In Saturday (6/19) Philadelphia Inquirer, David Patrick Stearns writes, “ ‘You are now my family.’ So proclaimed Yannick Nézet-Séguin on Friday before the signing of the contract that made him the Philadelphia Orchestra’s eighth music director amid long applause from musicians, board members, staff, his Montreal family, and his partner. The 35-year-old conductor was in Philadelphia for the ultimate meet-and-greet day—with longtime subscribers in the lobby of the Kimmel Center, Mayor Nutter at City Hall, children from the Philadelphia Performing Arts Charter School (chanting ‘Yannick! Yannick!’) at the Liberty Bell, Philly Pops conductor Peter Nero on the steps of the Art Museum, and then at the Academy of Music Ballroom. ‘Nice signature!’ remarked Allison Vulgamore, the orchestra’s president and chief executive officer, adding that Nézet-Séguin was chosen partly because the orchestra’s next music director had to be ‘someone who would imagine something different.’ … Often, he reaffirmed his commitment to the Philadelphia Orchestra’s tradition. He says the orchestra has been in his bones from an early age, when he listened to an LP of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 conducted by Eugene Ormandy. The recording, he said at the contract signing, still ‘shows all the values that are important to me. . . . We can keep sharing what a worldwide treasure’ the Philadelphia Orchestra is.”
Posted June 21, 2010
