Chia-Hsuan Lin, associate conductor of the Richmond Symphony since 2016, has been named music director of the Rochester Symphony in Minnesota. Lin “inspired each section and every player to perform to their full potential,” Joseph Mish, chair of the orchestra’s music director search committee, told the Post-Bulletin of Rochester. “She made an immediate connection with her ease and confidence on the podium and in front of the audience.” In its current season, the 70-member ensemble is presenting six pairs of subscription concerts, a holiday program and other performances. It also supports a 90 ..read more

7-9 p.m. EDT 2300-0100 UTC/GMT WDCE, University of Richmond 90.1 FM http://wdce.org Franz von Suppé: “Poet and Peasant” Overture Vienna Philharmonic/Zubin Mehta (Sony Classical) Ellen Taaffe Zwilich: “Commedia dell’Arte” Gabriela Díaz, violin Boston Modern Orchestra Project/Gil Rose (BMOP sound) Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, K. 467 András Schiff, piano Camerata Academica des Mozarteums Salzburg/Sándor Végh (Decca) Richard Strauss: “Salome” – “Dance of the Seven Veils” Staatskapelle Dresden/Rudolf Kempe (Warner Classics) Bartók: “Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta” Chicago Sy ..read more

Two members of the New York Philharmonic who were accused of sexual misconduct, dismissed in 2018, then returned to the players’ roster in 2020 after an arbitrator ruled that they were unjustly fired, are not rehearsing and performing with the orchestra following publication of an article in New York magazine recounting the incident. In the article, by Sammy Sussman, a former philharmonic horn player, Cara Kizer, alleges that she was sexually assaulted, possibly after being drugged, during an evening with the orchestra’s principal oboist, Liang Wang, and associate principal trumpeter, Matthew ..read more

Jessica Jinyeong Lee, the Richmond-bred violinist who is currently assistant concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra, will leave the ensemble to teach full-time at the Cleveland Institute of Music. She has served on the violin and chamber-music faculty of the conservatory since 2019, and now is head of its violin faculty. Lee, who performed locally during childhood studies with the Shanghai Quartet’s Weigang Li and later, while studying at the Curtis Institute of Music, was featured as a guest soloist with the Richmond Symphony. Prior to joining the Cleveland Orchestra in 2016, she was a New ..read more

I am medically advised to be cautious about attending crowded public events, including Richmond Symphony concerts. The orchestra is making video streams of its Symphony Series performances available to ticket-holders. The stream of this program was posted on April 11. Carlos Miguel Prieto conducting April 6-7, Carpenter Theatre, Dominion Energy Center Carlos Miguel Prieto, guest conductor of the Richmond Symphony in the orchestra’s latest mainstage program, offered a tour d’horizon of musical Americana – all of the Americas, for a change. Alongside George Gershwin’s “An American in Paris” and ..read more

Schedule conflict. Letter V Classical Radio returns next week ..read more

7-9 p.m. EDT 2300-0100 UTC/GMT WDCE, University of Richmond 90.1 FM http://wdce.org Dvořák: “Scherzo capriccioso” Czech Philharmonic/Charles Mackerras (Supraphon) Cécile Chaminade: “Callirhoë” Suite Orchestre national de Metz Grand Est/David Reiland (Bru Zane) Enescu: Suite No. 2 in D major, Op. 10 Charles Richard-Hamelin, piano (Analekta) Liszt: “Mazeppa” Staatskapelle Weimar/Kirill Karabits (Audite) Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4 in F minor Arctic Philharmonic/Christian Lindberg (BIS ..read more

S.I. Rosenbaum, writing for The Atlantic, recounts the exploration by Nicholas Kitchen, a Boston-based violinist and co-founder of the Borromeo Quartet, of singular, mysterious markings in the manuscript scores of Ludwig van Beethoven, which never made it into published versions of his music. In 2013, as Kitchen coached a string quartet in Beethoven’s Op. 132 – the Quartet in A minor that includes the “Heilige Dankesang” (“Holy Song of Thanksgiving”) – the group’s cellist noticed a dynamic marking, “ffmo,” and asked, “What’s this?” The first two letters are standard notation for fortissimo (ve ..read more

Richard W. Robbins, director of choral activities at Shenandoah University in Winchester, has been named director of the Richmond Symphony Chorus. The symphony chorusmaster’s position has been vacant since 2021, when Erin R. Freeman left to become director of the City Chorus of Washington. Robbins is a graduate of Florida State University and the University of Houston. Before joining the Shenandoah faculty in 2023, he had served as chorusmaster of the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra in Minnesota and assistant choral director of the Houston Symphony. He has published scholarly editions of It ..read more

Klaus Mäkelä, the 28-year-old Finn slated to become chief conductor of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam in the 2027-28 season, now has been selected as the next music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, also beginning in 2027-28. He succeeds Riccardo Muti, who last season concluded a 13-year term leading the Chicago Symphony. Mäkelä’s initial term as music director in Chicago will be for five years; effective immediately, he will serve as music director-designate. He has a comparable transitional arrangement in Amsterdam. A cellist who studied conducting at the Sibelius A ..read more