Re: Barenboim's CSO farewell

In article <1150665204.530910.269190@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, rkhalona <rkhalona@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

:>The title is the sort of honorarium granted on such
:> occasions and forgotten soon thereafter . . . except by CSO publicists
:> who will continue to list Barenboim as Honorary Conductor for Life in
:> subscription brochures as yet one more flower in the CSO's cap.
:
: If the title means nothing (except for a political gimmick), why award it?

In order that they can keep putting his name on the program.

: I certainly hope this is not the kind of deal that Mehta got with the IPO.

The deal that Mehta got is that he is *music director* (not "honorary"
music director) for as long as he wants to be. I honestly do not know
how "hands on" his music direction is; I suspect that it's not very, based
on the general lack of variety in the programming. I do know that he is
very committed to the orchestra on a personal level.

On the other hand, the IPO programs *still* list Leonard Bernstein as
"laureate conductor" or some such even though he's been dead these 15 years.
So you can see that there is some marketing value in giving an honorary
title to some famous conductor.

-----
Richard Schultz schultr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Department of Chemistry, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel
Opinions expressed are mine alone, and not those of Bar-Ilan University
-----
It's a bird, it's a plane -- no, it's Mozart. . .
.