Berkeley Symphony Music Director Joseph Young announced last week that he will leave his position with the orchestra at the end of the current season. Young’s exit after six years at the helm and the search for his successor come as the San Francisco Symphony is facing the controversial departure of its own music director, Esa-Pekka Salonen, also in June 2025.
Although giving a shorter notice than is usual for a music director, Young seems to be stepping down free of the kinds of complications across the bay at the SF Symphony.
Under Kent Nagano, Berkeley Symphony’s longest-serving music director (from 1978 to 2009), the orchestra, despite its size, became a famously adventurous organization — a distinction continued under Young’s predecessor, Joana Carneiro.
Young relished the tradition: “From our very first performances,” he said, “the musicians and audiences enthusiastically embraced programs that centered our local community, elevated contemporary American voices, and celebrated the canon in new and dynamic ways.
“Together, we have grown artistically, as an institution, and as a community. I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to lead Berkeley Symphony and hopeful for all that lies ahead.”
According to a press release from the ensemble, “With attendance increasing by over 40 percent, Young has significantly expanded the orchestra’s musical repertoire through groundbreaking commissions and premieres.
“Young’s commitment to new works has resulted in five commissioned pieces, including [by] Jimmy López Bellido and Derrick Skye, alongside eight world or West Coast premieres from composers like Kris Bowers, Joel Puckett, and Xi Wang.
“His dedication to contemporary American voices is reflected in his programming, with nearly half of all performed works during his tenure composed by American artists and 27 composers receiving their Berkeley Symphony debuts.”
Asked why he’s leaving now, Young responded to SF Classical Voice from Chicago, where he is making his Lyric Opera of Chicago debut conducting Jeanine Tesori’s Blue through Dec. 1:
“When I hit my five-year mark [with the orchestra] earlier this year, I began to reflect on how far we’d come and what the next five years could look like — both for me as a leader and artist and for Berkeley Symphony,” he wrote in an email.
“We’d accomplished what I initially set out to do, artistically speaking and in terms of audience goals. As I began thinking about future seasons, it became clear that now was the right moment to make space for new ideas, new goals, and ultimately, new leadership.”
What are his future plans?
“I’m excited for the next six months with Berkeley Symphony. I want to celebrate all this orchestra is and will continue to be, and I want to find ways to express my gratitude to the musicians, audiences, staff, and the board.
“Concurrently, I have several guest-conducting debuts in the U.S. and internationally. So that’s immediately on the horizon. Beyond that, I’m looking forward to continuing to stretch and grow as an artist and leader.”
Among Young’s engagements in the near future are leading the Liverpool Philharmonic in works by Samuel Barber, Philip Glass, and Leonard Bernstein; the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra in Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Franz Liszt, and William L. Dawson; and the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra in Coleridge-Taylor, Beethoven, and Antonín Dvořák.
When he returns to the Bay Area in February, Young will conduct Berkeley Symphony in a program of John Adams’s The Chairman Dances, Anna Clyne’s DANCE (with cellist Inbal Segev), and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7.
Then Young will guest conduct the Las Vegas Philharmonic, the Kansas City Symphony, and the Louisville Orchestra before the next Berkeley Symphony concert on March 16, 2025.
Back to the opera Blue, which brought together for the first time two Bay Area colleagues: Young and bass Kenneth Kellogg, a former Adler Fellow who lives in Richmond, California.
Kellogg said: “I first met Maestro Young in Washington, D.C., when we did Blue at Washington National Opera. It was great to watch him work and figure out the intricacies of this modern score.
“Here in Chicago, he came in on a mission to serve the music, which was inspiring. At the first rehearsal, we skipped through usual pleasantries of greetings and dove into this score and poured ourselves into the room. Then we got to know each other as a cast.
“It was great leadership, and he’s maintained that steady, composed nature throughout the run, and it’s been a joy to make music with him.”
Beyond guest conducting, if Young is seeking another orchestra to lead, there are many opportunities, according to an ongoing list kept by SFCV writer Lisa Hirsch.
