[ad_1]
San Francisco Symphony music director Esa-Pekka Salonen.
Chris Pizzello/Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP
hide title
toggle title
Chris Pizzello/Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP
San Francisco Symphony music director Esa-Pekka Salonen.
Chris Pizzello/Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP
The San Francisco Symphony announced on Thursday the resignation of its musical director, Esa-Pekka Salonen.
The famous Finnish conductor and composer said he plans to leave when his contract expires at the end of the 2024-25 season.
“I have decided not to continue as music director of the San Francisco Symphony because I do not share the same goals for the future of the institution as the Board of Governors,” Salonen said in a statement shared by his publicist with NPR. “I am sincerely looking forward to the many exciting programs we have planned for my final season as music director and am proud to continue working with the world-class musicians of the San Francisco Symphony.”
San Francisco Symphony Board President Priscilla Geeslin called Salonen’s decision “bittersweet” in a news release. “This has been an exciting era for the symphony and we are very grateful for Esa-Pekka’s thoughtful leadership and collaborative approach,” Geeslin said.
The San Francisco Symphony hired Salonen in 2018 and began his tenure with the orchestra in the 2020-21 season. Building on the work of his predecessor Michael Tilson Thomas, Salonen solidified the group’s reputation as a major force in American classical music during his brief leadership.
He turned to a diverse group of artistic advisors, including Nico Muhly, Claire Chase and Esperanza Spalding, and mixed classics with innovative programming often fused with technology.
But like many arts organizations, the orchestra has struggled financially in recent years. It lost millions of projected dollars in revenue during the Covid pandemic and had also seen sharp drops in subscribers and donations before the shutdown hit.
The group recently canceled its tour and made cuts to its experimental and educational programming.
Still, the orchestra has amassed one of the healthiest endowments in the business. It stood at approximately $315 million in 2023, up from $273 million in 2019.
David Gaudry, a longtime symphonic violist, told NPR he was “saddened and surprised” by the news.
“We had some indications that things were not quite right between the musical director and the board of directors due to the cancellation of our 2025 tour for next September to Europe,” Gaudry said. “Cancelling an international tour was a dramatic step. It was unprecedented.”
Gaudry expressed both his professional and personal admiration for Salonen. “He’s a great musician and a really nice guy,” Gaudry said. He also said that he sees the departure of the music director as a major existential problem.
“The fact that we’ve spent all these decades building a nationally recognized arts institution, this particular situation is a real threat to our position in the arts community,” Gaudry said.
“It’s a terrible event for this organization, for this city, for this entire music community,” said Joshua Kosman, classical music critic for the San Francisco Chronicle. “Esa-Pekka has been, or had promised to become, a force for experimentation, innovation, and lively musical creation of all kinds. I know he had a lot of future plans for things the orchestra could do. And all that now will come to an end.”