Musicians of the New York Philharmonics seem to be upset about Gilbert E. Kaplan, a wealthy businessmen, who recently conducted Mahler’s Second with them. Mr. Kaplan stands accused to be a talent-free conductor who only got to conduct the New York Philharmonics because he donated a lot of money to the orchestra. (see http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/18/arts/music/18kapl.html?hp) Mr. Kaplan is not the first to raise eyebrows within the classical music community. Former Sony Chairman Norio Ohga, a classical music lover, received similar reactions when in 2000 he conducted the Berlin Philharmonics at the opening of the Sony Center in Berlin.
. Maybe the community of musicians could be placated a little bit by letting one of them manage a company rather than play in an orchestra or conduct it. After all, who knows – maybe conductors are as good as managers, as managers believe they might be as conductors. Thus, how about Maazel running General Motors?
Obviously whether the conductor is gifted or not does not make much difference to the non-professional audience, so this really is about the musicians' experience being not great. Maybe the Philharmonic should care a bit more about their artists, it's time to change ^^
Posted by: Li | January 15, 2009 at 12:17 AM