Conductor

By now, nobody in Philadelphia should be surprised that conductor Donald Nally is making a hard-to-explain departure: Lyric Opera of Chicago is expected to announce this week that chorus master Nally is leaving at the end of the 2010-11 season to spend more time with his Philadelphia choir, The Crossing. What wasn't said: He's leaving one of the top positions of its kind (Chicago's previous chorus master is now at the Metropolitan Opera) - with uncertain financial prospects. "The Crossing is a full-time job at this point but it just doesn't pay that," Nally said last week during a break in recording sessions in Chestnut Hill with his Philadelphia group.

An overflow crowd endures recurring showers last night, but the nasty weather wasn't enough to keep fans from listening as Bobby McFerrin serves as guest conductor for the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Mann Music Center. A longtime popular jazz pianist and pop singer, he's best known for writing and performing the hit, "Don't Worry, Be Happy. " He took up conducting with his laid-back, casual style five years ago.

With all due respect for a podium occupied through the years by the considerable likes of Muti, Ormandy and Stokowski, William Smith has not always stood straight-faced and sober-minded before the ladies and gentlemen of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Once, while leading a pops concert, the longtime associate conductor punctuated the program with late-breaking hockey scores. For a New Year's Eve performance, he made a dramatic entrance from one wing at the Academy of Music, walked to center stage . . . and kept on walking until he disappeared on the other side.

SEPTA conductors and assistant conductors have rejected a tentative contract. SEPTA's board was scheduled to approve the contract Thursday, if the members of United Transportation Union Local 61 had ratified it. Now, the two sides will resume negotiations. The union represents 396 conductors and assistant conductors, whose last contract expired on Oct. 17, 2009. Two other of SEPTA's 17 bargaining units also remain without contracts: the unions representing locomotive engineers and electrical workers.

Andre Raphel Smith, the Philadelphia Orchestra's assistant conductor, is one of six candidates for the job of music director of the Wichita Symphony Orchestra, the Kansas ensemble announced yesterday. The Wichita Symphony expects to name a successor to Zuohuang Chen in March 2000 after each of the candidates has had a chance to guest conduct. The job would require Smith to be in Kansas between eight and 12 weeks per year, said Wichita Symphony general manager Mitchell A. Berman, and would not require Smith to give up his Philadelphia post.

The Opera Company of Philadelphia has appointed Maurizio Barbacini as principal conductor, the company announced Thursday. Barbacini, 53, was previously principal guest conductor of the troupe, and the change in title, which was decided during the summer, will not carry with it greater responsibility or more frequent conducting dates with the Philadelphia company, an opera spokeswoman said. "He's been becoming an increasingly important part of the artistic team here, and this takes it to the next level," said Tracy C. Galligher.

Pianist and conductor Ignat Solzhenitsyn, who has acted as principal conductor of the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia since 1998, will take over the post of music director next season. Solzhenitsyn becomes only the second music director in the ensemble's 39-year history, taking over from founder Marc Mostovoy, who will serve as senior adviser to the orchestra. "I am honored by the Chamber Orchestra board's confidence in me," Solzhenitsyn said yesterday. "We are united in our aim to strengthen our position as a world-class chamber orchestra, and I am excited about taking on the additional responsibilities of music director as we strive toward that goal.

Klaus Tennstedt, a German conductor who unleashed dramatic performances of music by German romanticists, died yesterday at his home near Kiel, Germany. He was 71 and had battled throat cancer for more than a decade. Musicians sometimes joked that Mr. Tennstedt knew no short pieces, but the tall, gangling conductor was at his best in constructing the great edifices of Bruckner and Mahler. Born in Meresburg, Germany, Mr. Tennstedt had studied violin at the conservatory in Leipzig.

The Concerto Soloists Chamber Orchestra's concerts have become measures of the burgeoning skill and growth of conductor Ignat Solzhenitsyn. In the concert Wednesday at the Convention Center, he was soloist in an arresting performance of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 24 after conducting Schubert's Symphony No. 2, a piece that yields itself only to interpreters with patience and vision. These performances moved far beyond meticulous preparation into a realm of warmth and eloquence.

It's a trick of moderate proportions for a guest conductor to touch down at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts for a Philadelphia Orchestra concert and keep it all together. Minimal rehearsal time means only a canny conductor can work out the kinks before show time. But it's a rarer conjurer who rehearses smartly, establishes an instant rapport with the orchestra, and puts a personal stamp on the music. Roberto Abbado did it two summers ago, and on Monday night Raymond Harvey, music director of the Kalamazoo (Mich.