CBS Television’s “60 Minutes” profiled Yannick Nézet-Séguin, music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra, Metropolitan Opera, and Orchestre Métropolitain of Montreal.
In Sunday’s (8/20) “Sixty Minutes” on CBS, Jon Wertheim reports, “Yannick Nézet-Séguin is a conductor operating at triple tempo, at once the director of three major orchestras—in Philadelphia; in his hometown of Montreal, and at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, which has pinned on him the hopes for rebounding from financial crisis and the bold revamping of its artistic mission. Not that you’ll catch Nézet-Séguin sweating it. At 48, he’s obliterating the stereotype of the strict, unapproachable maestro—joyfully keeping his musicians in time, his hair bleached platinum blonde and a smile all but welded to his face. Known as much for his versatility as his virtuosity, Nézet-Séguin … is reimagining the role of the modern orchestra; and its place in the soundtrack of the modern city…. Nézet-Séguin: ‘I try never to take myself too seriously. But music has to be taken seriously.’ ”
