Baltimore Symphony's music director, David Zinman, has just been appointed artistic director of the Minnesota Orchestra's Viennese Sommerfest in Minneapolis, one of North America's most important summer music festivals.
The 13-year-old festival, which runs annually from mid-July to mid-August, was the model for the much smaller BSO Summerfest, which Mr. Zinman created in Baltimore in 1987.
His appointment, which was announced yesterday, means the BSO music director will conduct one of the Minneapolis summer festival's four weeks of concerts in 1993 as artistic director designate and two or more weeks of concerts in 1994, 1995 and 1996, in addition to developing each festival's theme and programming.
The conductor's new appointment also means that while he will continue to plan the BSO's Summerfest, he will not conduct all of its concerts. It has not yet been determined how much time he will be able to give the Baltimore festival in the future, but a spokesman for the BSO said yesterday that the orchestra has already begun a search for a conducting replacement for one week's worth of Summerfest concerts in 1993.
"David feels that he needs to spread his wings a bit," said BSO executive director John Gidwitz. "And he's improved our orchestra so much in the past few years that we don't need him here quite as much as we did."