“The next music director of the New York Philharmonic, Jaap van Zweden, may not exactly be a household name yet,” writes Michael Cooper in Thursday’s (6/23) New York Times. “But he apparently set a record as the nation’s top-paid conductor when his current ensemble, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, paid him $5,110,538 in 2013, according to an analysis of the orchestra’s tax filings that was released this week.” Most of that “came in the form of a Texas-sized signing bonus Mr. van Zweden received that year for agreeing to a long-term contract extension, the orchestra said; his salary that year was $1,788,997. But his $5.1 million in total compensation—first reported by Drew McManus, a consultant and blogger who analyzes major orchestras’ most recent tax filings each year on his website, Adaptistration—set a new standard. … Mary Lou Falcone, a spokeswoman for Mr. van Zweden and the orchestra, said that the money for the signing bonus had come entirely from one person, who had made the donation as a restricted gift exclusively for that purpose.” Van Zweden’s original contract “called for him to remain music director in Dallas through the 2018-19 season. But the orchestra agreed to release him a year early so he could take the job in New York, where he will begin his five-year contract as music director in the 2018-19 season.”
Posted June 24, 2016
