Thursday, December 18, 2008

Exposing Gilbert Kaplan as a conducting charlatan

The New York Times published an article about an uproar within the ranks of the New York Philharmonic over the guest conducting of Gilbert E. Kaplan, a wealthy businessman who has made a specialty of directing orchestras around the world in performances of Mahler's 2nd Symphony ("Ressurection"). The article points to David Finlayson's scathing review of Kaplan's abilities as a conductor. Finlayson, a trombonist in the New York Philharmonic, wrote incisively and brilliantly about the performance and built a convincing argument that the baton should be taken away from Kaplan.

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