In a bombshell for the classical music world, the Boston Symphony Orchestra announced on March 6 that they are parting ways with longtime Music Director Andris Nelsons after the 2027 Tanglewood season ends. For more insight into why this decision was made, GBH’s Morning Edition host Mark Herz spoke with Boston Globe music critic A.Z. Madonna. What follows is a lightly edited transcript.
Mark Herz: So first, help those of us who may not understand. This is actually a story of international proportions, I would say, and it’s really a rare occurrence, I believe, as well. Give us the context and all that.
A.Z. Madonna: Yeah, this is big. This is the Red Sox trading Mookie Betts. This is Bill Belichick getting booted. This is like any sports drama of somebody who was in good standing — even if on maybe slightly shaky ground — but nobody saw this coming. This is deeply unusual for several reasons. I have a lot of questions about what’s going on at Symphony Hall right now.
Herz: Right. And when I say you guys broke the news, you really didn’t get much from BSO management. Just some terse and anodyne statements. What do you think is going on?
Madonna: It’s pretty clear from both the official statement and Nelsons’ letter to the staff that this decision was not mutual. The language is civil, but the board and CEO Chad Smith are effectively saying, “Nelsons, you’re fired,” and the reason being given is quite vague: that they’re not aligned on future vision. Now, there is the language in the BSO announcement about how they are going to celebrate Nelsons and thank him across the 2026-27 season, but effectively he’s being fired. They are ending his term as soon as it feasibly could be ended, without the upcoming season, which is already planned, needing to be scrapped.
Herz: Is that unusual in the classical music world? You talked about the sports metaphors; when a coach gets fired, they don’t stick around for the rest of the season.
Madonna: Well, this is actually quite short in the classical music world. If I compare it to somebody like Gustavo Dudamel, who is leaving Los Angeles for New York, there was a three-year announcement time when he announced he was going to be ending his contract with L.A. But his contract was fixed term. Most music directors at the top tier are on fixed term contracts, usually five years.
Nelsons, starting in January 2024 — and there’s going to a lot of talk about this — was on what they called an evergreen rolling contract. In theory, this set him up to be at the BSO as long as he wanted to be and when it was announced about two years ago, it was framed as an investment in the future of the BSO under Nelsons. But that also meant that the board and C-suite could terminate that contract whenever they wanted. There were a few people who did raise the question, “Does this make it easy for the C-suite and the board to get rid of Nelsons if they find the next superstar?” But there isn’t a clear candidate for who that is, which raises a few more questions.
Herz: Yeah, and he was a superstar by all accounts. Nelsons, by all accounts, had a good relationship with the players, but I guess it takes more than that to succeed?
Madonna: That’s a major part of it. Because what I’m thinking about most of all is what this will do with the BSO musicians because without them, there is no music. And Nelsons’ letter said that his dismissal was not related to achievements. They just got two Grammys under Nelsons, awarded last month. So that added, I think, two on top of the four they already had with him. And it wasn’t related to performance quality. And I can confidently say it is not because the musicians were unhappy with his leadership. From what I can tell, they almost universally adore Nelsons and they are angry.
I’ve seen social media posts from some of them saying they were completely caught off guard. They found out minutes after they got off stage with Herbert Blomstedt on Friday. On Saturday, I got texts from people who were at the hall saying that they did something unusual, the musicians: They walked out on stage together. Usually when you go to the BSO or any other American orchestra, you’ll see the musicians come out stage one by one. They’ll noodle around a bit while they warm up. On Saturday night, they came out from backstage together. That is a show of unity that would not go unmissed.
Herz: I did wanna throw out The New York Times critic David Allen was pretty lacerating, contra what you’ve been saying and citing, about how this is not performance-related. The headline on his article is “A Maestro’s Fall From Grace Is a Cautionary Tale Worth Heeding.” He had some pretty negative things to say about Nelsons’ quality falling off. I guess you have a different take.
Madonna: I do. Personally, as a listener, I had my own artistic issues with Nelsons. I was also not a fan of some of his Strauss tone poems, which David Allen did cite. But there is really no such thing as an objective listener in the classical music world or any music world. Also, Allen’s criticisms don’t really match the line that Nelsons was being given. So either they’re not really being straight with Nelsons about why he’s being let go, if it is performance-related, or it’s completely not performance-related.
Herz: If it’s completely not performance-related, what is it?
Madonna: Part of it could be money. I’m not familiar with the finances of the BSO, but money’s always a big issue. Part of it could be wanting to have somebody in the leadership role who has a bigger public profile in Boston. But none of [those reasons] seem worth throwing out 13 years worth of rapport for musicians on such short notice. What I predicted was that Nelsons would probably be around for maybe five more years. We’re not in the era where a music director will stay with the orchestra for their whole career like Seiji Ozawa.
CRB Classical 99.5, which is a part of GBH, is the radio broadcast partner of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
