Gaping holes in the Chicago Symphony
Comment Of The DayFrom one of our commenters:
Look what CSO and Makela have on their plate right now. As we speak auditions are being held for 7 violins and 4 cellos. They have two violas and a second oboe coming for trials while Assistant principal Viola and bass clarinet are announced.
On top of that there are openings for principal harp, contrabassoon, ass principal flute, ass principal trumpet, ass principal trombone and percussion. Principal flute left for Berlin, if he stays that’s another major opening… That’s whooping 23 positions currently opened, plus I am hearing assistant principal horn is retiring after his sabbatical this year… That’s an entire quarter of the orchestra.
This is not a problem. Maestro Mäkelä prefers to play with subs anyway.
Comment of the day!
Klaus doesn’t show up here in Chicago for another two years. Guest conductors will have to make do, but then they are used to playing with whomever.
“That’s an entire quarter of the orchestra”
1) so 25% of the orchestra has reached retirement age
2) they hired musicians at the same age group (or musicians tend to peak at the same age group to win auditions)
3) orchestral openings are truly “once in a life time”, if you don’t win your audition when your peak window of opportunity opens up, you’ll never get another chance
4) the tenure system really blocks whole generations of musicians from moving up and into the most prized positions
As a young musician hoping to win a job in a U.S. orchestra, all this rings so true. It’s incredibly difficult now to get a toe hold, much more so than in previous generations.
There are a number of players nearing or past retirement age who have a lot of eyes on them… we have to wait (and wait) for positions to even open.
Ooof. Direct hit!
Fingers crossed the concertmaster retires tomorrow—one who plays the violin with the sensitivity of someone who calls in sick even though they’re skipping town to play half way around the world. Such playing might be impactive for Peoria.
This is the future, young people. CS-uhO is saving money hiring subs and there’s no reason for the orchestra to rush anything.
Will those “old timers” in SFS leave to join CSO? No, because they likely can’t play next to the recent grads. All this “Higher wage, or our orchestra will lose its status” is nonsense, nothing but nonsense. The proportion of excellent performers to open positions is totally stacked against the pool of excellent performers—a major surplus. Learn some basic economics.
CS-uhO has the boy prince coming in. It will soon be an orchestra of rotating strings and gig standard winds and brass.
If 45/47! is a “tyrant” how come Chicago can break the laws of our great nation? Sometimes a papa must let a child break some things in order to learn and appreciate. Brandon Johnson and Ozempic Pritzker are those children, playing with and destroying the great city of Chicago and the great state of Illinois, respectively. Legal immigrants belong in our orchestras.
Norman, why do you continue to let this cretin “Gerry Feinsteen” to have a nonsensical, time-wasting voice on this site?
Your ignorance is monumental .Mekala signaled the begining of a new CSO, which will build on the tradition of burnished brass and beefy sound, hiring players who will honor the musical traditions , which predated Reiner’s arrival, the CSO will change Mekala more than he will change the CSO. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Mekala is only the third conductor to be exclusive with Decca. There is a major catalogue of CSO recordings to be mined, and they will pay for Mekala’s recordings. The CSO will become the sole North American orchestra with a contract from a major international label. The best orchestral players in the world will line up to audition for the “orchestra that has it all.”
Um…
It’s “Mäkelä”.
Gerry, you gotta cool it on the Malört, dude.
Ohhh…so the mighty CSO is full of “illegals?” Wow. What a dastardly web that JD Pritzker weaves. Thank God, Gerry, that soon our Dear Father will set things right. Soldiers in the streets of our Windy City should soon be able to quell every illegal dissenting voice. Posse Comitatus? Out the window for the glorification of our magnificent new potentate …
Yikes!
Don’t get your panties in a bunch about someone else’s perceived problem. After two decades of unpredictable Danny & grim Ricardo, the CSO is ready for a reset.
I’m trying my best not to form a mental picture of the instruments “ass principal flute,” “ass principal trumpet,” and “ass principal trombone,” although I note that all of these involve blowing wind. 🙂
Perhaps ass needed for future performances of Strauss’s “DonKeyxote”.
…or anything by Bray-thoven.
Norman, I believe the abbreviation for assistant is ‘asst’ not ‘ass’ …. just saying.
The positions are for associate, not assistant.
It is a huge number of vacancies and not surprising because orchestras tend not to fill them when they don’t have a music director.
I was at the OSM opening show two weeks ago and the director said that one-third of the orchestra had turned over in the past three years. I’m guessing that means it took that long to fill all the vacancies that piled up between Kent Nagano and Raphael Payare. They still sound great, though.
Curious what part of my comment prompted a down vote. A thoughtful rebuttal would be more useful.
Yeah, there are idiots who will downvote simple facts when they don’t like the facts. Not worth worrying about downvotes in such circumstances.
ass principal flute? ass principal trumpet?? ass principal trombone???
Focused on the ass. Illinois broke. Chicago broke. Asses in charge there.
Just look at the way London’s Philharmonia has lost one principal player after another (concertmaster, principal cello, No. 2 cello, principal horn, principal oboe, principal trombone, timpani and now cor anglais too, not to mention countless rank-and-file members) plus a constant churn in management. Not exactly evidence of ringing confidence in what is happening there, so Chicago is by no means an isolated example.
Ass trumpet sounds painful.
It’s huge number but I’ve understand that in Berlin Phil there was a similar situation in early 90’s when post-war generation of players began to retire and over 1/3 (40 % maybe) of positions was up for audition, or on trial. So if Berlin Phil made it, I’m sure that CSO also can – soon or later!
Jesus, what is wrong with this place?
Thank goodness no one here has any say in anything!
The CSO list of vacancies seems unusually long, but aside that I continue to marvel at the time major orchestras take to fill principal positions nowadays. It’s not uncommon for a principal player search to take many *years* while the chair is filled by an interim player. This seems a fairly recent development. Does anyone have any idea why this is? No other business would leave senior positions left unfilled for so long.
It is all about money. It is cheaper to have subs, who will work for much less money, and won’t cause any problems, because if they did, they will be terminated.
Tenure gives substantial motivation to “get it right” — other businesses without such considerations can just get rid of their mistakes. And as the general standard of playing is increasing over time, the best candidate next year might be superior to the best candidate this year. Add in the financial considerations, and there may not be the same inexorable pressure to get someone hired ASAP.
One post above alluded to it. Music directors are given the authority to choose the player and how the sound that player produces will fit in the overall sound of the orchestra. Especially when the player is a principal wind player, who therefore has a sound that is prominent in many works that are played, that sound needs to complement the sounds of the other principle instrumentalists as well as the overall sound of the orchestra, according to what the music director is seeking. Therefore, if there is no music director, or if the music director is clearly at the end of that person’s tenure, the incoming music director is given the privilege of choosing the new player or players. This selectivity is not necessarily uppermost in a music directors mind when the player is one of the many, as in a string section.
The vacancies won’t last long! They are lining up now to play the next auditions. But sometimes it takes years before they fill principal positions. No problem because there are plenty of qualified musicians who are very capable of filling in. Klaus Makela and the CSO have a wonderful future together!
Perhaps the orchestra’s view of Makela is not as rosy as reported. They are getting out while the getting is good.
One could look at the roster from a few years ago and compare with the present. I suspect one would see that many of those vacancies are older players who have decided they’d like to spend their days doing something else It’s possible that some of them don’t want to break in some new wet-behind-the-ears music director, and so that might have encouraged them to think more about retirement at this point, I doubt anyone in the middle of their career who doesn’t have a shot as a big-name principal somewhere else is saying `’I’d rather quit than play for the kid” but I could be wrong.
I hope this kid is not too “wet behind the ears.” He is seems to have made a good impression as a cellist before he took up the baton. He is now a youthful 29.
I remember hearing of another young cellist who began his conducting career in Brazil at the age of 19… and he did very well indeed.
The CSO is on classical music euthanasia…TIME FOR A NEW LEADERSHIP TEAM…
I can’t think of any harpist now qualified to play in the orchestra, not that it stopped them in the past from hiring someone who wasn’t.
Alles stirbt.
There’s no Assistant Principal Horn Position. Dan G has not been listed as Associate Principal since 2023-2024 season.