaninoff's underrated Third Symphony, but I doubt he changed any minds about who should be the next music director when the search committee got together afterward to compare notes.
Front runners for the post continue to be Pavel Kogan and Stefan Sanderling, and of those two, Sanderling is the first choice.
Sanderling would be a coup for the orchestra, which hopes to name its music director-designate by early May, but nothing is certain. As any salesmen will tell you, closing a deal is the hard part.
Let's review the season to see how the orchestra has arrived at this point.
When the 2001-02 schedule was announced, it included six guest conductors who were considered potential music directors. The field was whittled down just before the season began when one of them, Michael Christie, removed himself from consideration after being named music director of the Queensland Orchestra in Australia.
Christie's dropping out was a disappointment, and not just because he is an alert, appealing musician. He was the only American candidate along with four Europeans and a South American. Christie has the popular touch, and he would have been a charismatic, articulate spokesman for the orchestra in a community that desperately needs that sort of high-profile advocacy for classical music and the arts.
Christie was on the podium for the concert just a few days after Sept. 11, and he handled the emotional occasion well. He will be a musical force in years to come -- and will guest conduct here next season -- but, still in his 20s, he probably made the right decision to head Down Under. He can cultivate his craft in relative isolation there before taking on the music directorship of a U.S. orchestra.
Theo Alcantara, a Spaniard who used to be music director of the Phoenix Symphony, was the next guest conductor, but he was never seriously regarded. Six members of the 12-member search committee are orchestra musicians, and several had played in other ensembles under Alcantara and had nothing very good to say about him. A tiresome Tchaikovsky Fourth Symphony didn't help his cause.
Maximiano Valdes, the Chilean-born former music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic, was a prospect whose luster faded the second time around. Last season, Valdes had made a good impression with elegant baton technique and a program that included two of his best pieces, Debussy's Iberia and Ravel's Bolero. The conductor's Hispanic heritage was seen as an advantage in Tampa.
But Valdes' return engagement in January was marred by a strangely aimless account of Brahms' First Symphony. Later, he told the orchestra he was renewing the contract for his current post, principal conductor of the Orquesta Sinfonica del Principado de Asturias in Spain, and was no longer a candidate.
Kogan, a Russian, made a splash with the Mussorgsky-Ravel Pictures at an Exhibition, a viscerally exciting work in his hands. The musicians played all out for him, to enthusiastic response from the audience. After his concerts in January, orchestra officials were tempted to cut short the search and name him to the post.
All of the candidates met with the search committee to discuss their interest in the job, as well as to give an idea of what they might do with it. Kogan must have said all the right things. If return engagements next season are any indication, then he will be music director. He is scheduled to conduct the season-opening and season-ending concerts.
However, like police officers and firefighters, music directors in the United States are increasingly being asked to meet residency requirements, at least as much as possible in a jet-set profession. The orchestra is hoping to attract someone who will put down roots in the Tampa Bay area. Ling never did. He had a house in Tampa, but as longtime resident conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra, he made that city his real home.
Strange as it may seem to leaders in any other business, where knowledge of the community is a given, music directors often know little more than the way from the airport to the concert hall. They are basically freelancers who hold two or three directorships at the same time, as well as two or three condos that serve as glorified hotel rooms during the weeks they conduct each orchestra.
Kogan already has two other positions, and he has no intention of giving them up. He is in his 13th season as music director of the Moscow State Symphony and has been principal guest conductor of the Utah Symphony since 1998. It's unclear if he would be willing and able to become deeply involved in the musical life of Tampa Bay.
Still, Kogan would bring powerful assets as music director, absentee or not. Russian repertoire is popular with the audience, and there is no better proponent of Slavic style than him.
But then, in March, along came the candidate who outshone even Kogan.
Sanderling, a German, turned in a propulsive performance of the Brahms Fourth Symphony, as well as an incisive rendition of Mozart's Paris Symphony. The music of Mozart, with its classical textures, is a crucial test for a conductor, and he passed with flying colors.
Born in 1964, he has an impeccable pedigree as the son of Kurt Sanderling, a noted conductor with the Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) Philharmonic and other major orchestras. He studied at the Leipzig Conservatory with Kurt Masur, as well as at the University of Southern California and the Institute of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which his father conducted many times.
The search committee was impressed by Sanderling's apparent interest in the area. He came to Florida prior to his week of rehearsals and concerts and rented a car to do some exploring. He was accompanied by his fiance, a cellist in the French provincial Orchestre de Bretagne, of which he is music director.
Sanderling brought something intangible to his program -- a charming piece for oboe and orchestra, Francaix's L'Horloge, was included with the Brahms and Mozart -- that struck me as fresh. Of all the candidates, he seemed most likely to be adept at guiding the orchestra into a future that looks different from its past. No matter how much Beethoven and Tchaikovsky the audience seems to want to hear, a commitment to new music is imperative, and his track record in France, Germany and the United States suggests he can be adventurous.
If Sanderling is the choice, then it will be interesting to see if the orchestra is able to sign him up, probably to a five-year contract. He is represented by a giant arts agency, Columbia Artists Management Inc., which would drive a hard bargain. The orchestra wants to pay its next music director less than Ling's estimated salary of at least $200,000.
Would Sanderling actually want the challenge of a regional orchestra that has had its share of trouble? It doesn't even have a concert hall to call its own. But the orchestra plays extremely well, and the allure of Florida is not to be underestimated. Stranger things have happened than a conductor on the rise deciding he can take an orchestra to the next level.
Sanderling would be a great choice as music director.