Hands Off Our Music Director!

I'm actually away from Minneapolis this week, helping my mother recover from a nasty fall at her home an hour outside of Philadelphia. Last night, she and I listened to the orchestra's live Friday night radio broadcast via Minnesota Public Radio's online stream, and while it was fun to get a chance to hear my own ensemble from a new perspective, I almost felt like I was having one of those dreams where you're supposed to be somewhere - in class, on stage, etc. - and some unknown force is preventing you from showing up.

Still, Philly seems like the place to be for Minnesota Orchestra folk this week: our very own Osmo Vänskä is this week's guest conductor at the podium of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and there are no fewer than three recently departed MN Orch string players (violist Kerri Ryan, and violinists Daniel Han and William Polk) in the ranks of that group. In addition to the orchestra concerts, the three ex-pat Minnesotans joined Osmo and assistant principal cellist Yumi Kendall for a late-night performance of the Mozart Clarinet Quintet on Friday.

I bring up Osmo's appearance in this venerable city only because the review of his concert appeared this morning in the Philadelphia Inquirer, and for at least the third time in the last few years by my count, critic Peter Dobrin just happened to mention that Osmo's contract in Minnesota is up at the end of the 2010-11 season, only one year before Charles Dutoit's contract as chief conductor in Philly will expire. This, of course, is basically a good thing from our perspective - it's great to know that your music director is respected and coveted by other top bands - but it does tend to give rise to some uneasiness among those who hope Osmo is settled in for a good long stay in Minneapolis.

Philadelphia apparently isn't the only orchestra with an eye on our boy, either. In a wide-ranging article slated to run in tomorrow's Star Tribune, Graydon Royce quotes the Washington Post's Tim Page as saying that he thinks the National Symphony, which will shortly be saying goodbye to music director (and former MN Orch Sommerfest director) Leonard Slatkin, would steal Osmo from us in a heartbeat if they could. (Don't worry - they can't.)

It's always fun keeping up with breathless speculation like this, but the reality tends to be that the rumors are all just that - rumors. Orchestras in the market for a new leader try very hard to conduct their searches in as close to absolute secrecy as possible, and critics are rarely privy to much in the way of inside information. So they're more or less reduced to guesswork, and to beating the drum for the conductors they enjoy hearing the most. Clearly, Osmo has some fans among the music scribes of the Eastern seaboard...