“Three hours into a ‘Spirit of the Season’ concert featuring the Minnesota Orchestra’s first-ever performance in north Minneapolis, its new associate conductor, Roderick Cox, welcomed the … chorus [at Shiloh Temple International] to help close the event with Handel’s ‘Hallelujah’ chorus,” writes Graydon Royce in Saturday’s (1/4) Star Tribune (Minneapolis). “The urgent passion and throaty call of the 90-voice choir swayed up against the rigorous beats of the orchestra to fuse a new sound: gospel sung on the back of Handel’s rhythms and lyric lines. It shook the room. And at this confluence stood Cox, a young man feeling his way toward becoming a symbol of unity between two groups—classical musicians and diverse audiences. ‘It was one of those surprise moments you couldn’t anticipate,’ he said.… As associate conductor, Cox leads young people’s concerts and serves as understudy if music director Osmo Vänskä can’t go on…. At the same time, given his duties with the orchestra’s education initiatives, Cox wears on his broad shoulders an evolving responsibility for building bridges.” Cox was one of five conductors who participated in the League of American Orchestras’ most recent Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview with Giancarlo Guerrero and the Nashville Symphony.
Posted January 17, 2017
