Which Conductor Should The Baltimore Symphony Should Appoint

If there's anybody affiliated with the Baltimore Symphony reading this.

It really is a shit season coming up, with depressingly small-time names being vetted to be the new BSO Music Director, which tells us just how dire the financial situation is... Nevertheless, from going small-time there are some very promising names. Here's a guide to whom among this year's guests and the regular guests that should be considered.

I do not know the orchestra's priorities, though I can surmise, this is merely from a Baltimore listener, composer, musical savant, and regular attendee with a lifelong passion for orchestral music. This is based on no consideration but performance. Here is a list of whom I believe you should look at in order of seriousness. Given the number of names, the listening I've done is obviously not very deep. A few minutes each on youtube. Any musician who knows the orchestral literature well should know the major trouble spots and passages to gauge how much extra detail and character a conductor can convey. Many orchestral musicians say they can gauge a conductor's ability in fifteen seconds. I would not put my eye and ear at fifteen seconds, but if you once a week every week for years and are musical, the attentive listener can easily gauge a conductor's ability in only a few minutes. So without further ado...

Ideal: Markus Stenz - he's the best conductor in the world and I have no idea how Baltimore got him to come three times a year. Hearing him was like discovering a Carlos Kleiber with twenty times the repertoire. I know he won't take it, but offer him everything. Complete creative control, more money than god, just get him to reconsider.

Great Choices:

Rune Bergmann

Joshua Weilerstein

Ryan Bancroft

Andrey Boreyko (disclosure: an acquaintance)

Michael Francis

Cornelius Meister

David Dansmayr (if he runs afoul in Portland)

Really Good Choices:

Juanjo Mena (however demanding)

Jun Märkl

Jakub Hrusa (probably too big)

Robert Trevino

Christoph König

Carlos Kalmar (however demanding)

Good Choices:

Hannu Lintu

John Storgards

Dalia Stasevska

Mario Venzago (for stopgap contracts if something happens with Conlon)

Andrew Davis (ditto)

Gemma New (disclosure: friend of friends)

Decent Choices

Christian Macelaru

James Conlon

Peter Oundjian

Dima Slobodeniouk

Vasily Petrenko (he's probably too big anyway)

Michael Stern

Thomas Dausgaard (he's much too busy...)

You Can Do Better:

Jonathan Hayward

Kirill Karabits

Kwame Ryan

Christian Reif

Matthias Pintscher

Ruth Reinhardt

I'd Advise People to Cancel Their Subscription:

Ken-David Masur

Kevin-John Edusei

Eun Sun Kim

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Never Came To Baltimore Names That Absolutely Should Be Considered:

Miguel Harth-Bedoya

Joanna Mallwitz

Tito Muńoz

Omer Meir Wellber

Ben Gernon

Daniel Raiskin

Dmitri Jurowski

Carlos Izcaray

Gabor Takacs-Nagy

Claus Peter Flor

Frederic Chaslin

Kristjan Järvi

Marcus Bosch

Michael Schønwandt

Names That Should Be Considered

William Eddins

Alexandre Bloch

Jamie Martin

Steven Mercurio

Jukka-Pekka Saraste

Joanne Faletta

Mark Wigglesworth

Oleg Caetani

Lorenzo Viotti

Aleksandar Marković

Names That Probably Should Be Considered:

Ha-Nan Chang

Wayne Marshall

Carolyn Kuan

Xian Zhang

Emanuelle Villaume

Nicholas Collon

David Afkham

Gerry Walker

Thierry Fischer

Absolutely Should Be Considered Names I Need to Disclose:

Alexander Walker (a friend)

Courtney Lewis (acquaintance of a musically expert good friend)

Theodore Kuchar (an acquaintance)

Dan Ettinger (friend of a musically expert good friend)

Note: 75% of celebrity conductors are not as good as their reputations, and most of the best conductors in the world are barely known. The first group above is a list conductors who should be celebrity conductors and better than most of them. The second group is conductors who should be much better known. The third should be better known at very least.

Here is a list of whom I believe are surely fifteen of the world's most underrated conductors still of music director age:

Markus Stenz

Miguel Harth-Bedoya

Rune Bergmann

Joanna Mallwitz

Tito Muńoz

Joshua Weilerstein

Andrey Boreyko

Omer Meir Wellber

Ben Gernon

Daniel Raiskin

Antonello Manacorda

Dmitri Jurowski

Carlos Izcaray

Gabor Takacs-Nagy

And a list of ten perhaps just barely less so and maybe just as good:

Courtney Lewis

Frederic Chaslin

Kristjian Jarvi

Marcus Bosch

Marc Albrecht

Ryan Bancroft

Cornelius Meister

David Dansmayr

Michael Schonwandt

Claus Peter Flor

Keep an eye out too for extremely skilled but musicians who just have to work out a few issues and therefore still might reach that level of transcendent musicianship:

Christoph Konig

Alexander Bloch

Steven Mercurio

Jamie Martin

Aleksandar Markovic

Juanjo Mena

Jun Markl

Robert Trevino

Hannu Lintu

John Storgards

Carlos Kalmar

Jukka-Pekka Saraste

Joanne Faletta

Mark Wigglesworth

Lorenzo Viotti

I truly believe there are still great conductors all around us, they just never get noticed on the big time and there are so many orchestras that the regional ones often perform better than the major ones, but in many countries nobody shows up and they may all have to fold in a generation. Just like there are still great opera singers, major houses just don't like fat singers anymore and they usually sing in small opera houses where they don't have to strain their voices.

....that seems like a good place to end this post...