The Overture
To establish parity, the president of the Orchestra Theodore A. Burtis, appointed five of the board’s 38 members to the committee: Jack Christy, CEO of Chestnut
Capital Corp. and former CEO of IU International; Peter A. Benoliel, chairman of the board of Quaker Chemical; M. Todd Cooke, retired chairman and CEO of PSFS/Meritor; Elise R.W. du Pont, wife of Pierre, the former governor of Delaware; and Frederick Kyle, president of SmithKline Beecham U.S.
Burtis huffed a bit when Kluger first told him about the size of the search committee, which would be rounded out to a dozen by the addition of Kluger and general manager Judith Frankfurt. After all, this was a big group. Maybe too big, considering the strict confidentiality of the proceedings. A dozen people meant a dozen possible leaks. And quick decisions were pretty much ruled out, given the time it takes to get 12 very busy people to sit around a table together, much less agree on anything.
Something else was notable about this committee: Of the 12 members, five — the musicians — would be choosing their next boss. A limited form of democracy had replaced the old notion of the maestro assoluto, the old-fashioned terrorizer, like Arturo Toscanini or Fritz Reiner or George Szell. Though extremely gifted, such men could also be extremely cranky. Many in the music world say such dictatorial conductors probably couldn’t get hired today because of the modem selection process. The music director of any orchestra plays a bigger role in personnel than most people realize. He has the final say in hiring musicians (he’s advised by an audition committee of orchestra members), and he likewise has the authority to fire — although, as a practical matter, Muti has not fired anyone in his ten years here. But he does decide who sits where and when they can get time off; he reprimands the french horn player who comes in late to rehearsal or the third violin who hits each note a nanosecond too late. He gets involved in the minutiae of administration.
Burtis’s sole act of fiat was his appointment of Christy as search committee chairman. That done, the committee held its first meeting April 23rd at noon in the Racquet Club. For the next two and a half hours they sat in the musty second-floor room, creating and revising a long list of criteria that essentially served as the position’s job description. Next Kluger and Frankfurt handed out a list of potential conductors. It was a monstrous list: 230 names, as if to prove beyond any doubt that there were no hidden agendas or stacked decks. Everyone was told to go home with this master maestro roster and winnow it to a list of 20 names, and then further to a short list of five names.
A week later, on May 1st at 4 p.m., the committee met again in the same room to review their lists. Their longer, 20-name lists had produced 56 names in all, due to overlaps. These were purposely designed as "wish lists" and contained some obviously pie-in-the-sky names. Daniel Barenboim, for instance, had just been appointed music director of the Chicago Symphony. It was dreaming to expect him to break his contract and come to Philadelphia. After such impossibilities were eliminated, the long list stood at 27.
