Big changes are coming to California’s classical music scene
It’s a season of change for classical music in California.
Esa-Pekka Salonen, the respected conductor and composer, announced Thursday that he will step down as music director of the San Francisco Symphony next year when his contract expires. Salonen, 65, has been a leading force in redefining the modern symphony orchestra.
The day before, James Conlon, music director of the Los Angeles Opera, said he would step down in 2026. In his nearly 20 years in the role, Conlon, 74, has led more opera company performances than any other conductor. .
The rooms do not appear to be connected. Salonen had a falling out with his orchestra’s board and Conlon said he was ready for his next chapter.
But they are serious losses nonetheless, as California’s classical music scene struggles to rebuild in-person audiences. And they are not the only ones.
The most notable upcoming departure is that of Gustavo Dudamel, who will leave the Los Angeles Philharmonic for the New York Philharmonic in 2026.
Dudamel, who came to LA in 2007 as a little-known 26-year-old conductor from Venezuela, helped the Philharmonic grow into one of America’s top orchestras. Last year’s announcement that he would be moving was “an attack on the soul” of Los Angeles, my colleagues Adam Nagourney and Javier C. Hernandez wrote. And shortly after Dudamel’s announcement, Chad Smith, the Philharmonic’s CEO, resigned to accept a position leading the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
All this unrest in California has, of course, revived a longstanding rivalry along the coast.
“One way to see life in American classical music is as a see-saw between coasts,” Daniel J. Wakin, opinion editor of the New York Times, wrote last week. “That plank just swung upward to the detriment of the West Coast with the announcement of Esa-Pekka Salonen’s departure.” He added that with Dudamel moving to New York in two years, “the tilt — or at least a potentially juicy rivalry in New York — will be in favor of the East Coast.”
Still, many people are hopeful that California’s orchestras will be able to find suitable replacements for their acclaimed leaders. Dudamel pointed to the Philharmonic’s decades-long history of finding talent and said he was confident it would happen again. “I’m not even zero percent concerned — even zero percent,” he told The New York Times.
Conlon, who has said it was a coincidence that he and Dudamel planned to leave the same year, told my colleague Robin Pogrebin that he planned to continue as a guest conductor at the LA Opera, and that he wanted to focus on music education, which He believes is necessary to continue developing an audience for classical music. During his tenure, Conlon attempted to make opera less intimidating by talking showgoers through the key moments of each opera before the performances.
“The main crisis facing classical music is that we are all fighting for an audience,” Conlon told Robin, adding that he “can be very persuasive in persuading people who are afraid of classical music not to braking through these big buildings that look like fortresses.”
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And before you go: good news
As if in a scene from “Grey’s Anatomy,” Erika Amundson and Eli Newell said, “Yes,” and within minutes rushed to a hospital in the back of an ambulance.
The wedding ceremony, held last May in Los Angeles, had concluded and the couple had just returned to the bridal suite when Newell collapsed. Friends assumed Newell was overwhelmed, but Amundson, who was about to graduate from USC Keck School of Medicine, saw signs of something serious. A few hours later, Newell underwent open-heart surgery for a tear in his aorta.
It was a dramatic start to Newell and Amundson’s marriage, but it brought them closer together. They had met in September 2014 at an LA theater, where Newell was co-hosting a live dating show. Amundson, who was then working at a Hollywood studio, was recruited as a participant. The chemistry between host and contestant was immediate, and they soon started dating. The two were a couple in November. Newell proposed in December 2021.
After Newell’s surgery, the couple spent their honeymoon on the couch while he recovered. But that summer they decided they needed a renewal.
Last month, the couple held another ceremony for most of the guests attending their first ceremony. If there had been doubt before, this time the promise was easy – through sickness and through health.