A Reuters report by Robert Evans on Thursday (10/14) states, “Estonian-born Neeme Jarvi, among the best-known classical conductors in U.S. and European concert halls, has been appointed artistic director of Switzerland’s Suisse Romande Orchestra. The Geneva-based orchestra said 73-year-old Jarvi, who shook the former Soviet Union’s music world when he left for the United States in 1980, would take over the post next January and become its chief conductor in 2012. … Jarvi, whose two sons are also conductors, studied in Leningrad—now St Petersburg—under Soviet maestro Yevgeny Mravinsky and headed Soviet Estonia’s main orchestras. He won several international prizes and was hailed in Moscow as a Soviet cultural icon, gaining major state awards. … Jarvi took U.S. citizenship in 1987 and has directed and conducted major Western orchestras—including Sweden’s Gothenburg Symphony, the Royal Scottish National, the Detroit Symphony and the New Jersey Symphony. He is currently chief conductor of the Residentie Orchestra in The Hague and musical director of the Estonian National Symphony.”
Posted October 15, 2010
