MEMETERIA by Thomas May

Sameer Patel has been appointed Music Director and Orchestra Conductor of the La Jolla Symphony & Chorus. His tenure will begin with the new 2023-24 season and follows a year-long search after the departure of Steven Schick, who stepped down from the role in May 2022. La Jolla’s Search Committee invited a small group of internationally renowned conductors to audition for the position. Patel will work alongside Arian Khaefi, the Sally and Einar Gall Music Director and Chorus Conductor.

Already a familiar presence to audiences in the San Diego region, Patel is currently Artistic Director of the San Diego Youth Symphony and was previously Associate Conductor of the San Diego Symphony, where he reinvigorated the orchestra’s programming and connection with its community.

Hailed as a rising star in the conducting world, Patel brings an impressive resume of international performances and collaborations to La Jolla. Patel studied at the University of Michigan and furthered his training across Europe with some of the leading conductors of our time. He now makes his home in San Diego with his wife, Shannon, and their two children, Devan and Veda.

“I am thrilled to join the La Jolla Symphony and Chorus as Music Director and Orchestra Conductor. From my earliest experiences working with the musicians, I’ve consistently been impressed not only with their artistic integrity and curiosity, but also by the way they so joyfully and willingly share their humanity both onstage and off,” Patel said. “I am grateful and proud to expand my musical involvement in this community that I love and believe in, and I look forward to a bright future together.”

From my recent profile of Sameer Patel for Musical America, who was featured in April as their New Artist of the Month:

As he describes the career choices that have led to his current position, Sameer Patel refers to a verse from the Bhagavad Gita: “It’s better to strive in one’s own dharma than to succeed in the dharma of another’ — in other words, to follow your own virtue or path or journey.”

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Filed under: conductors, music news

UPDATE: Here’s a link to Medici.tv’s recorded livestream of the closing concert.

The Italian conductor Giuseppe Mengoli has been announced as the winner of the 2023 Mahler Conducting Competition, which confers a cash prize of 30,000 euros. The competition was held in Bamberg, Germany, from 7 to 13 July, with a repertoire including Mahler’s Seventh Symphony (from which different movements were played in each round), as well as Haydn’s Symphony No. 92 in G major (first round), Bernd Richard Deutsch’s Con moto, which was commissioned by the Bamberg Symphony and given its world premiere and (second round), Berg’s Seven Early Songs (semi-final), and Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto (final round).

The sold-out concluding concert of the competition will take place on Saturday, 15 July, with Mengoli leading the Bamberg Symphony. The program consists of Mahler’s Symphony No. 7, Haydn’s Symphony No. 92, and Berg’s Seven Early Songs, with Thomas Hampson as the soloist; Mengoli will record with the Bamberg Symphony next season.

Second place went to the Japanese American conductor Taichi Fukumura, who received 20,000 euros. In third place was the German conductor Georg Köhler, who was awarded a cash prize of 10,000 euros. Additionally, a new prize was introduced this year: Best Conducting of Contemporary Composition, which confers an award of 7,500 euros (donated by the Mahler Foundation). This was awarded to the American conductor Kevin Fitzgerald.

The Mahler Competition was founded in 2004 by the Bamberg Symphony and its principal conductor at the time, Jonathan Nott, and takes place every three years. The inaugural winner was Gustavo Dudamel. More candidates than ever before applied for the 2023 competition: there were 350 applicants, of which almost 20% were women; 16 male and 4 female conductors were selected and invited to Bamberg.

MORE ON GIUSEPPE MENGOLI:

Until recently, Mengoli held the position of Assistant Conductor to Lorenzo Viotti at the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra and the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam. In May 2023 he joined the artistic team for the Orchestre National de France new production of La Bohème at the Theatre de Champs-Elysees leading stage rehearsals and assisting Lorenzo Passerini. This summer he will be assisting at the Salzburg Festival, and he will work with the SWR Symphonieorchester in the upcoming season.

In May 2022, Mengoli assisted Lorenzo Viotti in Lisbon preparing as well as conducting the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Schoenberg’s Pelleas et Melisande. In October 2022, he made his debut with the Nederlands Kamerorkest and soloist Leonard Elschenbroich conducting the world premiere of Willem Jeths’s Cello Concerto No. 2 at the Cello Biennale 2022 in Amsterdam. He stepped in to prepare Beethoven’s Fifth with the Solistes Européen Luxembourg at very short notice, which led to an invitation to join the orchestra again for upcoming projects.

Mengoli’s conducting career began as a result of his experience as a concertmaster in youth and professional orchestras from the age of 19. Since then he has worked with Oleg Caetani, Daniel Barenboim, Christoph König, and John Axelrod and with such orchestras as the Real Orquesta Sinfonica de Sevilla, Oslo Opera House, LaVerdi Symphony Orchestra, and the Royal Opera House. In 2018 he made his conducting debut with the Gustav Mahler Jugend Orchester in Bad Schandau. During this time, he also served as concertmaster of the GMJO and as a substitute in orchestras like the Konzerthaus Orchester Berlin and Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin.

Winner of several international competitions as a violinist, he completed his violin studies cum laude and with special mention. Alongside the violin, Mengoli studied percussion, piano, and trumpet, and he has also worked as a composer and arranger of jazz. Having obtained his bachelor’s degree in orchestra conducting, he is currently pursuing his master’s degree at the Franz Liszt Academy in Weimar with Nicolás Pasquet and Ekhart Wycik and is regularly working with such orchestras as the Staatskapelle Weimar, the Jenaer Philharmonie, and the Thüringen Philharmonie Gotha.

Filed under: conductors, music news