“Russian conductor Daniel Raiskin will hold the music director’s baton when the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra begins its 71st season this fall,” writes Alan Small in Wednesday’s (2/14) Winnipeg Free Press (Canada). “The orchestra’s board announced Raiskin’s hiring Wednesday, after spending more than three years searching for a successor to Alexander Mickelthwate, who … will conduct the Oklahoma City Philharmonic starting in the fall…. Raiskin … will begin moving [from Amsterdam] to Winnipeg in the summer with his wife, Lara, and 14-year-old daughter Sofia…. He is the principal guest conductor with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Tenerife, Spain and the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra in Serbia. From 2005-16, he was the chief conductor of the Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie of Koblenz, Germany, and the Artur Rubinstein Philharmonic Orchestra in Lodz, Poland…. Raiskin was born in St. Petersburg, Russia [and moved to Amsterdam in 1990]. Raiskin said … word of mouth from musician friends put Canadian symphonies, including the WSO, on his musical radar. ‘Slowly I started to hear more and more about the Winnipeg orchestra, which for 27 years has hosted this contemporary music festival,’ Raiskin says referring to the Winnipeg New Music Festival…. ‘I was simply curious … my curiosity was rewarded completely.’ “
Posted February 15, 2018
