“Sure, Gianandrea Noseda can conduct an orchestra. But does anybody want to hear him? You do,” writes Anne Midgette in Sunday’s (9/24) Washington Post. “That’s what the National Symphony has been trying to get across for weeks, plastering the picture of their incoming music director on buses and ad kiosks all over Washington…. The first real test came when Noseda took the podium for the first time in his brand-new capacity at the orchestra’s opening-night gala Sunday. And he made a very convincing case. It wasn’t just that he conducts well … it was that he conducted Bernstein well. The gala was also part of the opening weekend of the Kennedy Center’s season-long celebration of the centennial of the American musical icon.… Most impressively, he showed some nearly idiomatic jazz-sounding chops in the set of five songs performed by the luminous Cynthia Erivo, elevating what on paper looked like an obligatory nod to the pops spectrum to the artistic and emotional highlight of the evening…. It was an exhilarating night with a sense of new beginnings and new engagement…. Gary Ginstling, the NSO’s brand-new executive director … announced that D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser … had proclaimed Sept. 24, 2017, Gianandrea Noseda Day.”
Posted September 25, 2017
