In Monday’s (10/21) News Tribune (Tacoma, Washington), Rosemary Ponnekanti interviews conductor Kevin Rhodes, “one of four candidates for the Tacoma Symphony Orchestra’s music directorship, [who] will conduct Saturday’s concert at the Pantages Theater. Rhodes also is the director of the Springfield Symphony in Massachusetts, the Traverse Symphony in Michigan and Boston’s Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra. He’s a regular at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala, the Vienna State Opera and Paris Opera, as well as many other European ballet houses. As if that weren’t enough, he’s also a concert pianist who often conducts from the keyboard.… the question the symphony and its audience will ask Saturday night is what Rhodes will offer Tacoma if he’s appointed. The decision will be made in the two months following the fourth candidate’s appearance in November.… Rhodes: ‘The job of music director in American orchestras, particularly in towns the size of Tacoma, is to spread the word about music, to serve as a lightning rod for the kind of music an orchestra plays.… It hooks up with my own story in that we suffer from myths about symphonic music that you have to know a lot about it or grow up with it to enjoy it.’ ”
Posted October 21, 2013
