One man's potential picks for next Seattle Symphony director

The best news to have come out so far from the Seattle Symphony's search for a music director to succeed Gerard Schwarz in 2011 is that there has been no news.

I am not hearkening merely to the old saw that "no news is good news," but rather expressing approval of the discretion with which the search is being handled.

Too often, I have seen orchestra boards and their search committees run off enthusiastically at the mouth about the "candidates" they would most like to hire, with the result that when the job ends up having to be offered to someone else, he or she is inevitably seen as a second or even lower choice.

When the membership of the search committee is announced, probably in the next few weeks, the symphony's executive director, Tom Philion, assures me there will still be no premature spilling of conductors' names.

I, however, not being part of the search, feel I may claim the privilege of exploring the field for the benefit of Seattle Times readers.

The following comments and assessments are, of course, purely subjective; and for clarity, I've divided a list of 36 names into seven categories.

Core Choices

Five of the people I should be happiest to see in the job:

Lawrence Renes, who has spent several years as music director of both the opera and the orchestra in Bremen, Germany, gave some outstanding concerts with the Seattle Symphony in recent seasons. He also led a spectacular account of Strauss' "Elektra" for Seattle Opera last October.

Yakov Kreizberg, head of the Netherlands Philharmonic in Amsterdam, is a charismatic musician who has, I believe, not been invited back after his artistic successes here only because he has differed with Maestro Schwarz on matters of orchestral layout.

Ignat Solzhenitsyn, one of the greatest pianistic talents to have emerged in recent years, is equally gifted as a conductor. In his mid-30s, he is in his fifth season as music director of the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia and may well be ready for a bigger challenge.

Asher Fisch, in his eighth season as music director of the Israel Opera (and appointed principal guest conductor of the Seattle Opera last season), has demonstrated formidable skill and intelligence in both opera and symphony.

And JoAnn Falletta wowed both public and critics here a few weeks ago with a stunning performance of Ravel's "La Valse"; she heads both the Buffalo Philharmonic and the Virginia Symphony but might be attracted by the Seattle post.

Strong possibilities

Hungarian Iván Fischer, one of the authentically great conductors of our time, and German Ingo Metzmacher, a fine musician noted for his dedication to contemporary music, would both be on my "Core" list if it were not that Fischer has not yet worked with the orchestra and Metzmacher apparently met with some friction when he did, though the concert I heard him conduct here was excellent.

Vassily Sinaisky, principal conductor of the Malmö Symphony in Sweden, and Stéphane Denève, music director of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, have both given superb performances with the Seattleites, and another excellent conductor with local experience is Carlos Kalmar, just down the road with the Oregon Symphony.

Other talented conductors who may be thought disqualified by not having worked with the orchestra are Andrew Davis, Vladimir Jurowski, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Jac van Steen, a Dutchman of exceptional gifts both musical and human, and the Australian Geoffrey Simon, though the latter is known and admired by some Seattle players through his splendid work with the Northwest Mahler Orchestra.

Young sparks

I have in my own Seattle Symphony reviews described Rossen Milanov as "one of the most promising figures in the upcoming generation of conductors"; written of Ilan Volkov's "calm authority, exerted by means of an admirably economical technique"; praised Michael Stern's "brisk yet never forced pacing" and "the lean, clean tone he drew from the Seattle Symphony's admirable strings"; and commended Jun Märkl's "brilliant and expressive performances." And though he has not yet been heard here, another man worth watching is Andrew Constantine, formerly associate conductor in Baltimore and now music director of the Reading Symphony in Pennsylvania.

The old guard

If youth is not a necessary qualification, there are several distinguished maestros who might be a good fit: Günther Herbig, whose two subscription sets here last April brought us some genuinely revelatory music-making, and the Estonians Eri Klas, who gave us a great Sibelius Seventh two years ago, and Neeme Järvi (though the latter has not yet worked with the orchestra).

Left field

There are several figures on the international scene who are either enigmatic by virtue of the shape of their careers or simply unknown in these parts. José Serebrier, a phenomenally gifted master of the orchestra, is one of the most-recorded conductors in the world and, in my view, long overdue for a major U.S. post. Douglas Boyd came to the podium from a distinguished career as an oboist, and Christian Zacharias similarly from the piano bench; both have displayed impressive conducting chops here in recent seasons. Dennis Russell Davies, scheduled to conduct the Seattle Symphony this month, is something of a maverick where repertoire is concerned but is a man capable of really great performances.

Desirable but impossible

These are masters of the profession who, though they would be glorious additions to the local scene, stand at points in their careers where a move to Seattle could hardly attract them: James Levine, who has enough on his plate with the Boston Symphony and the Metropolitan Opera; Christoph Eschenbach, recently named to take over the National Symphony in Washington, D.C., next year; Riccardo Muti, just installed as music director designate of the Chicago Symphony; and Franz Welser-Möst, music director of the Cleveland Orchestra and younger than those three, a conductor too often denigrated but one of the most inspiring musicians (and persons) I have had the privilege of working with when I was in orchestra management.

Please, no!

This final group makes up five conductors whose careers, in my opinion, have vastly outrun their talents. Valery Gergiev is a world figure, and a charismatic one, but an undemanding rehearser whose results too often lack focus and artistic insight.

Roberto Abbado is one of those conductors in whose performances absolutely nothing seems to happen.

Another is the widely admired Osmo Vänskä, darling of some of my critical colleagues. When I started to plan this article, I bought his much-praised recording of Beethoven's Third and Eighth symphonies to find out if my negative response to his concerts might have been misplaced, but the first movement of the "Eroica" was so drearily uneventful that I couldn't listen any further.

David Robertson is an inventive programmer who seems to lack corresponding musical inspiration.

And, though it is politically incorrect to say so, I do not think Marin Alsop would have been offered the music directorship of the Baltimore Symphony were it not that she is a woman and the orchestra's board (strongly opposed in the matter by most of the players) wanted to make a socio-political statement. She can conduct composers like John Adams and Toru Takemitsu well enough, but her forays into such music as the Brahms symphonies have been disastrous in both interpretive and technical terms.

In conclusion, I am optimistic. There are a number of ways the Seattle search could reach a result I wouldn't like, but many more ways it could go right.

Bernard Jacobson, who lives in Bremerton, was music critic of the Chicago Daily News for six years. He has served as program annotator of the Philadelphia Orchestra and as artistic director of the Residentie Orkest in The Hague, The Netherlands. He can be reached at bernardijacobson@comcast.net