All Summer Long: Superconductor Announces Festival Special

Presenting Our Summer Advertising Sale!

Here at Superconductor we have a need to report on everything that is going on in the tents, theaters and lawns of the Summer Festival Season, as we will be doing on our upcoming guide.

However, we also have another need: advertising dollars.

They've Killed Mozart!

Mozart in the Jungle cancelled by Amazon.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Detail from The Death of Mozart (1870) by Henry O'Neill.

The popular and award-winning series Mozart in the Jungle has played its last concert. Today, Amazon.com announced that the series, a dramatic sitcom set in New York City that chronicled the backbiting, infighting and backstabbing of the classical music business, will not be renewed for a fifth season.

Diamonds Are Forever

Jaap van Zweden is the Philharmonic’s next music director.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Jaap van Zweden is the 26th music director of the New York Philharmonic.
Photo by Hans van der Woerd for the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra.

At last there is white smoke coming from David Geffen Hall. In a press conference Wednesday morning, the New York Philharmonic announced that Jaap van Zweden would become the orchestra’s next music director, succeeding Alan Gilbert at the helm of America’s oldest professional symphony orchestra. He will be the 26th music director in the orchestra’s illustrious 174-year history.

They're Back From the Dead

And they're ready for Tosca: The New York City Opera Renaissance.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Original art from Iron Maiden's No Prayer for the Dying.
Painting by Derek Riggs © 1990 Iron Maiden/CBS Records.

The above headline suits the giddy anticipation that some opera lovers in New York have regarding the resurrection of the New York City Opera, the long-running company that bit the dust in 2013. In stories reported yesterday in The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, it was announced this week that the New York City Opera Renaissance will move forward with its plans to bring the historic company out of bankruptcy and get back to the business of putting operas on the stage.

Portrait of P.D.Q. Bach Returned to Alleyway

The unloved last son of Johann Sebastian Bach gets dumped again.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The Portrait of P.D.Q. Bach restored to its rightful place of honor.
Original image © 1978 Vanguard Records.

A portrait of the German wastrel and composer P.D.Q. Bach has returned from whence it came, to the alley behind a Leipzig eatery two streets up from the Thomaskirsche. No members of the press were present at the ceremony, which was conducted by two Leipzig garbagemen, Franz Schutzenschütz and Dieter Dietermeyer.

The Ice Breaks in Minnesota

The 15-month Minnesota Orchestra lockout is over.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

In a story that broke yesterday, the Minnesota Orchestra has ended its long lockout, putting to rest a labor dispute that turned into a Pyrrhic battle between musicians and management. The battle had a number of casualties, including the orchestra's music director Osmo Vänskä and 17 musicians who left the Twin Cities to play in other orchestras.

White Smoke Over Huntington Avenue

Andris Nelsons to take over Boston Symphony Orchestra.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Andris Nelsons is the new Music Director at the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Photo by Stu Rosner © 2011 Boston Symphony Orchestra.

There's a new sheriff in Boston.

The board of the Boston Symphony Orchestra announced today that Andris Nelsons will be the ensemble's new Music Director, filling a vacancy at one of America's "big five" orchestras. The post has been empty since James Levine's resignation in 2011.

How Not To Get To Carnegie Hall

San Francisco Symphony cancels East Coast tour.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Just do what the sign says.

The San Francisco Symphony will not come to New York this week.

The musicians struck last Wednesday, following a month-long dispute regarding player salaries, pension funds, and the projected renovation of their home venue Davies Hall.

They Left Their Parts (in San Francisco)

San Francisco Symphony Orchestra strikes.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Labor impasse in San Francisco means concert cancellations at Davies Hall.
Original image © San Francisco Symphony. Photo editing by the author.

Members of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra cancelled a rehearsal Wednesday, causing the orchestra to nix a planned performance of Gustav Mahler's Ninth Symphony. The players had been working without a contract since Feb. 10, the same day that they won a Grammy for Best Orchestral Performance of 2012.

The Astonishing Return of James Levine

Met music director to conduct in May. Three operas to follow.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

He's back! James Levine is scheduled to conduct the MET Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in May, and at the Met in 2013.
Photo by Koichi Murai.

The Metropolitan Opera chose 7:30 on a Thursday night, on the same night as the 2012 Vice-Presidential Debate to tell the world that music director James Levine is slotted make a May 19th return to conducting for North America's most prestigious opera company.

"I’m feeling better with each passing day and look forward to returning to the company I love so much" Mr. Levine said in the official release. "It has been a long healing process, but with a team of excellent doctors and the unwavering support of my friends and colleagues, I’m looking forward more than I can say to getting back to work."

The news was first revealed to Superconductor in a Washington Post article by critic and correspondent Anne Midgette.

In an official statement, Met general manager Peter Gelb said: “Jim’s return to conducting is the welcome news that our company has long been waiting for."

New York Philharmonic Avoids Strike

Orchestra, union sign two-year labor deal.

Filling the seats: the New York Philharmonic poses in Avery Fisher Hall.
Photo by Chris Lee © 2011 The New York Philharmonic.

Well, that was close.

The New York Philharmonic narrowly avoided a strike this weekend.

The orchestra, which embarks today on a three-week European tour, almost got on the picket line instead of the airplane. The musicians, who have played all of this season's concerts without a new contract in place, were prepared to strike if a deal didn't get done.

In late-breaking news on Saturday night, the orchestra told Daniel J. Wakin of the New York Times that they had signed a new two-year contract, maintaining their health benefits and giving players a small salary increase in 2014. There is also a hard cap on pension benefits.

Mr. Wakin first reported the news on Twitter, and then in a Times article compiled by himself and Adam W. Kepler. That article is the source of this story.

Mr. Wakin's article commented that this deal was "short, by industry standards."


The orchestra and its musicians had been at loggerheads over the company's pension fund. According to Mr. Wakin's report, management had taken its proposals for "drastic" health insurance cuts and "radical" benefit reductions off the table. Both sides agreed to reexamine benefit issues in 2014.

In signing a deal, orchestra and musicians have avoided the kind of ugly situation that nearly scuppered the 2012 seasons of the New York City Opera and the Philadelphia Orchestra. The City Opera players settled for an extension of their health care benefits with a severe cut in their performance fees. In Philadelphia, that venerable orchestra filed for bankruptcy before hammering out a deal with their musicians.

Tino Gagliardi, a representative for Musicians Local 802, told the Times that management backed down from a scheme to change players' pensions from "defined benefit" to one where the funds would be supported by contributions from the players' paychecks.