Posted by Dianne Nicolini on May 5, 2009
For 17 years, Donald Runnicles has led the SF Opera Orchestra as conductor and music director. He will officially relinquish his post at the end of the current season, replaced by Nicola Luisotti. 17 years is a long-time. An era, in fact, and the Runnicles era has been marked by adventuresome programming, memorable productions of standard repertory and, above all, superb musicianship. Among other topics, we talked about his favorite gigs with SFO and some of his answers would surprise you. Who would guess that Opera in the Park is as much fun for him as it is for those of us in the audience? Also, Donald weighs in on what he will be looking for when he judges our KDFC Classical Star Search this Monday, May 11. (Buy your tickets here)
Press play to hear this titan of the opera world who BTW is a really nice guy.
My wife & I often are privileged to attend the Teton Music Festival in Wyoming (http://www.gtmf.org/) where a full symphony orchestra, assembled from gifted musicians from the San Francisco Symphony to the Eastman Rochester School of Music & points in-between give amazing performances at this 6k elevation venue every summer. We and our Wyoming friends have been blessed by Maestro Runnicles’ music directorship there. If you are able, check it out. We’ve heard performances there that rival any I’ve heard from NYC to SF.
Comment by Jay Gaskill — June 9, 2009 @ 5:51 pm