Slow movement at the Symphony

The Seattle Symphony says it will announce plans "next month" for its search for a new conductor. Music Director Gerard Schwarz announced last September that he would not seek renewal of his contract, which expires at the end of the 2010-11 season. For now, there are no details about who will be on the search committee, who will chair it, and what kind of new conductor they will be seeking.

Why so slow? "We're being very deliberate," observes executive director Thomas Philion. "We want to get it right." Board chair Susan Hutchison says the board has been "getting lots of input from outside," and that the Symphony's style is to be very methodical. The orchestra players' president, timpanist Michael Crusoe, refused any comment. Nearly everybody is in the dark, a normal situation at the closely guarded Symphony.

The Symphony does like to play things molto lento. It took three years to find a new concertmaster, settling on four for a while. And the decision about moving to a new conductor — next year is Schwarz's 25th season — has been agonizingly slow, despite a lot of clamoring from the players for a new music director. So does the glacial pace in forming a search committee signify internal disputes and difficulty in finding good members?

Ordinarily, such committees form up quickly and get right to work, since it takes years to find an available conductor and then to get them free from other obligations to come to the new post. Moving slowly risks saddling the SSO with a few years of interim or guest conductors. That prospect frustrates groups like Seattle Opera, which uses the Symphony for its productions, slows down hiring of key musicians (like the principal cello chair, whose new occupant is soon to be announced), and risks losing audience in tough economic times.

A few glimpses of what's happening were provided by Hutchison. She quoted Henry Fogel, the distinguished orchestra manager, as advising the SSO board last November that the Seattle post was "the most exciting job opportunity for a conductor in the United States at this time." She said the search committee will have members from the board, the players, and the outside community, noting that the players will designate their own representatives. Hutchison and Philion will serve as ex officio, nonvoting members. No decision yet on retaining an outside firm to assist in the search, she said. Hutchison was also noncommittal on the question of whether she would continue to lead the board after her present term expires in June. She is executive director of the Charles Simonyi Fund for Arts and Science,, which gave $10 million to the Symphony, and Hutchison is sometimes courted to run for office (she's a prominent Republican and former KIRO-TV anchorwoman).

As to the delicate question about what role Schwarz will play in the process, both Philion and Hutchison said that Schwarz is "not a part of the search process." Philion said that the selection of guest conductors, an important way of auditioning for the next conductor, had been shifted from Schwarz to the search committee. That means audiences and musicians in the coming years have the extra thrill of wondering if a guest conductor is in fact a serious candidate.

Schwarz's role is an important issue. He has many strong supporters, particularly among donors, so his contentment during the search process — as well as during the next two years of celebrating his 25th anniversary with the Symphony and his final year as conductor — will be critical. Schwarz, who is 61 and has one other position as music director of the Eastern Music Festival in Greensboro, North Carolina, may move to another post, but he has indicated his desire to continue to reside in Seattle, which could make him an awkward presence for a new conductor bent on change.

For whatever reason, the Symphony seems determined to make these next two years a celebration of Schwarz rather than building a lot of excitement about change. That may be owing to gratitude to Schwarz, who built Benaroya Hall and greatly improved the orchestra. It may also reflect the conservative nature of the board and Seattle Symphony audiences. Also, it probably reflects the deliberate effort by management and the musicians, after years of feuding, to reopen lines of trust and communication (the current labor contract expires next summer) and avoid stirring up animosities, such as wrangling over what kind of a post-Schwarz regime to build. The trust building, to Philion's and Crusoe's credit, seems to be going fairly well.

For now at least, it's back to the hunker mode, where the Symphony has spent most of the past decade. Leave it to other cities to figure out how to reboot the wobbly world of classical music.