In March 2024, the resignation of this orchestra’s music director led musicians to release an open letter to the Board of Governors criticizing conservative programming and touring decisions. For 10 points each:
[10h] Name this orchestra, whose previous music director Michael Tilson Thomas left shortly before announcing his brain cancer diagnosis in 2021.
ANSWER: San Francisco Symphony [or SFS]
[10e] Both Tilson Thomas and his successor Esa-Pekka Salonen moved to the San Francisco Symphony after previous appointments with an orchestra in this nearby city that plays in the Walt Disney Concert Hall.
ANSWER: Los Angeles [or L.A.]
[10m] This current music director for the Los Angeles Philharmonic announced in 2023 that he would leave the orchestra at the end of his contract for the New York Philharmonic. This Venezuelan conductor oversaw the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra’s transition away from being a youth orchestra.
ANSWER: Gustavo Dudamel [or Gustavo Adolfo Dudamel Ramírez]
<JC, Classical Music>