"Nice signature!" remarked Allison Vulgamore, the orchestra's president and chief executive officer, adding that Nézet-Séguin was chosen partly because the orchestra's next music director had to be "someone who would imagine something different."
Photo opportunities were seized at every turn - with evening add-ons that included an orchestra neighborhood concert in Drexel Hill and his first official music-director gig, conducting the crowd in "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" at Citizens Bank Park during the Phillies game's seventh-inning stretch.
Nézet-Séguin seemed to enjoy pressing the flesh so much that he threatened to fall behind schedule, despite being ferried from place to place in a banner-bedecked trolley. He even autographed a City Hall visitor's pass from a woman, Mia Bird, who swore that only the day before, she had bought a conductor's baton for her baby girl, Chidima.
He also let a few cats out of the bag. When one orchestra subscriber pleaded for more operas performed in concert by the Philadelphia Orchestra, Nézet-Séguin assured, "It's in the works."
Often, he reaffirmed his commitment to the Philadelphia Orchestra's tradition. He says the orchestra has been in his bones from an early age, when he listened to an LP of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 conducted by Eugene Ormandy. The recording, he said at the contract signing, still "shows all the values that are important to me. . . . We can keep sharing what a worldwide treasure" the Philadelphia Orchestra is.
Then his voice dropped nearly to a hush. "And I'm not scared to say . . . it's the best orchestra I know."
