Christof Perick is nearly done for 2009. Though he is listed as Charlotte Symphony's Orchestra's musical director on the 2009-10 brochure, he won't be returning to the Q.C. until the halfway mark of the Classics season, late in November. After that, Perick passes the baton to his successor, bowing out with three final concerts over a seven-week period, beginning on March 5 and ending -- with Beethoven's Ninth, of course -- on April 24.
So the question remains: who will replace Perick at the official "New Music Director Preview" on Feb. 12, 2010? Symphony patrons have filled out reaction forms after each of the eight candidates' appearances. The Charlotte Observer has weighed in with its preferences. What in hell is CSO waiting for?
Must be my rankings.
It may be heretical, but I judged the desirability of the candidates strictly by the quality of the concert experience they delivered, not by reputation/resume, not by how split they would be between Charlotte and other musical directorships, and not by their commitment to fundraising. A really, really good orchestra headed by a really, really good conductor tends to draw big audiences and big bucks -- not to mention a prestigious recording or two along the way.
Sound unfathomable? North Carolina Symphony signed a record deal with BIS last year and just brought out a new CD with guest artist Branford Marsalis -- and three world premieres -- that has received favorable notices in both ClassicsToday.com and Gramophone. That wouldn't be happening if maestro Grant Llewellyn were spending all his time in Raleigh fundraising. But he does engage his audiences at Meymandi Concert Hall and speak to them more than once a year.
I've heard that CSO musicians don't like conductors who extend concerts by communicating. Apparently, those musicians don't realize it's not about them. Getting the cold shoulder from your city orchestra's maestro is one more reason for subscribers not to care, not to contribute, and not to attend. Survey that.
Perhaps if all the candidates had spoken about the music they were conducting, we'd have a sharper perception of what each one wants to bring to our musical scene in the coming decade -- and yes, who he is, because that's a legitimate part of the concert experience. If we had been granted more face time with the candidates, between those long stretches when we saw the backs of their heads, people in the hall would have a clearer idea about which one is the best fit for their city's orchestra.
To fill in that gap, I circle back to my concert experiences. At least they show me how well each candidate communicated with our orchestra -- how well they grasped the light of his insight and how fervidly they caught the fire of his musical passion.
My rankings count down how the eight hopefuls placed, from the worst all the way up to first choice. Any of my top four choices would likely drive the orchestra forward and bring new vitality to the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra concert experience, if their efforts aren't scuttled by finances. None of the top six would be a catastrophe. Beware the bottom two, who would surely drag us down into a slough of insularity and mediocrity.
• #8: Edwin Outwater
Half of the candidates were tested on Mozart, and our cellar-dweller tied with our #6 candidate for worst Wolfie. More disastrous still was Outwater's surprisingly inert and passionless rendezvous with the "Love Scene from Romeo and Juliet" by Hector Berlioz, the sweetmeat that Peter McCoppin wielded to rock the house at CSO's 75th Anniversary Gala. Berlioz' "Rakoczy March" belatedly sparked to life, but Outwater and the CSO were at their best as subservient accompanists to hulking guest pianist William Wolfram. The concert finale, Stravinsky's Firebird Suite, helped to burn away some of the dross that had preceded.
• #7: Christopher Warren-Green
Great hair, great pedigreed Brit name, and some exquisite work with the delicate passages in Rimsky-Korsakov's most familiar orchestrations. But the calms in Night on Bald Mountain and Scheherezade should only make us experience the storms all the more powerfully. "As with the flaccid Bald Mountain," I observed, "the majestic peaks of 'The Sea' didn't lap up to the throne of God. They barely surged above sea-level." Gulp. When he radically reduced the orchestra -- cello section of one! -- for a Haydn cello concerto, guest soloist Julie Albers seemed unnerved in her debut. Bring a good soft pillow with you to the Belk if W-G should ascend the throne.
• #6: William Eddins
After the moribund Outwater, the youthful and energetic Eddins sounded like Paradise -- until he sat down at the piano and violated the garden of Mozart. You have to bring it when you show off, but Eddins flopped as he conducted Piano Concerto #25 from the keyboard. Around that disaster, the audition began well enough, with Charles Griffes' The White Peacock, and ended with a rousing Tchaikovsky Fifth. An orgy of flailing, pumping and stomping broke out on the podium as he rallied the orchestra, so we had another performance where I had to wonder: were they about the music or about Eddins? Call again when you're over yourself.
• #5: Thierry Fischer
The most prestigious name in the maestro sweepstakes laid a huge mediocre egg. Sporting some of the most graceful gestures I've seen on a podium, Fischer transformed Gabriel Faure's super-mellow Requiem and Berlioz' famed Symphonie Fantastique from anticipated treats of sublimity and diablerie into strangely sedated Halloween tricks. The Oratorio Singers were fabulous in the Faure, but they always are. Nor did the orchestra catch fire with any purpose until late in the Fantastique at the beginning of the "March to the Scaffold." Not to worry: after disqualifying himself in performance, Fischer declared that he had never been a candidate.
• #4: Andrew Grams
Wildly overpraised in two Observer reviews in recent years, Grams certainly won top honors in the Berlioz province, besting the efforts of Outwater and Fischer with his performance of the "Roman Carnival Overture" -- which sounded better than the version at the 75th Anniversary Gala. The whole Dvorak Eighth also sounded better than the Gala excerpt, and the Schumann concerto, with piano phenom Ingrid Fliter, was at an even loftier level. So if we want an orchestra that sounds consistently better than the pre-McCoppin maestros of the past, Grams is an excellent choice. He must certainly want it more than anyone, adding a helter-skelter encore to his program. Far from minding the overtime, musicians performed as if they loved playing for him. He's nearer to the top of their lists, I'll bet.
• Tie #2: Rossen Milanov
With his robotic Edward Scissorhands physicality on the podium, Milanov is the antithesis of the graceful, noncommittal Fisher. His results spoke volumes, even as audience and musicians didn't quite know what to make of his idiosyncratic intensity. Straddling a broader range of rep than Grams, the Bulgarian began with a harpsichord onstage for Rameau's "Overture to Zais" before skipping ahead 60 years to Beethoven's Piano Concerto #4 with powerhouse virtuoso Andre Watts at the Steinway. Unlike Outwater, orchestral accompaniment didn't become a disappearing act. But Rossen made his strongest case after intermission with two great 20th Century tone poems; a dreary, deeply textured performance of Rachmaninoff's Isle of the Dead and a magnificently buoyant and thrusting account of Debussy's La Mer. Score it an upset if CSO picks Milanov to be their next maestro -- and a signal that they truly care about the music.
• Tie #2: James Gaffigan
None of the contenders generated more spontaneous enthusiasm than Gaffigan. He drew a slow fat pitch for the finale of his program, Dvorak's New World Symphony, and he hit it out of the park. "Were it not for some shoddy work from the French horns," I opined, "this performance might have eclipsed the New World at last summer's Eastern Music Festival conducted by the estimable Gerard Schwartz." Gaffigan's aptitude for American repertoire was also on display when the CSO accompanied the florid Elmar Oliveira in Samuel Barber's Violin Concerto. But the native New Yorker was runner-up on his Mozart, a set of ballet excerpts from Idomeneo relegating him to second place overall. In a sense, choosing Gaffigan, now the associate conductor of the San Francisco Symphony, would be as audacious as picking Milanov, who holds the same post with the Philadelphia. It would signal that CSO is newly committed to buying American -- in its personnel and in its repertoire. If Gaffigan is here, can Ives be far behind?
• #1: Stefan Sanderling
In tackling the broadest, most challenging range of repertoire among the candidates, Sanderling not only triumphed decisively over his competitors, he brought us one of the finest concerts we've had at the Belk during Christof Perick's tenure. The program was titled "Peter Serkin Plays Mozart" to lure unsuspecting subscribers through the door. For the rondo that Serkin chose from among Mozart's concertized delicacies was barely half as long as his main entree, the Charlotte premiere of Stravinsky's Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra. Even that slab of chaotic frolic and virtuosity was only half as long as Shostakovich's Fifth, a work that hasn't been conducted by a sitting CSO musical director since 1968. I found the orchestral polish of in "Overture to La Clemenza di Tito" just a sliver below Perick's best work, but otherwise the Mozart was on a par with Perick, and easily the best of the intrepid four who followed in Maestro's shadow. Even these tuneful enticements didn't prevent the spectacle of subscribers leaving at intermission -- like Bobcat fans in the third quarter of a blowout -- to avoid the sweeping, angry, despairing, desolate, and insanely phantasmagorical ride of the Shostakovich that stands at the pinnacle of the Russian's genius. Harrowing. Glorious.
At that time, mid-February 2008, I wrote: "If the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra is truly looking for a musician who can truly advance the artistry of the ensemble, I'd advise them not to let Stefan Sanderling cool his heels too long."
Fifteen months later, I haven't changed my mind. Sanderling may be just a little more reluctant to warm his heels in Charlotte, having accepted his third music directorship with the Chautauqua Symphony Festival last summer -- adding to a utility belt that already included Florida Orchestra and Toledo Symphony.
By a fortunate coincidence, North Carolina Dance Theatre is the longtime resident dance company at the Chautauqua festival of the humanities and performing arts, and Sanderling will be down in the orchestra pit when the company performs there again this summer.
So here's the drill. Send a delegation, headed by the esteemed Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux and Patricia McBride, to New York State where NCDT and Chautauqua Symphony are partners. Beg, wheedle, and plead with Sanderling to please, please become Charlotte Symphony's new maestro. And please, Maestro Sanderling: go a little easier on the Shosty and Stravinsky in your first couple of years as we get better acquainted.
