Photo by Greg Helgeson
After more than a year of turmoil in and around the Minnesota Orchestra, last week the board of directors re-appointed Osmo Vänskä as music director. Vänskä resigned last October, after a decade-long tenure, when the orchestra's lockout continued against his demands to settle the contract dispute.
The new board chair, Gordon Sprenger, said: "Osmo Vänskä led the Minnesota Orchestra to great heights during his previous tenure as music director, and we are happy to be able to reunite Osmo and the orchestra to deliver outstanding musical performances for our community and to extend their celebrated musical partnership. We are delighted he is back."
Vänskä replied" "I am very pleased to have this chance to rebuild the Vänskä/Minnesota Orchestra partnership, and I look forward to getting back to music-making with the players and together re-establishing our worldwide reputation for artistic excellence."
Under the terms of the new two-year agreement, Vänskä will lead the orchestra for a minimum of 10 weeks in both the 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 seasons, and will accept the same reduction in compensation as agreed to by musicians.
The musicians welcomed the appointment as "a major step in rebuilding the trust and collaborative spirit within our organization as well as with our community. We very much look forward to further collaboration with Osmo, our Board, and our community to continue to build upon the Minnesota Orchestra's 110-year legacy of artistic excellence."