Wednesday (11/30) on the New York Times blog ArtsBeat, James R. Oestreich reports, “The Boston Symphony Orchestra announced on Wednesday that the conductor Riccardo Chailly, widely thought to be a potential candidate to become its next music director, had canceled concert engagements for the next two months for health reasons, including two weeks as guest conductor in Boston. Ronald A. Wilford, the chairman and chief executive officer of Columbia Artists Management, which represents the conductor, said in a telephone interview that Mr. Chailly has had recent heart problems involving atrial fibrillation. Over the next two months, Mr. Wilford said, Mr. Chailly was to have conducted the annual year-end performances of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony by the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig, Germany, where he is the music director; concert performances of Strauss’s opera ‘Ariadne auf Naxos’ in Valencia, Spain; and two weeks with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Munich.” The performances in Boston “were to have been a sort of coming out and to have included performances of Stravinsky’s ‘Rite of Spring’ and Mendelssohn’s rarely performed Second Symphony (‘Lobgesang,’ or ‘Hymn of Praise’).” The Boston Symphony will announce replacements shortly.
Posted December 1, 2011
