“The Knoxville Symphony Orchestra has narrowed its search for a new music director to six men,” writes Amy McRary in a front-page story on the January 25 Knoxville News Sentinel (subscription required). “Each gets a musical tryout before Knoxville audiences during the orchestra’s 2015-16 season. A KSO committee is looking for a replacement for Lucas Richman, its music director since 2003. Richman announced in September 2013 he would leave the orchestra when this concert season … ends this May. Now a committee that includes 10 orchestra musicians as well as KSO staff and board members has selected six candidates.… Each candidate’s weeklong visit will include rehearsals, interviews, and tours of the Knoxville area, said KSO Executive Director Rachel Ford.… Those six candidates are: Marcelo Lehninger, in his third season as the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s associate conductor” and a 2014 winner of the League of American Orchestras’ Helen M. Thompson Award for an Emerging Music Director, “Shizuo Kuwahara, a Japanese-born conductor and music director of Augusta, Ga.’s Symphony Orchestra August … Aram Demirjian, the Kansas City Symphony’s associate conductor … Eckart Preu, music director of symphonies in Spokane, Wash., and Stamford, Conn. … Jacomo Rafael Bairos, the Amarillo, Texas, Symphony music director … and Steven Jarvi, resident conductor of the St. Louis Symphony.” The orchestra will announce its new music director in May 2016.
Posted February 4, 2015
