“The churning in Ireland’s orchestras continues. The Ulster Orchestra has once again parted company early with a chief executive” following the announcement last week that Rosa Solinas was stepping down after thirteen months on the job, writes Michael Dervan in Wednesday’s (3/19) Irish Times. “Before she arrived, the interim chief executive had been Ed Smith, a celebrated orchestral Mr. Fixit, whose brief also included the preparation of a report on how the orchestra could face into a future of declining public funding. His recommendation was stark: downsizing. Solinas thought differently. She believed that the size of the orchestra could and should be maintained, and that a reorganisation of the administration was the way forward.” She also hired a new principal conductor, Rafael Payare, and promised “an ambitious new programme of community engagement, including plans to introduce the celebrated El Sistema programme of social musical education to Northern Ireland’s children in 2014-15. The implementation of these idealistic plans now falls to the orchestra’s chairman, George Bain, who has taken on the role of executive chairman since Solinas’s departure.” The article notes that there are also vacancies at the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra in Dublin.
Posted March 19, 2014
