ARTS
A CLASSIC CHOICE
Andreas Delfs has been named the 13th music director of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. PHOTO BY JACOB WALSH
MAESTRO, PLEASE! RPO’s new conductor, Andreas Delfs, is a conservative choice with a progressive record BY DANIEL J. KUSHNER
A
ndreas Delfs, the seasoned maestro who the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra named in January as its new music director, is a conventional choice to lead the organization into its centennial year. But there will be something unconventional waiting in the wings of each concert. “After a long performance, a beer very much revitalizes and reenergizes me,” he said. “I normally have a deal with the stagehand to have one ready for me right when I come offstage. I haven’t established that rapport here yet.” 16 CITY FEBRUARY 2021
@DANIELJKUSHNER
DKUSHNER@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM
Delfs, 61, leaned back in his chair as he spoke over coffee in the Strathallan Hotel bar, a knee resting on a table, a blue sweater over a dress shirt with French cuffs, projecting an air of casual refinement and the confidence of a conductor at a point in his career at which, as he put it, he has nothing to prove to himself or others. Born in Germany and educated at Juilliard, Delfs studied under such famed conductors as Christoph von Dohnányi, Lorin Maazel, and Dennis Russell Davies, served as music director of the esteemed European opera
companies Hannover State Opera and Bern Opera, and conducted the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, among others. Delfs has also enjoyed sustained success in North America, with a fruitful tenure as music director of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra from 1997 through 2009, during which time the symphony performed in Havana, marking the first visit to Cuba by an American orchestra in 37 years. By that time, he had also made his conducting debut at Carnegie Hall.
His appointment in Milwaukee also sparked a turnaround for the orchestra there. Once reportedly accustomed to a few sellout audiences a year, the orchestra reportedly sold out 30 shows within a year of his arrival. Now in Rochester, he succeeds the Pittsford native Ward Stare, who at age 32 in 2014 became the RPO’s youngest director ever in its nearly 100-year history. Stare announced his intention to step down in 2021 two years ago. He has a history in town. In 1994, he made his debut with the RPO as a guest conductor, performing what is arguably history’s most famous
