Music Director Andrey Boreyko and the Naples Philharmonic. Photo: Tim Gibbons
“Andrey Boreyko didn’t brave the usual financial hobgoblins of a music director when he took over the Naples Philharmonic,” writes Harriet Howard Heithaus in Monday’s (5/16) Naples Daily News (FL). “He had to contend with [Hurricane Irma], a killer virus— and … the Russian war in Ukraine, which prompted Boreyko”—who is half Russian and half Polish—“to take a stand for all the orchestras he conducts…. The Naples Philharmonic is visibly different because of Boreyko’s tenure: It’s larger, by about five musicians…. Boreyko is leaving after eight years … to concentrate on his work as music director of the Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra…. His real achievement for music lovers may have been … a deeper, more unified involvement among its players…. Kathleen van Bergen, CEO and president of [umbrella organization] Artis-Naples, [says Boreyko] encouraged guest artists to venture outside Hayes Hall … commissioned [music by] Giya Kancheli, Nicholas Jacobson-Larson and Gabriel Prokofiev…. He also persuaded the soloists to plan encores that included the orchestra, a double treat for the audience.” Boreyko said the Naples Philharmonic musicians “have a right to be … proud of themselves for a long time.”
