“Alastair Willis didn’t want to get too excited when the South Bend Symphony Orchestra sent him its 2017-18 season in February,” writes Andrew Hughes in Wednesday’s (5/3) South Bend Tribune (Indiana). “But he’s excited now.… Willis has been named its new music director…. Willis, 46, succeeds Maestro Tsung Yeh, who retired in May 2016 after 28 years as the SBSO’s music director. Willis’ four-year contract takes effect July 1…. His audition concert … included Carter Pann’s ‘Slalom,’ Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor and Dvorák’s Symphony No. 9 … ‘Alastair set the bar very high, from the minute he stepped onto that podium,’ SBSO executive director Agnieszka Rakhmatullaev said…. A member of the search committee, [principal oboist Jennet] Ingle said she ‘loved his energy’ on the podium…. The search committee’s co-chairs, Bruce Bancroft and Joyce Stifel, both said Willis’ … experience as a music director with the Illinois Symphony Orchestra, and staff positions with the Seattle Symphony and the Cincinnati Symphony and Pops Orchestras, all factored heavily in the unanimous decision to offer the position to him. So did the results of audience surveys after each concert, they said, as well his experience in musical theater and pops music.”
Posted May 4, 2017
