Public Comment

Where to start when discussing James Roy MacBean’s Arts & Events, “Esa Pekka Salonen: A Questionable Choice to Lead SF Symphony”? Besides the fact that he omitted the hyphen in the conductor/composer’s name—it’s Esa-Pekka Salonen—MacBean declares the 60-year old Music Director and, by implication, anyone of his age or older, “a bit long in the tooth.” MacBean's alternative: “a much younger Finnish conductor, 49 year-old Susanna Målkki.” Not only is this assertion reprehensibly ageist, but it also evidences an appalling lack of math skills. Målkki had better hurry up and land a major position in the next few years - that is, unless she is happy to remain at the helm of the 136-year old Helsinki Philharmonic, which is anything but a backwater orchestra - or prepare to invest in major dental rehabilitation. 

Then there’s his ridiculous thing about the “dead-end trajectory [of] visual special effects.” I hope MacBean has let YouTube, Facebook, Steven Spielberg and the Marvel Comics syndicate know that their approach is hopelessly outdated. I would love to know what he proposes as an alternative to engage young audiences and keep the symphonic experience of sitting quiet and still in seats for up to an hour at a time an alive and vital experience. 

There are many other absurdities in MacBean's commentary. Take, for example, his assertion that MTT rose to a major appointment at the age of 45, when he took over reins of San Francisco Symphony. I’m sure the folks at the London Symphony Orchestra, which MTT directed before coming to San Francisco, will be delighted to hear that they are not a major organization, and that Valery Gergiev and his successor, Sir Simon Rattle, are simply slumming in the position of Principal Conductor. 

Then there’s MacBean's “old guard” stuff. MTT co-founded and still leads the New World Symphony, a forward-looking Miami-based orchestra famed for its young musicians and repertoire of new music. Salonen, in turn, was responsible for a large amount of new music programming at the Los Angeles Philharmonic. While MTT can certainly be criticized for championing the same composers year after year, at least in San Francisco, calling these men “old guard” is meaningless unless you are prepared to show that the “new guard," which presumably includes Målkki and the Met’s Yannick Nézet-Séguin, are doing something entirely different. 

One final point. Both MTT and Nézet-Séguin are out gay men. This, in my book, counts for a helluva lot, especially in the polarized climate created by Trump & Crew.