“This fall, Kevin Carlson, a trombonist, expected to be starting his senior year at the Juilliard School in New York. Instead, he’ll be playing with the National Symphony Orchestra as assistant principal trombone,” writes Anne Midgette in Tuesday’s (9/24) Washington Post. “Carlson, just 23, is about to become the NSO’s youngest player. He’s one of four new members joining the orchestra as it prepares to start its season … Now at the start of his third season, Gianandrea Noseda, the NSO’s music director, has overseen the hiring of 16 players—about one-sixth of the orchestra. [For] Marina Aikawa, a violinist who is starting with the NSO this fall … coming to the NSO closes a circle: It was the first American orchestra she heard live, shortly after her family moved from Japan to Virginia…. Aikawa even played at the Kennedy Center when she was 14 and a contestant in the NSO Young Soloists Competition, with her mother at the piano. But Noseda was an equally important draw. Aikawa played under his baton last summer … in Verbier, Switzerland.” Says Aikawa, “I knew he was a great music director. And he has a great personality.… I just look up to him so much.”
Posted September 26, 2019
