“The Minnesota Orchestra departs Thursday for a nine-day European tour,” writes Graydon Royce in Saturday’s (8/13) Star Tribune (Minnesota). “ ‘This tour is the final piece of re-establishing the Minnesota Orchestra to its previous, historic stature,’ said President and CEO Kevin Smith…. With stops in Finland, Edinburgh, Amsterdam and Copenhagen, the tour could be called ‘the last first’ in the orchestra’s reboot [since the sixteen-month lockout from 2012 to 2014]…. Music director Osmo Vänskä [says the historic trip to Cuba in 2015] ‘was very special … but it is a once-in-a-lifetime to do that kind of trip.… This is just like we are back to normal.’ … The budget has stabilized … attendance has started to creep up…. Smith expects to report a balanced budget for the second year in a row when fiscal 2016 ends Aug. 31.… There are now 78 full-time musicians in the orchestra, compared with 93 before the lockout. That number is contractually required to grow to 84 by January and 88 in 2020-21.” Says Vänskä, “There has been so much news about us, that now we want to give news about our playing and music-making. This [tour] is the best way to do that.”
Posted August 15, 2016
Pictured: Minnesota Orchestra clarinetists Tim Zavadil, David Pharris, and Gregory T. Williams in performance at Orchestra Hall, June 11, 2016
