Herbert Blomstedt | Credit: Martin Rengemann
Last month, the news that Esa-Pekka Salonen, music director of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, would retire after the end of the 2024-2025 season is still reverberating, but the activities of the orchestra's former leaders are also becoming a hot topic.
The biggest and most important news is that 96-year-old Herbert Blomstedt, music director of the SF Symphony Orchestra from 1985 to 1995 (he was hospitalized after a fall last December), took to the podium earlier this month. He has returned and appears to have resumed his amazing record-breaking performance. A career that has overcome the challenges of age.
As always, Blomstedt maintained his privacy and did not announce anything about his hospital treatment and recovery, so nothing has been announced since December. Nothing happened until I returned to work one day conducting one of my favorite orchestras, the Leipzig Gewandhaus. In the program of Franz Schubert's Symphonies No. 2 and No. 4 and Franz Berwald's Elfenspiel.
Blomstedt, who canceled several concerts during his recovery, is scheduled to conduct the Paris Philharmonic later this month, with performances still scheduled for a year from now, and at the age of 97 he will conduct the symphony orchestra at the Semperoper in Dresden. He is to conduct the concert. .
Ed de Waart | Credit: Jesse Willems
Also in the news last week was the announcement that Ed de Waart (82), who served as music director of the SF Symphony Orchestra from 1977 to 1985, would retire from conducting. He began his career as an oboist with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, winning the Dimitri Mitropoulos Conducting Competition in New York. He became assistant conductor to Leonard Bernstein at the New York Philharmonic and later to Bernard Haitink at the Concertgebouw. De Waart began conducting the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra in 1967 and served as the ensemble's music director from 1973 to 1979.
After leaving San Francisco, he served as music director of the Minnesota Orchestra (1986-1995) and the Dutch Radio Philharmonic (1989-2004). During his later career, which spanned the globe, de Waart also performed with the Hong Kong Philharmonic, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, St. Paul's Chamber Orchestra, and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.
Michael Tilson Thomas, 79, who served as music director of SFS from 1995 to 2020, died three years ago after being diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme, a brain tumor with a median survival rate of 14.6 months. He continues to have an illustrious career as a conductor, and is constantly in the news.
Two months ago, Seiji Ozawa (age 88), who served as music director of SFS from 1970 to 1977, passed away after battling a serious illness for more than 10 years.