In Sunday’s (5/22) Gazette (Colorado Springs, Colorado), T.D. Mobley-Martinez writes, “There are certainly more comfortable ways to start a new job. ‘Yes, people have been sad,’ said Josep Caballé Domenech, who walked onto the Pikes Peak Center stage Saturday night as the new music director of Colorado Springs Philharmonic. He will conduct ‘The Farewell Concert’ this afternoon, the orchestra’s final tribute to music director Lawrence Leighton Smith. After 11 years of turmoil and triumph with this orchestra, Smith will be missed. But last week his exit became even more poignant when a disease diagnosed in January triggered a sudden decline: He would not be able to conduct his farewell concerts. … A freelance symphony and opera conductor based in Barcelona, Caballé Domenech unexpectedly entered the year-long race for Smith’s job in February, when he was brought in to pinch-hit for the conductor. He so impressed the orchestra that he was added to the list of five candidates. … The 2011-12 season will be a demanding one. The repertoire, some of it not yet officially announced, includes so-called new music by Charles Ives and Morten Lauridsen, Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 and the pièce de resistánce, Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 and Symphony No. 2.”
Posted May 24, 2011
