Change of conductor at the Riehen Philharmonic Orchestra
The Riehen Philharmonic Orchestra bids farewell to its conductor Jan Sosinski as he retires to Spain with its September concerts. Manuel Oswald will be the new musical director.
Four years ago, our long-standing conductor Jan Sosinski announced to our board that he would be stepping down in fall 2022 as he was planning to move to Spain for his retirement. This caused great regret among us musicians of the Philharmonic Orchestra Riehen (POR) - at first, we couldn't even imagine what our orchestral life would be like without him. How much we had to thank him for his tireless musical development work, patient rehearsals and dedication in conveying his own passion for music!
So we - a group of board members, the concertmaster, the head of the wind section and the head of the program committee - began to think about the procedure for the succession. As a young orchestra with little experience of changing conductors, we received valuable advice from Johannes Schläfli, professor of orchestral conducting at the ZHdK and a much sought-after conductor, for which we are very grateful. Over 50 people responded to our job advertisement in the course of the 2021 summer semester, some of whom even came from more distant regions of Europe.
Applications from all over Europe
For the three-stage selection process, our committee used a rating procedure to select ten candidates for the first round during a long night at the end of September last year. In October, we conducted a half-hour interview with each person and then invited six of them to the first audition in November. There they had 30 minutes to rehearse with the orchestra (Beethoven's 5th Symphony from our last concert program). Afterwards, all orchestra members present selected three candidates for the second audition by means of ballot papers.
At this second meeting in January 2022, the three candidates worked with our orchestra for a whole hour on a work from the current program that had not yet been performed - Brahms' 3rd Symphony. This was followed by an extraordinary general meeting at which the future conductor was elected: Manuel Oswald, who lives in Zurich, will be the musical director of the POR from October 2022. Once the contract had been signed, we soon set about jointly deciding on the works for our two 2023 concert programs.
At the same time, the Board was busy organizing the farewell concerts for our previous conductor.
New work by the "house composer"
For his last concert in the fall, Jan Sosinski requested a new composition by our "in-house composer", head of winds, music administrator and bassoonist Alexander Sloendregt, as well as the Piano Concerto in E minor op. 11 by Frédéric Chopin, for which we were able to secure the renowned pianist Reto Reichenbach as soloist. The third work will be Franz Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2.
Alexander Sloendregt's latest work Farewell bears the subtitle Bądź zdrów!Farewell!¡Que te vaya bien! and refers to Jan Sosinski's country of origin Poland, to Switzerland as one of the countries of his musical work and to the country he has chosen for his retirement: sunny Spain. He uses typical folk tunes from these three countries and skilfully arranges them with instruments typical of the respective countries. The work is dedicated to Jan Sosinski.
We are delighted to be able to give our conductor such a personal farewell present and cordially invite you all to our concerts.
Farewell concerts by Jan Sosinski with the Philharmonic Orchestra Riehen: 24.09.2022, 19.00, Dornach, Goetheanum and 25.09.2022, 17.00, Riehen, Landgasthof.
Katrin Mathieu
... is President of the Riehen Philharmonic Orchestra
