A tale of two conductors on the west coast of America this week. Yesterday, the Los Angeles Philharmonic announced that Daniel Harding will be their next music director from 2027, which is also when Elim Chan starts her job leading the San Francisco Symphony. These are both forward-looking appointments, showing a commitment to the future of these orchestras and the art-form in California.
Mind you, San Francisco’s situation looked pretty dire until recently, after the previous incumbent Esa-Pekka Salonen’s largely unrealised dreams of putting the orchestra at the heart of cultural and technological innovation. It made sense – why not use the San Fran orchestra as a Silicon Valley of the humanities, without the corporate evil, addictive algorithms and responsibility-free tech-brocracy? Alas: Salonen was stymied by the pandemic among other things, and made clear his artistic disagreements with the board in his letter of departure.
