“The Detroit Symphony Orchestra is expected to announce Thursday that Leonard Slatkin, 71, has signed a new deal to remain music director through the 2017-18 season,” reports Mark Stryker in Thursday’s (12/3) Detroit Free Press. “After that he’ll assume the title of music director laureate and maintain a reduced schedule of conducting four weeks of concerts per season and remain involved in artistic planning, personnel decisions and administrative duties until his successor is firmly in place. Slatkin will be 73 when his tenure officially ends after 10 seasons in 2018, and the changes are part of a broader rethinking of his priorities as he approaches his 75th birthday.… Slatkin has been mulling his future with the DSO for quite a while but only came to a definitive decision in recent weeks.” Slatkin’s accomplishments include artistic initiatives as well as “helping heal the organization after the disastrous strike in 2010-11; rebuilding the ensemble by hiring more than 30 musicians, soon to include every principal position; big upticks in attendance and ticket sales; a dramatic expansion of the orchestra’s reach and visibility.… [DSO Executive Vice President Paul] Hogle said that a formal search committee of musicians and management would be appointed sometime in the next year.”
Posted December 3, 2015
