Tafelmusik music director Jeanne Lamon announced her retirement in October, 2012, but the world likely won’t know the name of her replacement until late 2015 or early 2016, say the organization’s managing director Tricia Baldwin and board chair Andy Kenins.
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
Carefully planning every step of the way has marked Tafelmusik’s one-generation journey from financially-shaky upstart to being the world’s busiest period-instrument ensemble. And choosing a replacement for a loved leader of three decades is a particularly complicated task.
Kenins and Baldwin sat down with an update a few days ago.
First of all, says Kenins, the orchestra is sticking to the performer-leader formula favoured by so many period-instrument orchestras. The new music director may not be a violinist, like Lamon. She or he may be a cellist or a keyboard player, for instance, but not just a conductor.
That criterion automatically eliminated a number of interested people. Baldwin believes the orchestra’s designated recruitment firm received more than 100 applications from around the world.
And there’s a lot more eliminating to do. A team of people that includes three musicians from the orchestra has been reading, listening and doing any and all sorts of research into each applicant to create as short a shortlist as can be wedged into the limited number of concert slots Tafelmusik can offer next season.
It’s at next spring’s announcement of the 2014-15 season that we will truly get a feel for where the orchestra might be headed. And neither Baldwin nor Kenins discount the possibility that one of the final candidates may be asked back to perform with the musicians one more time in the fall of 2015.
It’s not just Tafelmusik’s international profile that’s prompting such intense planning and auditioning of new music directors. Unlike a typical large orchestra, like the Toronto Symphony, which contracts its music director for 10 to 14 weeks a year, and where that conductor is often not a full-time resident of that city, being the artistic leader of Tafelmusik is a live-in proposition. Even though this person doesn’t lead every concert, they are a day-to-day part of an ensemble that remains conscious of its roots as a collective, and no one wants this to change, insist Kenins and Baldwin.
Although she officially retires on June 30, Lamon will remain very much present during the interim, even if this doesn’t mean being on stage in Toronto. Lamon will continue to oversee artistic planning, a number of teaching initiatives in Toronto as well as internationally, and leading touring concerts, which next year include the orchestra’s first visits to Leipzig as part of a Bach festival.
Lamon’s official last Toronto concert with the ensemble closes the season in May.
John Terauds
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
