“Over the course of its 176-year history, the New York Philharmonic has been led by a virtual who’s who of conducting greats,” writes Charles Passy in Thursday’s (5/31) Wall Street Journal. “But for its set of subscription concerts that begins Thursday, the orchestra … won’t be featuring anyone at the podium at all. The program, which features works by Mozart and Tchaikovsky, marks one of the few times the ensemble has played an entire program without a conductor, say Philharmonic officials. The orchestra wasn’t trying to save on a conductor’s fee, but embrace a different methodology…. Frank Huang, the orchestra’s concertmaster [in photo], will take on something of a guiding role from his seated position playing violin at the front of the orchestra. Mr. Huang encouraged the Philharmonic to do the program, based on his experience with similar conductor-less concerts when he was at the Houston Symphony before coming to New York in 2015. His belief is that the process of working without a maestro forces the musicians to pay closer attention to one another—and the lessons from that apply even when the orchestra works with a conductor…. The process, he said, is ‘more like playing in a giant string quartet’ than an orchestra.”
Posted May 31, 2018
