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#Post#: 244803--------------------------------------------------
Chicago Symphony Music Director
By: LabPartner Date: April 3, 2024, 4:40 pm
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(HTM) https://chicago.suntimes.com/music/2024/04/01/klaus-makela-chicago-symphony-orchestra-music-director-riccardo-muti
[quote]Klaus Mäkelä, a 28-year-old conducting wunderkind who has
garnered stellar reviews and considerable success in his short,
meteoric career, will become the 11th music director of the
Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the 133-year-old ensemble announced
Tuesday.
The Finnish conductor will be 31 when he begins in September
2027 — the youngest person to ever hold the position. His
initial five-year contract calls for him to lead the orchestra
for a minimum of 14 weeks annually, including four weeks of
domestic and international touring.
Starting immediately, he will take over as music director
designate, conducting two weeks of concerts in 2024-25. He will
gradually expand his time with the orchestra in 2025-26 and
’26-’27 seasons, as he winds down his tenures as chief conductor
of the Oslo Philharmonic and music director of the Orchestre de
Paris.
During the conductor’s two previous engagements with the
orchestra in 2022 and ’23, he saw the orchestra’s drive to play
at the highest level and improve every day.
“I had a feeling that here — it’s something really
extraordinary,” Mäkelä told the Sun-Times on Tuesday. “I’m
someone who really wants to work on things, and I found a
companion in this orchestra that I want to embark on a longer
journey with.”
Although Mäkelä and other orchestra leaders are already
discussing future programming, touring, etc., he was not ready
to reveal any specific initiatives or other directions he’d like
to pursue with the CSO.
“In a way, it’s lovely that I start in 2027,” he said, “which
allows some time to experiment with repertoire and have a
crescendo to the beginning of the tenure in a few years time. We
have a period of getting to know each other.”
He did make the point that building a trust with concertgoers
was essential.
“That the audience feels what we present here is always fresh,
always something thought-provoking and touching. That’s what a
modern orchestra should be.”
With this appointment, the CSO has sharply diverged from its
recent history of choosing older artistic leaders with
considerable experience – Georg Solti (1969-91) was 56, Daniel
Barenboim (1991-2006), 48, and Riccardo Muti (2010-2023), 69.
In many ways, the move mirrors what the Los Angeles Philharmonic
did in 2007 when it named Gustavo Dudamel, a 26-year-old
Venezuelan conductor who had made his conducting debut just
three years earlier, as artistic leader. Starting in 2009, he
re-energized that orchestra and became something of classical
superstar in the process.
Mäkelä is among the youngest in a plethora of acclaimed
conductors who have emerged from Finland in recent decades,
including Susanna Mälkki, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Osmo Vänskä. All
were students of famed, 93-year-old pedagogue Jorma Panula for
at least part of their training.
Mäkelä will face the challenging task of stepping into the shoes
of Muti, 82, one of the world’s most revered and accomplished
conductors. He must also find a way to juggle his duties in
Chicago with his responsibilities to the Royal Concertgebouw
Orchestra in Amsterdam, where he is simultaneously set to become
chief conductor in 2027 as part of an earlier appointment.
“They are two of the really great orchestras,” Mäkelä said,
“orchestras of the highest level, but they are so terribly
different and that makes my life so exciting. They could not be
more different in their style, color of sound and way of
playing. Of course, I have to be myself, but I have to be almost
two different conductors.”
A search committee, with musicians and members of the CSO’s
board and administration, began meeting a few weeks before the
pandemic started, and it has worked in secret since. In addition
to Mäkelä’s two past appearances in Chicago, members of the
committee saw him in action in five other cities.
“In his first two memorable engagements with the CSO, Klaus
Mäkelä established an exceptional connection with our musicians
and demonstrated his ability to deliver extremely moving
performances of a wide range of repertoire.” said Jeff
Alexander, the CSO’s president.
Mäkelä is at Orchestra Hall this week to lead the CSO in a set
of concerts April 4-6 that includes the U.S. premiere of Sauli
Zinovjev’s “Batteria” and two works by Dmitri Shostakovich.
“We just finished our first rehearsal,” the conductor said, “and
it was more than I could ever have expected. The orchestra, they
gave absolutely everything. I saw another side of them in a way
even though it felt like we’ve already worked together for quite
some time. It felt really, really special.”[/quote]
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