{"id":6640,"date":"2020-05-01T15:01:57","date_gmt":"2020-05-01T15:01:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/?p=6640"},"modified":"2020-05-07T15:08:55","modified_gmt":"2020-05-07T15:08:55","slug":"anne-marie-mcdermott-named-artistic-director-designate-of-santa-fe-pro-musica","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/anne-marie-mcdermott-named-artistic-director-designate-of-santa-fe-pro-musica\/","title":{"rendered":"Anne-Marie McDermott Named Artistic Director Designate of Santa Fe Pro Musica"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the Santa Fe New Mexican<\/a><\/p>\n

The McDermott Moonshot: Santa Fe Pro Musica’s foray into all-female leadership<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Mark Tiarks<\/p>\n

\u201cWe took a moonshot, and we got lucky.\u201d That\u2019s how Thomas O\u2019Connor, Santa Fe Pro Musica\u2019s co-founder and music director, describes the selection of renowned pianist Anne-Marie McDermott as the group\u2019s artistic director designate. In 2017, O\u2019Connor announced his decision to eventually step down from his role as music director to the company\u2019s board of directors, and the search for a successor began.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the first time I worked with Pro Musica, in the fall of 2015, I felt an instant chemistry with the musicians and with Tom,\u201d McDermott says. \u201cI have tremendous respect for what he and [co-founder and associate music director] Carol Redman created and have sustained for 38 years. And it\u2019s so exciting to be starting on a new path. I\u2019ve been an artistic director before but have never had a deeper relationship with a chamber orchestra.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her appointment, along with that of Mary G. Madigan three months ago as the group\u2019s executive director, means Pro Musica is the first major performing arts organization in Santa Fe with all-female leadership. It\u2019s a welcome and overdue development, especially for a city that prides itself on its progressive politics.<\/p>\n

Due to her extensive professional commitments, McDermott will take over the artistic reins in a three-year, phased-in process. She typically plays about 100 performances each year, while also serving as artistic director of the Bravo! Vail Music Festival, a six-week summer festival operating on a $7.5 million budget and recording the complete Mozart piano concertos for Bridge Records, with the second volume just released in April.<\/p>\n

In addition, she\u2019s the artistic director of the one-week Ocean Reef Chamber Music Festival in the Florida Keys and the weeklong chamber music festival at McKnight Center for the Performing Arts at Oklahoma State University. She serves as curator of Mainly Mozart\u2019s chamber music series in San Diego.<\/p>\n

How can McDermott fit Pro Musica into all this? \u201cI\u2019m not really planning on giving up anything, at least not at the moment,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s more a case of trimming and rebalancing. My goal right now is not to be out there playing so many concerts each year. At first I didn\u2019t see a path of being able to do this, but in talking with the board it seemed like the timeline could really work for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paradoxically, the coronavirus pandemic is giving McDermott an opportunity to be involved in Pro Musica artistic decisions earlier than anticipated. When the group canceled its March and April performances, including the season finale of Haydn\u2019s oratorio, The Creation, it also began revising the already-planned 2020-2021 program. The Creation will be resurrected in the upcoming season, and McDermott will perform with the orchestra in January. Her point of view has also informed some modifications to the chamber music series. Details about the 2020-2021 season should be announced within the next few weeks.<\/p>\n

Part of McDermott\u2019s appeal to Pro Musica is her extensive network of performer relationships, which she plans to use in broadening the group\u2019s pool of soloists and also in growing Pro Musica\u2019s national and international profile. Santa Feans will see more of this initiative in 2021-2022, which is the group\u2019s 40th anniversary season and is being jointly planned by O\u2019Connor and McDermott. Beginning the following year, it\u2019s 100 percent Anne-Marie\u2019s vision.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to expand the scope of the recital series so that it goes beyond string quartets,\u201d she says, \u201cand find ways for the audience to get to know these performers more in-depth, by having them play as soloists with the orchestra or give individual recitals. It\u2019s very important to me to continue Pro Musica\u2019s commitment to commission new works and to perform pieces by women composers. In fact, I\u2019d love to have a national symposium in Santa Fe on the subject of women in classical music.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read the full story<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the Santa Fe New Mexican The McDermott Moonshot: Santa Fe Pro Musica’s foray into all-female leadership By Mark Tiarks \u201cWe took a moonshot, and we got lucky.\u201d That\u2019s how Thomas O\u2019Connor, Santa Fe Pro Musica\u2019s co-founder and music director, describes the selection of renowned pianist Anne-Marie McDermott as the group\u2019s artistic director designate. In … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1776,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5663,4835,5664,3610],"class_list":["post-6640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-anne-marie-mcdermott","tag-appointment","tag-artistic-director","tag-piano"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6640"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6640\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6642,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6640\/revisions\/6642"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/1776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}