“The rising young American maestro James Gaffigan has extended his contract as chief conductor of the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra until 2022,” writes Michael Cooper in Saturday’s (6/20) New York Times. “That will bring Mr. Gaffigan’s tenure in Lucerne to at least 12 years. Under him, the orchestra’s profile has been rising through its tours of Europe, Asia and South America; the commissions it has awarded to composers including Wolfgang Rihm and Thomas Adès, and the well-received recordings it has released on the Harmonia Mundi label. Mr. Gaffigan, who was born in New York in 1979, held positions as an assistant conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra and an associate conductor of the San Francisco Symphony before increasingly making his career in Europe. He will conduct the New York Philharmonic next season in a program of works by Beethoven, Strauss and a new piece by Andrew Norman…. Numa Bischof Ullmann, the orchestra’s general director, said in a statement that with Mr. Gaffigan’s decision to extend his contract by another five years and make his relationship with the ensemble a long-term one, ‘a new era in the history of the orchestra has taken root.’ ”
Posted June 23, 2015
