Players learned earlier this week that the orchestra’s Candian concertmaster, Martin Chalifour, is leaving at the end of this season. A chamber music concert has been hastily organised in his honour on November 23.
Chalifour, 63, joined the LA Phil under Esa-Pekka Salonen and has occupied the first chair for thirty years.
Gustavo Dudamel said: ‘He sets the example for the orchestra each day with his skill, taste, knowledge, consistency, and deep love of the music. I am so grateful to have one more season with Martin by my side, and wish him all the happiness in the world as he enters this next chapter.’
His abrupt departure precipitates a concertmaster crisis.
Of the LA Phil’s four CM’s, Nathan Cole has departed for Boston, his wife Akiko Tarumoto is expected to join him there. Chalifour is out. That leaves just Bing Wang, who is John Williams’s personal favourite.
The LA Phil needs to promote or hire three concertmasters in no time flat. That will take speed, dexterity and diplomacy.
The post Breaking: Concertmaster is out in new LA Phil crisis appeared first on Slippedisc.
