The
sought-after Finnish conductor Susanna Malkki will
become the principal guest conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2017,
the orchestra said on Wednesday — making her its first principal guest
conductor in a generation, and the first woman to hold the post.
The
high-profile appointment is likely to be seen as paving the way for a future
music directorship for Ms. Malkki in the United States, if not in Los Angeles —
where the popular music director, Gustavo Dudamel, has a contract through 2022 —
then elsewhere. While women have made inroads at many orchestras as players,
they have continued to face barriers when it comes to conducting assignments
and, especially, directorships. Marin Alsop became the first woman to lead a
major American orchestra in 2007 when she became the music director of the
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.
Ms. Malkki
has been lauded for both her work in the standard repertory and her expertise
in new music, which she developed as music director of the Ensemble
Intercontemporain, which she led through 2013. She will become chief conductor
of the Helsinki
Philharmonic Orchestra in the fall; has recently made debuts
with the Philadelphia and Cleveland orchestras and the New York
Philharmonic; and next season will make her Metropolitan Opera
debut, conducting the company premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s “L’Amour de Loin.”
Ms. Malkki
first conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2010, and quickly developed a
rapport with the players and the institution. “I think orchestras in general
are discussing the changing world, and I think the L.A. Philharmonic is really
showing a great example in how they see the change as a positive challenge,
rather than a threat,” she said in a telephone interview from Miami, where she
was conducting the
New World Symphony. “You can see that in their commitment to the
repertory and different ways of presenting the music, and I think that’s very,
very interesting.”
Her
appointment, for three years, calls for her to present three subscription weeks
a season, to develop multiyear projects rooted in the standard repertory, and
to perform and commission works by contemporary composers who are important to
her. The orchestra’s only two previous principal guest conductors were Michael
Tilson Thomas, now the music director of the San Francisco Symphony, who held
the post in the early 1980s, and Simon Rattle, the chief conductor of the
Berlin Philharmonic, who held it from 1981 through 1994.
Deborah Borda,
the president and chief executive of the orchestra, said that Ms. Malkki had
made a “tremendous impact” with the orchestra. “It’s a special combination of
talent, chemistry and experience,” Ms. Borda said. “There hasn’t been a
principal guest since Simon Rattle, and Gustavo felt this was the time to do
this, and this was the person.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/07/arts/music/susanna-malkki-named-principal-guest-conductor-of-los-angeles-philharmonic.html?_r=0
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