In Wednesday’s (5/29) Plain Dealer (Cleveland), Donald Rosenberg writes, “More than two years after embarking on the search for a new music director, CityMusic Cleveland has turned to a surprising source to lead the ensemble. The professional chamber orchestra that gives free concerts throughout the region has hired Israeli composer Avner Dorman to serve as music director for an initial three-year period. Dorman, who has won international acclaim for his colorful and rhythmically vibrant music, has never conducted CityMusic. But after the ensemble and guest conductor David Allan Miller last month performed Dorman’s ‘Uzu and Muzu from Kakaruzu,’ a work for narrator, two percussionists and orchestra, the CityMusic board offered him the job of music director. ‘I was a little shocked at first,’ Dorman said by phone from Gettysburg, Pa., where he’s a faculty member at Gettysburg College. ‘I didn’t expect it, for sure. But I’m very excited about it.’ Eugenia Strauss, the orchestra’s executive director, agrees that CityMusic is taking an uncharacteristic step. ‘It’s an unusual choice, but we are an unusual organization,’ she said, ‘and we felt that he could really bring a whole other dimension to what we are doing.’ … During his first season, starting in October, Dorman will lead two of the year’s four programs. He’ll begin with concerts celebrating the orchestra’s 10th anniversary.” For Symphony magazine’s Summer 2012 profile of Avner Dorman and Uzu and Muzu, click here.
Posted May 29, 2013