On Monday, Toronto Symphony Orchestra management quietly announced to its musicians after rehearsal that music director Peter Oundjian’s contract had been extended to 2017, ending months of whispered speculation about the maestro’s future in this city.
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Oundjian’s second contract with the orchestra was scheduled to expire at the end of the 2013-14 season. I am told that the musicians were told about the news only in response to pointed questions about the conductor’s future.
The former violinist with the Tokyo String Quartet has been with the Toronto Symphony since the start of the 2004-5 season. He rebuilt morale as well as the base standard of performance.
Many of the orchestra’s principals — including the concertmaster — have been hired under Oundjian’s leadership. There are new faces in all sections of the orchestra. The strings sound particularly fine these days.
Oundjian’s easygoing charm — one that he uses to engage audiences at Roy Thomson Hall — has also been a boon to the orchestra’s ongoing fundraising efforts.
It is typical for orchestral musicians to get the musical equivalent of the seven-year-itch with their music directors. Oundjian is also in the first season of his music directorship with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra this season. The combination of the two led to various hushed rumblings and grumblings in recent months.
This week’s multimedia show associated with performances of Bedrich Smetana’s Ma vlast originated with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra last month in performances in Glasgow, Perth and Edinburgh (it is billed as a co-commission). During Oundjian’s tenure, many new works premiered by the orchestra have been co-commissions rather than exclusive commissions.
I had asked Toronto Symphony CEO Andrew Shaw for news or comment about Oundjian’s future with the organisation last week, and was told through a spokesperson yesterday that there was nothing to report — hours before the musicians themselves were given the news.
The contract extension will make Oundjian the longest-serving music director since Sir Andrew Davis, who remains the Toronto Symphony’s conductor laureate. Davis, who presided over the move to Roy Thomson Hall 30 years ago, was music director for 13 years. The longest-serving music director was Sir Ernest MacMillan, who built the orchestra up into its current form, from 1931 to 1956.
Oundjian will have been on the podium for 12 years at the end of the 2016-17 season, spending much of the time rebuilding a group broken by the organization’s near-bankruptcy and the sudden departure of previous music director Jukka-Pekka Saraste a decade ago. Oundjian has also led the Toronto Symphony out on their first visits to Carnegie Hall and to Florida in many years.
The maestro has also led a series of live-concert recordings from Roy Thomson Hall, issued on the Toronto Symphony’s in-house label.
I gather that this particular contract extension involved discussions about a potential tour during the summer of 2014.
John Terauds
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
