Chicago Symphony catches San Francisco bone
UncategorizedChicago has unveiled its new principal trombone, successor to Jay Friedman, who held the post for 63 years.
He is Timothy Higgins, principal trombone of the San Francisco Symphony since 2008.
He is originally from Houston.
Wednesday, May 7, 2025 in Chicago.
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Principal Trombone Timmothy Higgins
(©Todd Rosenberg 2025)
Photo credit: Todd Rosenberg Photography
A great player and also a fine composer/arranger. Congratulations to Tim and to the CSO!
Because messrs. Mulcahy, Vernon and Pokorny are in their 70+ (= they don’t have so many years before retirement) hiring Mr. Higgins is certainly just the beginning of a big generational change on CSO low brass.
I believe that Mr. Higgins will be an excellent successor to continue Jay Friedman’s legacy. Looking forward to a new interesting era by this historical appointment!
Friedman was not principal trombone for 63 years. He played in the CSO for 63 years, joining in 1962, but got the principal chair in 1964.
Yep, he was first associate principal (that post isn’t anymore available since 2011 by James Gilbertson’s retirement) and promoted to principal in 1965
Royce Landon turned down the offer?
If he keeps a home in S.F., he can have the worst of both worlds: Winter in Chicago and Summer in S.F. (hood wink!)
“The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.”
That is an urban myth. There is no record of Mark Twain ever writing or saying that
Old news
Unburdened by what has been?
“We can’t retain the best orchestra players if we don’t have a higher salary.”
Pure San Francisco logic.
Rampant crime and grime cover the city of San Francisco, all the while taxing people to the boot.
This tromboner was invited to crime-ridden Chicago just to be a part of the once legendary brass team and took it—by comparison to today’s SF, Chicago is a paradise.
In-N-Out is moving to Tennessee. Wisdom beyond their menu.
Nice try. San Francisco is lovely and dynamic. But few turn down the CSO.
And if you live in a city, unless it’s New York it probably has a higher crime rate than Chicago.
Hey Gerry, 8647 and have a nice day.
As usual, you are wrong. In-n-Out is not moving to Tennessee, they are expanding to the east, and opening a corporate office there to support those efforts. It turns out that people back east like cheeseburgers, too. To quote your hero, “no one could have predicted that!” Lynsi Snyder decided to move her family to Tennessee, but In-n-Out’s HQ is staying in California. Just another right-winger complaining about how hard it is to do business in CA, but they never seem to actually leave. Tesla made a big noise about moving to Austin…then opened its engineering HQ in Palo Alto.
So much misinformation in your comment Crime is way down in S,F.
“The water stopped boiling just now. You can jump right in.”
Relatively speaking, “Crime is way down in SF” doesn’t mean anything except that you’re being cute with your noggin, again.
This will be a exciting addition…
The citizens of San Francisco lost a cultural icon when Timothy Higgins left for the CSO. Congratulations to Chicago indeed on this stunning Brass Coup.
As someone who loves music and loves San Francisco, let’s hope the leadership of the SFO takes this devastating loss to reflect on why they are losing musical legends like Tim Higgins. We must save our city’s civic institutions for future generations. Let’s hope that can start at an organization like our beloved SFO.
Best of luck to Tim!
Even is SFSO was in great shape, he more than likely would have left for Chicago. CSO is just in another league artistically. The clowns running SFSO just made his decision even easier.
“CSO” and “artistic” don’t belong in the same sentence, unless you are a big fan of crude brass and scratchy strings. They are without any contest the most unmusical among the famous orchestras.
Their Mahler 6 with Haitink is still the best Mahler 6 performance what I’ve ever heard! It’s just matter of taste but the level of CSO is still very high – many orchestras are definetly not on same level
With Muti the music quality has really gotten worse. The brass section in particular. So this new addition should help.
Is that necessarily true? Maybe most of their musicians like to work with him (= orchestra is their working place – not only public’s enterteinment factory) and I think that’s what matters more rather than is CSO’s (or any orchestra’s) chief conductor publics favorite or not
Personally, it’s amazing feeling that I can when I think that in fifty years, when I’m an elderly man, I’ll be able to tell people that I saw on stage, multiple times, a man who performed under Stravinsky himself.
Personally, it’s an amazing feeling that I get when I think that in fifty years, when I’m an elderly man, I’ll be able to tell people that I saw on stage, multiple times, a man who performed under Stravinsky himself.
(fixed typos in previous comment, please delete/do not approve it)