Word: conductors
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...funny foreign name was getting his wavy, dark-blond hair cut. The barber struck up a conversation. "So," she inquired, "what do you do?" He replied that he worked with the local symphony orchestra. "Wow!" she exclaimed. "What instrument do you play?" Actually, he said, he was the conductor -- had she ever attended a concert? "Of course not," she said, and went back to cutting his hair...
...period. Such notions are a marketing department's nightmare, but Salonen is adamant: "The orchestra must be a source of enlightenment." After 11 years of the saintly Carlo Maria Giulini and the ineffectual Andre Previn, the Philharmonic is ready for a youthquake. But even though Salonen is its youngest conductor since Zubin Mehta was appointed in 1962 at the age of 26, there is little danger that he will try to move the Music Center closer to Beverly Hills, 90210. He's not that...
...podium, Salonen projects an aura of crisp, businesslike authority. There is none of Mehta's grandstanding glamour; instead, the conductor he most resembles is his hero Pierre Boulez, guiding his players through the most intricate rhythms with unflappable aplomb. In 1985 Salonen signed an exclusive contract with CBS, now Sony Classical, and since then has issued a steady stream of albums (the best so far: Messiaen's formidable Turangalila-Symphonie and Grieg's Peer Gynt music). Already he is one of the few living maestros who can sell the standard repertoire on the strength of his name alone...
...fast-paced international career. Salonen already knows the dangers firsthand: while conducting a concert of new music a few years ago with his other orchestra, the Swedish Radio Symphony, he temporarily blacked out, exhausted, and had to start over. He hopes to avoid being a "jet-lag conductor" by settling professionally in Los Angeles. Next season will be his last in Stockholm. "Being music director of one orchestra is enough," he says. But an added attraction in California is the enterprising Music Center Opera company; he's talking about leading a Boris Godunov there...
...THINK OF VIVALDI as merely the composer of The Four Seasons and several hundred indistinguishable concertos, VIVALDI'S FAVORITES, VOL. 1 (ESS.A.Y) could be the most pleasurable, sensibility-cleansing surprise in a long time. The performers are the Philharmonia Virtuosi, who, since being founded in 1974 by their protean conductor, Richard Kapp, have blended a changing ensemble of players from the New York Philharmonic with talented younger musicians in a common pursuit of polished eclecticism. These six concertos, for diverse combinations of instruments, are utterly distinctive and absorbing. Favorite Favorites: the exuberant Concerto in C Major and the poignant Largo...