“In February 16, 2006, a 45- year-old Dutch conductor was set to take the podium in front of” the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, writes Peter Simek in the September issue of D magazine (Dallas). “After the fireball from Amsterdam took the baton and set the DSO ablaze, the city would not soon forget the name Jaap van Zweden…. [His] tenure … will come to a close after his 10th and final season with the orchestra, which kicks off this month…. ‘It was really almost like a light switch when he came in, as far as the energy level of the orchestra,’ says principal trumpeter Ryan Anthony…. [Van Zweden’s] arrival coincided with … the completion of the Dallas Arts District, and van Zweden seemed to embody … the striving sense of prestige and promise conveyed by all those new buildings. And he delivered on it…. His departure comes at a moment of transition both for Dallas and its orchestra, as the DSO also searches for a new CEO after the departure of Jonathan Martin…. There is a new kind of pressure … to find someone who can sustain what’s already there.” Van Zweden becomes music director of the New York Philharmonic in 2018-19.
Posted September 11, 2017
Pictured: Jaap van Zweden conducts the Dallas Symphony Orchestra
