Leadership Change at New York String Orchestras Seminar, Long-running Young Musician Program

In Tuesday’s (11/18) Musical America, Susan Elliott writes, “Jaime Laredo will conduct his 62nd and final performance as artistic director and conductor of the New York String Orchestra Seminar on December 24 and 28 at Carnegie Hall. The annual event was founded in 1969 by the late violinist Alexander (‘Sasha’) Schneider, a member of the Budapest String Quartet, his artist manager Frank Salomon, and Carnegie Hall, the seminar’s official venue ever since. The New School, where Salomon oversaw chamber music, provided rehearsal space and administrative aid, as it does today. Laredo succeeded Schneider in 1993. In a program note for the orchestra’s 50th-anniversary concerts, Solomon recalled the orchestra’s mission. ‘Our goal was that Alexander Schneider and, later, Jaime Laredo, together with their chamber music coach colleagues, would open new doors for the country’s most gifted young musicians …’ Succeeding Laredo as artistic director and conductor will be Michael Stern. That he is carrying forward the tradition is especially fitting, since his late father, violinist Isaac Stern, is the man who saved Carnegie Hall from the wrecking ball in 1960 … Stern is music director of Orchestra Lumos (Connecticut) and the National Repertory Orchestra, a summer training ensemble for young artists.”