“Choosing a new Eugene Symphony music director is big news here,” writes Brett Campbell in Thursday’s (1/26) Eugene Weekly (Oregon). “The exhaustive process used to choose them all, largely created by Eugene lawyer and arts supporter Roger Saydack, has become a national model. ‘He literally wrote the book’ on picking a music director, says Eugene Symphony executive director Scott Freck, noting that Saydack wrote the League of American Orchestras’ manual on orchestra conductor searches…. The top nine candidates visited Eugene last summer to talk to committee members, to put together a hypothetical first season and to share ideas about the concert experience. They also … worked with the orchestra’s musicians by reading through movements of Igor Stravinsky’s Soldier’s Tale…. The committee settled on three finalists”: Dina Gilbert, Ryan McAdams, and Francesco Lecce-Chong. Each of the three is spending a week this season “meeting with the symphony’s board and volunteers, community members, potential artistic partners and local arts leaders, participating in outreach programs … and rehearsing and leading the orchestra in a full concert.” Freck says that “in a town with few big arts institutions and deep-pocket donors, [a music director] has to play a larger role in the larger community.”
Posted January 27, 2017
