In Thursday’s (10/28) Philadelphia Inquirer, David Patrick Stearns writes, “No need to wish Yannick Nézet-Séguin the best of luck. The Philadelphia Orchestra’s music director-designate has arrived this week in his future home—with his likeness on Kimmel Center banners, an I-95 billboard, and Center City bus shelters—on the heels of a loudly applauded Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra debut and anticipating a return to the Metropolitan Opera in Verdi’s Don Carlo in December. As fun and easy as 35-year-old Nézet-Séguin makes everything look, his debut at the fabled Berlin orchestra—the apex of his career so far—was hardly putty in his hands, and now the pressure is on for his Friday-through-Sunday Philadelphia Orchestra concerts, the first since his appointment was announced in June. Between rehearsals are extensive media interviews, a celebratory breakfast with orchestra members, and post-performance meet-and-greets with the audiences. … ‘It’s a very special moment . . . when an orchestra and community get a new chief conductor,’ he says of the job he’ll assume in 2012. ‘I don’t want to walk on eggshells or enter through the back door. It’s good for the orchestra to make the most out of it.’ … His effervescent manner has quickly won over audiences in Philadelphia and nearly everywhere else. After conducting Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique with the Berliners, he was called back for more bows even after the players had left the stage.”
Posted October 28, 2010
