“When Jaap van Zweden takes up his new role as the New York Philharmonic’s music director designate in 2017, he will be jetting between two very different ensembles on opposite sides of the world,” writes Joyce Lau in Wednesday’s (10/26) New York Times. The New York and Hong Kong philharmonics both “moved this year to lock the highly sought Dutch conductor into contracts that run until 2022…. He will officially become [the New York Philharmonic’s] music director in 2018. In order to handle those jobs, Mr. van Zweden, 55, will cut short by a year his term as music director at the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.” Van Zweden will serve as the Dallas Symphony’s conductor laureate from 2018 to 2021. “ ‘Right now I’m balancing Dallas and Hong Kong, and later I will be balancing New York and Hong Kong,’ he said in a telephone interview from Dallas. ‘The balancing act is already in my system.’ … It was the Dallas Symphony that gave him his first role as a music director in America. … Mr. van Zweden is known for his tightly controlled sound. … ‘You should be sitting on the edge of your seat, not out of fear of making mistakes, but of excitement.’ ”
Posted October 31, 2016
