In Friday’s (1/31) Chicago Tribune, Mark Caro writes about Chicago Symphony Orchestra President Deborah Rutter, who will depart in June to become president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. “Now the orchestra is thought to be on its most solid financial footing in years, with one of the world’s most renowned conductors, Riccardo Muti, serving as its music director…. Despite the great strides … her successor will inherit a plate piled high with pressing demands, issues and challenges…. The CSO has appointed a 20-person search committee … with work expected to be completed perhaps by Memorial Day…. We’re not talking about an infinite number of job candidates. ‘It’s not a big pool,’ [said] League of American Orchestras President/CEO Jesse Rosen. … Muti and Rutter have … [extended] the CSO’s reach far beyond the Symphony Center walls through performances in prisons, churches, community centers and other venues and audiences not traditionally served by the orchestra…. Rosen … said the orchestra’s extracurricular efforts represent a cultural shift for the CSO, an institution formerly thought of as ‘a fixed icon…. Now I think of it as a place that is continuously evolving, doing new and innovative things, and it has great momentum.’ ”
Posted February 3, 2014
