CBSO appoints 29-year-old Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla as music director

[Anastasius]

It's rather worrying though. The BBC hasn't yet decided how to pronounce José Mourinho.
A few try to turn the Portugese gentleman into a Spaniard, but it's the surname that hardly anyone gets right.

How about Jose Mysogynist ?

[french frank]

Courtesy Wikipedia:

Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla
Father Romualdas Gražinis
Mother Sigutė Gražinienė
(Grandmother Beata Vasiliauskaitė-Šmidtienė was a violinist)

[Zucchini]

The CBSO has put together some of the congratulatory reactions to Mirga GT's appointment:

"An Outstanding Welcome"

https://cbso.co.uk/news/mirga-grazinyte-tyla-announcement

The presumption is that if she's stepping into Andris Nelson's boots - he being the hottest property in the conducting world - then she must be exceptionally good. The Times gave her a large picture on the front page, a front cover whole page pic on Times 2, plus a double page spread liberally illustrated interview (interesting and intelligent). She's on Charlotte Green's Classic FM programme (whatever it is) with Helen Mirren and Tom courtney this weekend and will be (has been?) featured on West Midlands BBC1 News.

Now the CBSO needs to appoint a leader - the Mirga stuff should help.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Now the CBSO needs to appoint a leader - the Mirga stuff should help.

Mind you - they'll have to remember that she's not afraid to make her feelings known about their playing mid-performance:

[Roslynmuse]

Mind you - they'll have to remember that she's not afraid to make her feelings known about their playing mid-performance:

[french frank]

Three minute interview from In Tune:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03hlm60

[Zucchini]

Like that ferney...!

[P. G. Tipps]

Ach, she's just an old fogey compared to some ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v436IGbKL_o

[bluestateprommer]

Mind you - they'll have to remember that she's not afraid to make her feelings known about their playing mid-performance:

Actually, if this image of MG-T conducting was from a USA concert, then that gesture is not a vulgar one or one of disapproval, but rather the "A-OK" gesture :) .

That aside, it's interesting, with hindsight, to reconstruct the time line of events just prior to her appointment to the CBSO, which basically came down to a "dueling concerts bakeoff" between MG-T and Omer Meir Wellber last month. From the In Tune segment with SK (who did quite well with the pronunciation of MG-T's name, I agree with Caliban there) last Thursday, February 4, assuming that it was truly a live conversation, MG-T said that she got word of the appointment 2 weeks earlier, which would have been January 21, if we take "2 weeks" literally. Just the week or so before:

January 10 = MG-T's concert
January 16 = Wellber's concert (private, for an invited audience)

So the CBSO would have to have decided pretty fast between the 16th and the 21st, and clearly did.

PS: On the pronunciation question, the lady herself speaks via a YouTube video linked to from Alex Ross' blog:

http://www.therestisnoise.com/2016/02/the-ultmate-gra%C5%BEinyt%C4%97-tyla-pronunciation-guide.html

It seems that if you put your voice into a James Bond-villain type mode, you'll be pretty close .

[bluestateprommer]

For those who noted MG-T's scheduled Proms appearance this coming August, the CBSO announced that the same program will take place the evening before at Symphony Hall, Birmingham, to mark the formal start of her tenure as CBSO music director:

https://cbso.co.uk/news/cbso-and-mirga-at-the-bbc-proms

Hopefully the transport of the musicians is safe the next day to London......

[Flosshilde]

Courtesy Wikipedia:

Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla
Father Romualdas Gražinis
Mother Sigutė Gražinienė
(Grandmother Beata Vasiliauskaitė-Šmidtienė was a violinist)

If you're worried about pronouncing Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, thank goodness they didn't appoint her grandmother

[bluestateprommer]

It might be of interest to note some future non-Birmingham dates for MG-T and the CBSO (assuming that our idiot Preznit doesn't start WWIII by then, of course):

(a) 15 September 2018, Lucerne Festival: https://www.lucernefestival.ch/en/pr...don-kremer/883

Dvořák: Othello, Op. 93
Mieczysław Weinberg: Violin Concerto in G minor, Op. 67

Dvořák: Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95

(Plus, the Lucerne Festival did a much better job mirroring non-UK orchestras that appeared at The Proms last year. compared to Edinburgh.)

(b) 13 October 2018, the Barbican: https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on...rite-of-spring

Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé (complete)

Lithuanian folksong arrangements (arranged by MG-T)
Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring

I can't recall any other conductor ever putting the complete Daphnis and The Rite on a single program.

[BBMmk2]

No, I can’t eitger. I might put both those works on tomorrow and see how they fit.

[bluestateprommer]

No, I can’t either. I might put both those works on tomorrow and see how they fit.

IMHO, the clear connections between the works are more historical-contextural than "musical" as such, i.e. the Diaghilev connection and their very close proximity in time. But beyond that, I can see a kind of "union of opposites" also in MG-T's programming here, where Daphnis ultimately ends as a celebration of life (with more than a bit of lust at the end, perhaps), while The Rite concerns itself ultimately with death at its end (even if that death is nominally offered to ensure the continuance of life, if we accept the premise behind that particular pagan ritual). Seeing the two works in conjunction was a jolt to see, in a good way, where I intuitively thought "what an interesting idea" without fully grasping the full implications of the connection. If nothing else, this again shows that MG-T has great imagination when it comes to programming with the CBSO, even with core repertoire.

[Barbirollians]

IMHO, the clear connections between the works are more historical-contextural than "musical" as such, i.e. the Diaghilev connection and their very close proximity in time. But beyond that, I can see a kind of "union of opposites" also in MG-T's programming here, where Daphnis ultimately ends as a celebration of life (with more than a bit of lust at the end, perhaps), while The Rite concerns itself ultimately with death at its end (even if that death is nominally offered to ensure the continuance of life, if we accept the premise behind that particular pagan ritual). Seeing the two works in conjunction was a jolt to see, in a good way, where I intuitively thought "what an interesting idea" without fully grasping the full implications of the connection. If nothing else, this again shows that MG-T has great imagination when it comes to programming with the CBSO, even with core repertoire.

From the concerts I have attended I think the hype is justified she is an outstanding conductor . The other week she even did a Ligeti encore at a matinee concert which according to the Online review I read went down a storm .