Just catching up on some classical news from last week, concerning the conductor Yakov Kreizberg, who has never failed to wow audiences, critics and musicians alike when he appears as a guest conductor with the OSO. He has just accepted an appointment to be the next music director of the Monte Carlo Philharmonic. You may remember that James DePreist served as music director of the MCphil concurrently with his gig here in Oregon. It makes me think, sometime down the road, might Mr. Kreizberg serve a similar role here? We’ve got a lot of great music-making left with Carlos, but it’s never too early to be keeping a lookout for future talent on the horizon, and Kreizberg certainly has the goods and knows how to deliver them.

David Stabler reports this morning that the Oregon Bach Festival will open its 2008 season by performing a concert (Bach’s B-minor Mass) at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in Portland.  What next?  Will the Eugene Symphony start a series in the Oregon Symphony’s home hall?  The Seattle Symphony?  It’s frustrating, because while we continually draw back the number of concerts that we offer both in Portland and around the state of Oregon (we are called the Oregon Symphony, after all) other arts organizations are presumably seeing needs that they can meet in the Portland market.  Frankly, I’m worried about what this portends for the future.

Tektronix, one of the first companies to set up shop in Oregon’s celebrated “Silicon Forest” high tech community of companies, has been sold to a Washington, D.C. conglomerate.  Tektronix was one of our featured sponsors of our first Classical A subscription week, and it was encouraging to have a prominent local company support the symphony in a highly public way.  Therefore it was disappointing and worrying to read the headline on this afternoon’s edition of The Oregonian.  The orchestra has been relatively lucky in receiving support from both those corporations who are not headquartered locally and those who are.  However, when a company is bought out by an out-of-state interest, it may become more likely that interest in supporting local entities may wane.  I sincerely hope that those who remain with Tektronix in Oregon will continue to make the case for putting money back into the local community - arts causes or otherwise.

This will be a great concert, and for $10 - c’mon, it’s a steal!

$10 Friends and Family offer

Spanish Splendor with the Oregon Symphony

October 13-15

Carlos Kalmar, conductor

Patricia Risley, mezzo-soprano

Join us for an evening filled with mystery and surprise… love, passion and seduction. Featuring the cheerful, warm and lively music of Haydn, Berio and Falla.

Visit http://www.ticketmaster.com/promo/f72zfm and enter the password SPANISH to receive your $10 tickets today.