“They’re getting the band together again, for one night,” writes Graydon Royce in Thursday’s (1/10) Star-Tribune (Minneapolis). “The musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra have agreed to play a Feb. 1 concert at the Minneapolis Convention Center to celebrate the ensemble’s Grammy nomination. Music Director Osmo Vänskä has signaled that he will conduct. The event was dreamed up by Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak and Judy Dayton, a longtime orchestra board member and arts benefactor. ‘We are obviously in a complicated labor issue right now,’ Rybak said Wednesday, referring to the contract stalemate between locked-out musicians and management. ‘But it would be a tragedy in my mind if the dispute prevented this community from celebrating the fact that we have an institution that is up for a Grammy.’ Rybak and Dayton asked the players and Vänskä to perform the Sibelius Symphonies No. 2 and 5 at the Feb. 1 concert. The orchestra’s recording of those two works has been nominated for Best Orchestral Performance. The Grammy winner will be announced Feb. 10. … Michael Henson, the orchestra’s president and CEO, released a statement Wednesday that said, ‘We share pride in this Grammy nomination and appreciate that the mayor understands the importance of this cultural institution and the need for it to be financially sustainable in the future.’ ”
Posted January 10, 2013
