New York Philharmonic picks Dallas Symphony Orchestraâ€™s Jaap van Zweden as music director

Jaap van Zweden conducts the Dallas Symphony Orchestra at the Meyerson Symphony Center. (2015 File Photo/Nathan Hunsinger)

Jaap van Zweden, the increasingly acclaimed music director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, is heading to the Big Apple as the next music director of the New York Philharmonic, starting in the 2018-19 season.

He succeeds Alan Gilbert, who has held the position since 2009, and will conduct some concerts in 2017-18 with the title music director-designate.

Van Zweden, credited with raising the standards of DSO performances extraordinarily since he arrived in 2008, will leave his Dallas post one year earlier than planned in his current contract. With a new title of conductor laureate, though, he will lead four concerts per season through 2021.

"The connection with the public, the connection with the city, is something I will treasure all my life," van Zweden said Wednesday. "I consider [the DSO] one of the best orchestras in the United States these days, and I'm proud of that. I'm proud that I was able to bring out what was always there, to be a part of this journey."

Jonathan Martin, president and CEO of the Dallas Symphony, said van Zweden "has really built the sound of the Dallas Symphony in the past seven and a half years, and done it at a velocity that is unprecedented in my experience with orchestras — and I've been in the business for 37 years."

Van Zweden cuts a memorable figure on the Meyerson Symphony Center dais, bald bullet head and linebacker shoulders, directing his musicians through their scores. He's a major cultural figure, as well, one who will be difficult to replace.

"I've thought it was an interesting alignment of the personality of Dallas — this muscular, robust, optimistic, dramatic way of making music," Martin says. "It was fortunate that it aligned with the core qualities of Dallas itself as a community — a big, bold, dynamic city."

Van Zweden has made important hires in the DSO, including his own successor as Royal Concertgebouw concertmaster, Alexander Kerr, in the first-violin chair. With his background as an excellent violinist, he has dramatically transformed the orchestra's string sections. His performances have been notable for fastidious discipline, but also electric intensity.

That intensity, and a brusque management style, has put him at odds with some orchestra members, as well as guest musicians.

He has made several recordings with the DSO, including a Mahler Third Symphony to be released locally this weekend and internationally in March. He led the orchestra on a European tour in 2013 and was to have led another this April, but it was canceled ^[1], ostensibly over security concerns.

Under his stewardship, the orchestra has inaugurated a series of more innovative and more casual ReMix concerts, and last spring it presented the first annual Soluna Festival in collaboration with other arts organizations.

The appointment was announced Wednesday morning in New York City. Van Zweden, whose international career has exploded since taking the Dallas job, had been frequently mentioned as a possible successor at the New York Philharmonic. The New York Times named him, along with the Pittsburgh Symphony's Manfred Honeck, as one of two finalists.

Van Zweden will preside over the orchestra during yet another renovation of its home, now known as David Geffen Hall, likely including two seasons playing elsewhere.

"From the get-go, when he made his debut in spring of 2012, we all sensed the palpable connection and chemistry with the orchestra," said Matthew VanBesien, the Philharmonic's president. "There's a ton of energy, this great strength and commitment that you recognize immediately. Musically, we felt early on that it could be a great fit."

"We love his passion, his commitment, really pulling out the very best from the orchestra," said VanBesien.

Van Zweden, 55, was initially trained as a violinist in his native Amsterdam and at New York's Juilliard School. He became sufficiently brilliant a player to be named the youngest-ever concertmaster of Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, where he played under the most famous conductors of the day.

He was a relatively late convert to conducting, but in 1997, after some initial experiences on the podium, he gave up playing the violin to devote himself full-time to conducting. Holding a couple of principal conductor positions in the Netherlands, he was little known beyond before his appointment in Dallas. Soon, however, he was conducting top orchestras on both sides of the Atlantic and garnering critical praise. He was named Musical America's 2012 Conductor of the Year.

He has been music director of the Hong Kong Philharmonic since 2012. He remains honorary chief conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic and conductor emeritus of the Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra.

Van Zweden's departure will thrust the DSO into search mode once again, and he'll be a very hard act to follow.

"We're in the process of putting together a search committee, including musicians, board members, administrative leadership," Martin says. "Their job is first and foremost to develop a candidate profile."

When selecting new music directors, orchestras often go for opposites of the persons leaving the job, which would suggest the DSO might look for a younger American with innovative ideas for programming and outreach.

Younger conductors who've made a strong impression here in recent years have included James Gaffigan ^[2], Joshua Weilerstein ^[3] and Case Scaglione ^[4]. The orchestra could make headlines by appointing a woman, like Mei-Ann Chen ^[5], who has conducted dramatic performances with the Fort Worth Symphony. The DSO's current assistant conductor, Karina Canellakis ^[6], is a huge talent surely destined for great things.

Although van Zweden has the DSO playing on a very high level and Dallas has one of the greatest concert halls in the world in the Meyerson, internationally the city is still viewed as something of a cultural flyover. The DSO has had trouble attracting major conductors even for guest engagements.

So don't count on a big-name figure here. It's still a place where conductors make their names and go on to more prestigious posts. As with van Zweden and, before him, Georg Solti ^[7] and Antal Dorati ^[8].

Still, Martin says, "I'm actually pretty optimistic that we will be able to attract and ultimately engage a very talented person. That's one of the benefits of what Jaap has done in partnership with the musicians. The sound of this orchestra and the quality of the music making will help us attract a pretty high level of talent."

Scott Cantrell, former classical music critic of The Dallas Morning News, has also written for The New York Times and numerous music magazines.