“Tucson Symphony Orchestra will take several guest conductors on second dates next season as it enters the homestretch of its search for a conductor to replace George Hanson,” writes Cathalena Burch in Saturday’s (2/14) Arizona Daily Star. “TSO President and CEO Mark Blakeman said he hopes to have a decision on the new conductor by the end of the 2015-16 season.” Guest conductors will include “Andrew Grams, who will conduct the opening weekend concert … before returning next spring to conduct the orchestra in Carl Orff’s ‘Carmina Burana.’ … Blakeman and longtime TSO principal pianist Paula Fan … compared the conductor search to a blind date. Conductors who hit it off with audiences and the musicians on their first date this season were asked back, Blakeman explained.… Next season’s programs … include nine works never performed by the TSO and two world premieres,” the orchestral version of Heather Schmidt’s Lunar Reflections, and Ripple Effect by Takuma Itoh, who will be in residency at the TSO through the League of American Orchestras’ Music Alive: New Partnerships Residency Plans (administered with New Music USA). “Hanson will close out his 19-year tenure with the TSO March 13 and 15.”
Posted February 17, 2015
