(American) Spirit of Baltimore!

Congratulations to Marin Alsop on her (apparent) appointment as
the new Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.
Last week, before the London tragedy, I had meant to
link here to BSO President James Glicker's very intelligent
open letter to the music community outlining the orchestra's
transparent procedure for seeking its replacement for Yuri
Temirkanov, who served as music director since 2000,
bringing northern Russian refinement to the mid-Atlantic.
However, this morning I see that this letter unfortunately
has been already taken down from the BSO site.
[Update or correction: I located BSO President James Glicker's
open letter Search Update on the BSO Strathmore site.
It is available at:
http://www.baltimoresymphony.org/about/search_update.asp]

This week, American conductor Hugh Wolff makes his BSO debut
(why so late in his career?) with a bizarre summer program
featuring a night of firsts, Liszt's First Piano Concerto,
Schumann's First Symphony and Walton's Façade Suite No. 1.
Is this what the ASOL and the NEA expected, twenty years ago,
when it annointed Mr Wolff one of the American orchestra
field's great white hopes? I wonder what American works
Ms Alsop would have programmed for this occasion?

Now, how about a non-traditionally cast Music Director for
the National Symphony Orchestra (in Washington, D.C.)?
Kent Nagano has already given his NSO debut, but equally
talented Michael Morgan, also from California, has not yet
done so. Time for the NSO to get in touch with the
Spirit of America, no?













Tsarskoye Selo Palace, in Saint Petersburg, Russia
(Also known as Pushkin Palace. Alexander Pushkin,
of mixed European and African descent, was one of
the first new Europeans.)