Is this the passing of the baton?

Only one candidate vying to become the Florida Orchestra's music director is on next year's schedule, but management cautions against reading too much into a name on a list.

By JOHN FLEMING, Times Performing Arts Critic
© St. Petersburg Times
published February 24, 2002

TAMPA -- If return engagements next season are any indication, then Russian conductor Pavel Kogan will be the next music director of the Florida Orchestra.

Kogan, who made his debut in front of the orchestra in January, is the only one of five prospective music director candidates on the 2002-03 schedule, which was released today. Kogan will conduct season-opening concerts Sept. 27-29 as well as those winding up the season May 23-25.

But executive director Leonard Stone cautioned not to jump to the conclusion that Kogan is definitely in line to succeed outgoing music director Jahja Ling.

"You might infer that, and it could happen, but not necessarily," Stone said. "The goal of the orchestra is to conclude the search at the end of this season."

Two more potential music directors are yet to conduct: Stefan Sanderling in March and Dmitry Sitkovetsky in April. A third conductor who has led the orchestra twice, Maximiano Valdes, remains a viable candidate. None are on the schedule next season.

Given the good impression he made in a program of Wagner, Brahms and Mussorgsky, coupled with his return engagements, Kogan has to be considered the front-runner. The son of renowned violinist Leonid Kogan, he is in his 13th season as music director of the Moscow State Symphony, which he led at Ruth Eckerd Hall in November, and has been principal guest conductor of the Utah Symphony since 1998.

Stone said the music director will probably be named in May. Whoever it is will be music director designate in 2002-03 and then take over the next season.

And if someone other than Kogan is named?

"So what's the downside? We'd just get two slam-bang exciting concerts and everybody would be happy. No problem there," Stone said.

With Ling leaving, and no music director in place, orchestra management put together the 2002-03 schedule.

Russian music reigns supreme, and not just on Kogan's programs, which include Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky. Vladimir Verbitsky, a Russian who has conducted the orchestra several times, returns with Tchaikovsky's Manfred Symphony and the Rachmaninoff Third Piano Concerto, with soloist Jon Kimura Parker. Irish conductor Kenneth Montgomery leads another all-Russian program that includes Lara St. John in Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No. 2.

Ling, who becomes conductor laureate after 14 years as music director, will lead two programs, including Bruckner's Symphony No. 4. Thomas Wilkins, who steps down as resident conductor after this season, guest conducts the Brahms Symphony No. 2 and Saint-Saens' Cello Concerto No. 1, with principal cello James Connors as soloist.

The orchestra has yet to choose a successor to Wilkins. Several candidates are still to conduct this season.

"We have got to have somebody move here this summer and be ready to hit the ground running in September," artistic administrator Jeff Woodruff said. "That decision will probably be made by the end of April."

Michael Christie, the young American conductor who was a music director candidate until he was named to head Australia's Queensland Philharmonic, returns for his third appearance. On his agenda is John Adams' Harmonielehre, the only recent work on the masterworks schedule.

Jose Serebrier, who is conducting an all-Beethoven program, was nominated for a Grammy Award this year, along with violinist Philip Quint and the Bournemouth Symphony, for their recording of William Schuman's Violin Concerto.

Soloists next season include violinists Anne Akiko Meyers, Jennifer Koh and James Ehnes. Concertmaster Amy Moretti will play the Barber Violin Concerto. Stephen Hough will be the soloist in Saint-Saens' Piano Concerto No. 4. Pianist Pascal Roge will play Ravel's Concerto for the Left Hand.

Next season will be a bad one in regard to the orchestra's perennial problem of getting into its preferred venue, Morsani Hall, at Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. Six of the 14 masterworks concerts will be played in 1,000-seat Ferguson Hall, which is too small, acoustically speaking, for symphonic music. The reason: lucrative Broadway tours, including a six weeks-plus run of The Lion King in December and January, have priority over the orchestra in Morsani, which seats 2,500.

The orchestra also plays in Mahaffey Theater in St. Petersburg and Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater.

"Even when we're in Ferguson, we have to program as strongly as we can in all 14 programs," Woodruff said. "We perform them twice in Pinellas County, and we can't compromise those. We certainly can't do the big choral works in Ferguson, so we don't go there with the Master Chorale. We stay away from the big orchestra stuff, like Bruckner. But you can't shortchange Pinellas County."

The Master Chorale of Tampa Bay will be in two programs. Artistic director Richard Zielinski will conduct Haydn's Creation. The chorus also will sing Orff's Carmina Burana, conducted by Boris Brott.

Also announced was a holiday special concert with the Master Chorale. Zielinski will conduct a program that includes Robert Shaw's Many Moods of Christmas as well as works of Vaughan Williams, Bach, Handel and Beethoven.

The orchestra has a pops series and other series whose 2002-03 schedules will be announced later.

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