• Mikhail Agrest
• Daniel Meyer
• Steven Smith
• Marc Taddei
• Arthur Post
• Dorian Wilson
• Alastair Willis
• Christian Knapp
• Arthur Fagen

Read on for the full press release from the RSO.

(Richmond, Va.) The Richmond Symphony is inviting nine conductors, out of a field consisting of almost 250 applications, to compete for the opportunity to become the organization’s next music director. Beginning in Fall 2008 and lasting through Fall 2009, the nine candidates (bios below) will visit Richmond and work with the orchestra in many settings including public performances across all of its four concert series. In addition to seeing the candidates lead the orchestra in concert, the public will have the opportunity to meet the conductors at special events, pre-concert talks and weigh-in online and through surveys when the 2008-09 Season begins in September of this year.
A search committee representing key stakeholders from the RSO Board of Directors, musicians of the orchestra, and staff are guiding the process “The next 18 months provide us a great opportunity to include the community-at-large in the process as we select a new artistic leader,” said RSO Search Committee Chair Tracy Schwarzschild. “We value our constituents and the search committee wants to hear from the public on the qualities our next leader should possess to help advance the Richmond Symphony as we move back into the Carpenter Theatre at Richmond CenterStage.”

Current Music Director Mark Russell Smith will leave the orchestra at the end of the 2008-2009 Season after 10 years of service. “Mark’s tenure is distinguished by his great ability to build ensemble and artistic quality and his masterful leadership of the orchestra through an unprecedented time of transition after the Carpenter Theatre closed,” says RSO Executive Director David Fisk. “Transition in leadership is a natural progression in the life cycle of an orchestra. With the Carpenter slated to reopen as part of the Richmond CenterStage development, we are enthusiastic about the opportunities new leadership will bring to our community.”
Performance dates will be announced for 2008-2009 in mid-March. The first six listed below will conduct in 2008-2009 and the last three will visit Richmond Fall 2009. The new Music Director is scheduled to be named in late 2009. The nine candidates are as follows:

Mikhail Agrest
Agrest is a laureate of the Pedrotti International Conducting Competition and of the Mitropoulos Conducting Competition. He has appeared with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra and the Danish National Symphony Orchestra among others. He enjoys a thriving career as a guest conductor, at home with both symphonic and operatic repertoire.

Born in St. Petersburg Russia, he moved to the United States in 1989 and studied at Indiana University.

Daniel Meyer
As Resident Conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and Music Director of the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony Orchestra, Daniel Meyer conducts over 50 performances this season, including pops, community, and education concerts. Recently appointed Music Director of the Asheville Symphony, Mr. Meyer becomes only the fourth conductor to hold that position in the orchestra’s history. He also was recently appointed Music Director of the Erie Philharmonic. Mr. Meyer was awarded the 2002 Aspen Conducting Prize after his second season as a fellowship Academy Conductor at the Aspen Music Festival. He has conducted the Cleveland Orchestra, Utah, Forth Worth, San Antonio, Syracuse, Tallahassee, and Wheeling symphonies. Prior to his appointments in Pittsburgh, Asheville and Erie, Mr. Meyer was Assistant Conductor of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra.

A native of Cleveland, Ohio, he attended the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory and Boston University.

Steven Smith
Steven Smith has served as Music Director of Santa Fe Symphony & Chorus since 1999. He also serves as Music Director of the award-winning Cleveland Chamber Symphony, an ensemble devoted to the performance of contemporary music. From 1997-2003, Steven Smith served as the Assistant Conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra, conducting subscription concerts, summer concerts and holiday programs. Orchestral guest conducting has included several seasons with New Zealand’s Auckland Philharmonia, and at the festivals of Aspen and Brevard. Additionally, Steven Smith has appeared with the Detroit Symphony, Houston Symphony, New Mexico Symphony, Taiwan’s National Symphony Orchestra, and the Hong Kong Philharmonic. He has also appeared with the orchestras of Akron, Annapolis, Colorado, Dayton, Hartford, Kalamazoo, Long Beach, Long Island, Memphis, Sacramento, Santa Rosa and Toledo.

A native of Toledo, Ohio, he attended the Eastman School of Music and the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Marc Taddei
After many years as Music Director of the Christchurch Symphony in New Zealand, Marc Taddei has taken up his new position in 2007 as Music Director of the Vector Wellington Orchestra in New Zealand’s capital city. Marc’s recent activities include engagements in Hong Kong, Oregon and New Orleans, as well as with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, which he took on tour in 2004. 2005 saw his first major tour with the Royal New Zealand Ballet, which led to an immediate invitation back to both premier and tour a newly commissioned ballet and score. In 2006 he made debuts with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Victoria in Australia, and with the Southwest Florida and New Haven Symphony Orchestras in the United States.

A graduate of The Julliard School, he has recorded for the Sony, BMG, and Columbia labels.

Arthur Post
As Assistant and later Resident Conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra from 1994-1997, Arthur Post was a favorite with local and regional audiences, leading the PSO in subscription, Pops and educational concerts. From 1997-99 he served as Associate Conductor of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under Zubin Mehta. Subsequently, he completed a one-year appointment as Resident Conductor of The New World Symphony, where he worked closely with Artistic Director Michael Tilson Thomas. Other international appearances include the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, London Mozart Players, Singapore and Jerusalem symphony orchestras. In the United States, Mr. Post has led concerts with the Annapolis, Columbus, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Houston, Illinois, New Jersey, North Carolina, San Antonio, Syracuse and Virginia Symphony Orchestras.

A graduate of or Yale University and The Juilliard School, his educational program, “Music on the inside” has been introduced in classrooms if four states.

Dorian Wilson
Dorian Wilson, one of Leonard Bernstein’s last students, first received international recognition at the 1989 Malko International Conducting Competition. As a result, he was asked to be the second conductor for the Moscow Philharmonic; an unprecedented appointment in Russia; making Wilson the first American guest conductor in fifteen years and, at 25 years old, the youngest conductor in their history. In 2005-2006, he was the chief conductor of the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra in Serbia. As recognized by the International Federation of Music Competitions, Wilson has won more International prizes for conducting than any other conductor. Since 1989 Wilson has won an additional 8 prizes in virtually every one of the world’s major competitions. He has appeared around the globe in the great halls of Paris, Rome, Moscow, Tokyo, Frankfurt, Helsinki, Berlin, and Seoul, Korea.

He has studied at Oberlin Conservatory, the University of Michigan, Indiana University and the Hochschule fur Musik in Vienna.

Alastair Willis
Alastair Willis served as Resident Conductor of the Seattle Symphony from 2002-2003, after having held the post of Assistant Conductor of that orchestra since September 2000. He previously held the position of Assistant Conductor with the Cincinnati Symphony and Pops Orchestras and Music Director of the Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra. Mr. Willis has appeared with the Chicago Symphony, , the St. Louis Symphony, the Detroit Symphony, the Houston Symphony, the Indianapolis Symphony, Oregon Symphony, San Diego Symphony, and San Antonio Symphony Additionally, in recent years he has made conducting debuts with the San Francisco Symphony, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, the Houston Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic. Yo-Yo Ma personally invited Mr. Willis to conduct several performances of his Silk Road project at the Seattle Symphony

Born in Massachusetts, he graduated from Bristol University in England and later attended the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University.

Christian Knapp
Christian Knapp has performed in festivals and concerts throughout the world, conducting the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the New World Symphony, the Indianapolis Symphony, the Western Australia Symphony Orchestra and the Chicago Civic Orchestra, among many others. He has collaborated with such renowned artists as Mstislav Rostropovich, Itzhak Perlman and Nadia Salerno-Sonnenberg just to name a few. In 2003 he was selected to participate in the National Conducting Institute at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, a project of the National Symphony Orchestra and Leonard Slatkin in collaboration with the American Symphony Orchestra League. An assistant conductor, he has worked extensively for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the New World Symphony, Russian National Symphony orchestra and the London Symphony Orchestra. He also served as Associate Conductor of the Seattle Symphony leading many of its main series concerts.

Born in the United States, he graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music and later from the St. Petersburg State Conservatory in Russia.

Arthur Fagen
Athur Fagen is a respected figure on concert and opera podiums throughout Europe and the United States. Since 2002-03, Maestro Fagen has been the Music Director of the Dortmund Philharmonic Orchestra and the Dortmund Opera in Germany. Additionally, Mr. Fagen has conducted the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Nuernberg Philharmonic, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Metropolitan Opera, Czech Philharmonic, Baltimore Symphony, Israel Symphony Orchestra, Holland Sinfonia, Buenos Aires Philharmonic, Tokyo Philharmonic and Atlanta Opera. Arthur Fagen was first prizewinner of the “Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Conductors Competition.”

He was born in New York, attended the Curtis Institute under Max Rudolf and later studied at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. He has recorded for the BMG and Naxos labels.

ABOUT RSO
Founded in 1957, the Richmond Symphony is the largest performing arts organization in Central Virginia. The Symphony has been a member of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s Orchestra Program since its inception in 1999. As a non-profit corporation, the Richmond Symphony is partially funded by the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Richmond Symphony has issued a full press release.

So what, that’s what professional Orchestras do, right? Only it wasn’t the management of the VSO that masterminded this campaign; it was the musicians themselves. As preparation for an upcoming collective bargaining endeavor, the musicians conceived, developed, and executed a very successful PR campaign designed to serve their immediate needs, complement the overall VSO PR strategy and establish a permanent, public voice for the musicians.

Here’s the musician’s website.

See this Polyphonic.org article for an inside look at this initiative.

Several panel members are from the American Federation of Musicians’ symphonic services division; others are from some of our peer orchestras.

Does anyone know more about what’s been going on down there?

PittsburghLIVE.com has an article.

Small cities can have first-rate symphony

By ANDREW DRUCKENBROD
BLOCK NEWS ALLIANCE
Toledo Blade
November 27, 2005

The Big Five. The top tier. The large budget.

When it comes to assessing the state of American orchestras, the focus
invariably centers on the giants of the industry. If ensembles such as
the Philadelphia Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, and the Chicago
Symphony Orchestra post deficits, the news rings out like a cymbal
crash. If the Pittsburgh Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra or Los Angeles
Philharmonic misstep financially, it’s seen as the national tempo.

But many orchestral musicians work in markets a sliver of the size of
the metropolitan centers these orchestras call home. Most players take
their seats on the stages of smaller cities, performing in orchestras
not nearly as financially troubled as the big boys, if troubled at all.
In fact, about 600 professional orchestras now operate in the United
States, according to a new study done at the University of Cincinnati.
That would seem to be an astounding figure for an art form many industry
experts predicted would be extinct by now.

This week the internationally acclaimed Pittsburgh Symphony will travel
to several midwest cities in a tour conducted by Hans Graf and featuring
violinist Sarah Chang. Casual observers might expect it would arrive in
Granville and Toledo, Ohio; South Bend and Bloomington, Ind.; and
Champaign-Urbana, Ill., as the only live orchestra that music lovers
there would hear all year.

Think again. Every one of these towns has an orchestra to call their
own. America brims with excellent small and midsize orchestras, many in
cities that the Pittsburgh Symphony will visit on its Midwest tour that
enhance the culture of their communities as well as keep classical music
viable nationally.

“The heath of the small orchestra is critical to the future of American
classical music,” says Larry Tamburri, president of the Pittsburgh
Symphony.

“These smaller symphonies serve to bridge the gap between major
metropolitan areas and their direct communities,” writes Brandon
VanWaeyenberghe in his study, “Musical Chairs.”

These days, you don’t have to visit the Big Apple or the Loop to hear
art music, or hear it performed well. Nearly every nook and cranny of
the United States can boast of some classical music presence. And in
terms of the bottom line, the more financially sound groups are
increasingly not found with major orchestras, despite their longer
seasons and larger endowments.

“A higher percentage of smaller orchestras are operating with balanced
budgets than the larger orchestras,” says Henry Fogel, president of the
American Symphony Orchestra League. “The bigger orchestra’s cost
structure is more rigid; the small orchestras are much more flexible.
They can adjust to financial difficulties much more quickly.”

The Toledo Symphony is a case in point: “We have never been in a
stronger position financially,” says Robert Bell, its executive
director.

The American Symphony Orchestra League designates professional orchestra
tiers according to annual budget size, from Group 1, with budgets of
roughly $14 million or more, to Group 7, with budgets of $124,000 to
$450,000. Only the first group contains full-time orchestras.

The big group that falls in behind Group 1 is not too many, says
VanWaeyenberghe: “While the American landscape is covered with over 600
professional symphony orchestras, few actually compete with each other
for the same market.”

On the contrary, smaller orchestras often rely on having peers in the
area. “You have geographical areas where the same musicians drive to
perform in more than one orchestra,” says Fogel. “If a group is in the
red, it doesn’t mean that there are too many [orchestras]; it may mean
it isn’t run well or doesn’t have the best product out there.”

Strength in small numbers

While the Pittsburgh Symphony, a Group 1 orchestra with a budget of
$30.5 million, is known for its community work, most small orchestras
outpace their bigger brothers in engaging the community. For long-term
stability, this is as important a factor as structural flexibility.

The Champaign-Urbana Symphony, a Group 7 orchestra, has no full-time
staffers and a budget of $280,000. However, it still managed to bus in
7,000 students last season for concerts. It also sends small ensembles
to surrounding and rural schools.

Recently, it created a family concert. “We try to reach out to the young
family that can’t go to the symphony and pay a baby sitter,” says Megan
Holland, executive director. Even in fund-raising, she says it is
crucial that they cater to the public, not the other way around. “My
board is up with what is going on; every fund-raiser we do is on the
edge. Next will be a raffle containing iPods.”

Financially, the Champaign-Urbana Symphony is on solid footing, she
says. “We ended last year with a deficit under $10,000, and this year we
plan to not have that. We have had increases in salary and staff hours.
Over the last three years we have added two concerts to the season.”

The Toledo Symphony, a Group 2 orchestra with a $6 million budget,
throws a particularly wide net out to its community. Fogel calls it a
model in creating a relationship with a region.

“The whole thing about reaching out to the community, we wrote the book
on that,” says Bell. “We were doing that in the ’60s, not just in
suburbs but inner city and rural areas. We are not into the vanity
thing. Some orchestras of our size make an issue of playing in Carnegie
Hall, but the economics don’t make sense. We are making a more profound
effect in our community this way.”

The orchestra also provides music for nearly every event where
instrumentalists are needed. The Toledo Symphony musicians play
everything from musicals and operas to weddings and funerals.

“We try to provide a service to the community, and we feel that they
support us financially,” says Bell. “Last year we did over 400 events.”

“The symphony is everywhere in town,” says clarinetist Ron Samuels, who
was hired by the Pittsburgh Symphony after he played in Toledo for 16
years.

The method is not without some controversy, in that it places the Toledo
Symphony in the realm of a monopoly. The concept is not just to funnel
income from sundry musical needs through the symphony, but to make sure
there is enough work for musicians to make a living.

“It was a matter of survival,” says Bell. “I was always looking for ways
to keep people here.” The Toledo Symphony had a slight deficit last
year, but Bell says that is balanced by a stronger endowment than in
years past ($14 million at present).

The South Bend Symphony has a budget of $1.5 million, placing it in
Group 5. But it doesn’t own its hall (which recently got a massive
renovation), has an agreement with the University of Notre Dame for a
guest artist each year and has no deficit.

“We have to be more creative,” says Joyce Stifel, citing a recent
Halloween concert with special effects that was received well. “Becoming
more accessible to our audience will be a key point.”

But how do they sound?

Musical quality is subjective, but many in the field agree that the
general quality level of classical music performances has been rising in
the past 25 years.

“I recently heard a performance of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony by the West
Virginia Symphony that I would have presented as an impresario in
Carnegie Hall, no apologies,” says Fogel.

“I remember driving and pull within the radio limits of Toledo,
listening to some Beethoven symphony, and saying that’s pretty good,
[only to hear], ‘You have just heard the Toledo Symphony,’Åú” says
Samuels. “I was pleasantly surprised by the level.”

Whether it’s the McKeesport Symphony or the South Bend Symphony, the key
is competency. If the performance doesn’t rise to the lofty heights of
the Berlin Philharmonic under Herbert von Karajan, well, neither do many
performances by Group 1 orchestras.

A major reason for the quality is the talent that pours into the market
place.

“Every year colleges and conservatories graduate 3,000 students who have
majored on orchestral instruments,” says Fogel. “There are only roughly
150 positions that open up.” That figure bodes poorly for students but
promises that even small orchestras can land talented players.

Some of these students will stay in the smaller groups; some, like
Samuels will move on. The bottom line is that the level of performance
overall is bolstered by the competition.

“There is a vibrant orchestra life in America, no question about it,”
says Tamburri.

Sizing each other up

What can orchestras learn from each other?

Plenty.

“What they do in terms of community engagement is big there,” says
Tamburri. “How they accomplish that, being embedded in the community, is
something worth looking at.”

To facilitate communication, in 1999 the Andrew Mellon Foundation
initiated an innovative project called the Orchestra Forum. It brings a
group of more than a dozen orchestras of various sizes together on a
regular basis to “explore the common issues they face,” says program
officer Cathy Maciariello.

“Orchestras have a lot to learn from each other despite what size they
are,” she says. “They share many common problems and opportunities
because the structure of orchestras are the same across the country. It
is not a question of budget size, but how people relate to each other.”

The Pittsburgh and Toledo symphonies are Mellon members. When the
Pittsburgh Symphony performs there Wednesday, Mellon has arranged for a
panel discussion and dinner for the members to further discuss pertinent
issues.

Previous discussion have yielded results. “Toledo is one of the more
interesting orchestras in the United States,” says Tamburri, formerly
head of the New Jersey Symphony. “I have borrowed more than one idea
from the Toledo Symphony in New Jersey and Pittsburgh.”

One idea was the expansive role that Toledo musicians play in running
the orchestra. Its personnel manager, sales staff and librarians are
just some of the musicians who also sit on the staff. Bell himself still
occasionally plays timpani. “We were on a modest budget, and because
musicians tend to be pretty bright and we needed help [I thought], why
not get someone who is conversant in the field?”

“The idea of the musicians being involved in the institution the smaller
orchestras are ahead of bigger orchestras in that,” says Tamburri. The
Pittsburgh Symphony hasn’t follow that path directly, but since
operating without a music director, musicians have increased their input
on many levels of the organization, from artistic planning to musician
hiring.

“There are finite resources, financially and intellectually in town for
just the classics,” says Bell.

It may just be that working with less has taught smaller symphonies to
do more. A musical lesson even the more accomplished groups can learn
from.

It’s interesting that not paying a Music Director salary doen’t seem to save much money since they still have to pay guest conductors. However, the musicians obviously have much more control of their fate.

Both Playbill Arts and the New York Times have articles.

Despite record profits approaching $100 million per year for this 10-week
show, management is seeking to slash the tenured orchestra musicians’
salaries by eliminating or severely limiting the overtime these musicians
earn working as many as 6 shows a day and often for 7 days a week.

Following a breakdown in negotiations with the new owners of Radio City
Music Hall on Thursday, October 6, 2005, Local 802 [New York City] was
informed that the management had hired a local contractor (the regular house
contractor is a member of Local 802.) This contractor will call music
schools and/or union or non-union musicians in New York, New Jersey or
anywhere in the US, Canada or Europe, to serve as replacement or “scab”
musicians.

Additionally, there is a strong rumor that the contractor will try to reach
out to the members of the Louisiana Philharmonic and offer this work as a
“charitable gesture”.

Members are asked to refuse this work and to notify Local 802 of any
attempts to hire within their jurisdiction.