“Thierry Fischer has been appointed Music Director of the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra, starting in March 2020,” reports Martin Cullingford in Monday’s (6/10) Gramophone (U.K.). “He succeeds Marin Alsop in the post, who has been named Conductor Emeritus. Fischer will conduct the orchestra for eight weeks in his first year at the helm, and for 12 weeks a year thereafter…. Since 2009 Fischer has served as Music Director of the Utah Symphony (a post he steps down from in Summer 2022), and Principal Guest of the Seoul Philharmonic. His most recent recording, of Saint-Saëns Symphony No. 2 and Urbs Roma, and Danse macabre, on Hyperion, was well received in [Gramophone’s] current issue. ‘Thierry Fischer and the Utah Symphony’s performances here are polished and graciously articulate … there’s exhilaration, too, mind you—in the quicksilver finale of the A minor Symphony, for example, Fischer and the orchestra show they can turn on a dime.’ ” Working with the São Paulo Symphony “ ‘was a coup de foudre,’ said Fischer. ‘I was instantly excited by these players who have an infectious ambition to be the best example of what an orchestra can be in the 21st century.’ ”
Posted June 11, 2019
