In Monday’s News Tribune (Tacoma, Washington), Rosemary Ponnekanti interviews Scott Speck, the final of four music-director candidates guest-conducting the Tacoma Symphony Orchestra this season. Harvey Felder, the orchestra’s longtime music director, steps down as music director in spring 2014. Speck—who is also music director of the Joffrey Ballet, the West Michigan Symphony, and the Mobile Symphony in Alabama—speaks with the newspaper about what he hopes to bring to the Tacoma Symphony. “An orchestra has to be seen as an indispensable community resource.… The Tacoma Symphony [is] creating programming that’s appealing to a large number of people.… My role [at the Tacoma Symphony] would be to be a very active spokesman for the beauty and goodness that classical music can bring to anyone’s life…. When I first came to my town in Alabama there was almost zero public music education in schools…. We made it priority to get music education front and center.… Different collaborations and multimedia can be used to enhance an orchestra.” The Tacoma Symphony’s other three music director candidates are Sarah Ioannides, Paul Haas, and Kevin Rhodes.
Posted November 12, 2013
