Yannick Is Having A Moment
The dynamic conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin has had quite the fall — conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra before a visiting Pope Francis, opening the Metropolitan Opera season leading Verdi’s “Otello,†even throwing out the first pitch at a Phillies game. Now he can add another feather to his cap: On Thursday, he will be named artist of the year by Musical America, the venerable classical music publication. Yannick is being seriously whispered as the successor to James “Nurse” Levine as music director of the Met. But Yannick is the music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra and of the Orchestre Métropolitain in his native Montreal, and still holds a post with the Rotterdam Philharmonic. He’s starting to bring to mind the old saw about conductor Herbert von Karajan, who, when a Paris taxi driver picked him up and said “Where to?”, replied: “It doesn’t matter. They want me everywhere.”
