Gilbert to Phil

Alan Gilbert will be the New York Philharmonic's principal conductor starting in fall 2009. It's good news for them to settle on someone younger (that is, fortyish) and American. The one concert I saw with Gilbert on the podium was a fine one.

I don't really know how the Phil's artistic leadership works; I'm curious to hear whether Gilbert has any Big Plans along the lines of outreach or staking a claim for classical music as a vibrant, necessary, and contemporary art -- which the NY Phil must be in a good position to push the envelope on, though they decisively haven't acted that way. You'd love to see them reach for something the way the LA Philharmonic has been doing. (Or the way the NY Phil used to do, back in the glory days, with Leonard Bernstein.)

In any case they'll be better off than with Lorin Maazel, who's plenty capable of a Rolls-Royce performance with an orchestra this good but who seems disinclined to stake any kind of greater artistic claim whatsoever.

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[7/19] Critic/writer Terry Teachout states the questions at hand here really well. I'd amend it slightly -- the issue isn't getting people like Teachout to attend (that is, those who are classical-aware but bored) but rather the inquisitive or unaware or only casually aware.