After thirteen years, the St. Louis Symphony's beloved music director, David Robertson, will leave us at the end of this season. I don't know how he has kept it up this long. His home is in New York. His wife is the concert pianist Orli Shaham. They have twin sons. I saw that he is conducting Cosi Fan Tutti at the Metropolitan Opera this spring. Oh, and he is also chief conductor or the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. It has been a great pleasure to have him here.
Time passes. Our new music director, starting with the 2019-2020 season, is Frenchman Stéphane Denève. This weekend was his only guest appearance this year and we've never heard him before. O M G. He conducted a program of French music, featuring sisters Christina and Michelle Naughton, below, playing the Poulenc Concerto for Two Pianos. There arms are so fluid they looked like four octopus tentacles. Denève is a spectacular talent. We look forward to hearing much more from him.
The handsome couple below saw me taking the picture of the Naughtons on my phone at intermission. They asked me to take their picture on his phone. We are glad to have more young people in the audience.
We had Pinchas Zuckerman as our primary music director for more than a decade and a half. He left big shoes to fill, but the current director for our orchestra does well with it.
ReplyDeleteGlad to see another set of dual piano playing sisters. I am a big fan of the Labeque sisters, Katia and Marielle, and was lucky enough to see them back in the 90s and actually meet them backstage (courtesy of my old boss!)
ReplyDeleteSo glad you got such a great preview of what will come!
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