In Friday’s (4/5) Montreal Gazette (Canada), Arthur Kaptainis counters a rumor concerning Kent Nagano’s departure from the leadership of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra in 2016: “OSM officials are denying that Kent Nagano will be on his way in 2016—without quite affirming that the Californian conductor is planning to stay. Last September the orchestra announced a two-year extension of the three-year contract Nagano signed in 2011, bringing his term in Montreal to the end of August 2016. ‘That collaboration may continue for a longer period further to a mutual agreement between the two parties,’ an orchestra spokesperson said in an email, reiterating the wording of the September 2012 announcement. ‘This has not changed.’ On Tuesday Claude Gingras in La Presse wrote that Nagano ‘seemingly’ would leave the orchestra after this extension. … It could be that neither Nagano nor OSM officials have firm ideas about the second half of the decade. Orchestras work in advance, but 2016-17 is not yet at the blueprint stage. ‘I can’t say I know of any managements who have artist scheduling books open beyond 2014-15 for the majority of their rosters,’ an experienced Canadian orchestra executive, who declined to be identified, said in an email.”
Posted April 9, 2013
