So, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra welcomes David Robertson as its new Chief Conductor and Artistic Director beginning in 2014 after our current director, Vladimir Ashkenazy, ends his term next year. I’d not heard of Robertson before, but he’s an American and currently directing the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra.

I haven’t attended a lot of concerts during the directorship of Ashkenazy and before him Gianluigi Gelmetti, but the wife and I now have subscription tickets to concerts this year and I’m looking forward to renewing my regular concert-going. Before Gelmetti, I became very familiar with Edo de Waart, who held the reins for ten years. But I’ll never forget his predecessor, the inimitable Stuart Challender.

Or the concert I attended many years ago in which the Sydney Opera House concert hall was full of people waiting for a dose of classical music. Our beloved Stuart Challender walked on to the stage, to the front of the orchestra and stepped up on to the conductor’s platform. And someone in the audience yelled out very loudly, “Onya, Stuey!!”

Only in Australia. I’m hoping David Robertson gets to experience the exuberant enthusiasm of Sydney audiences in a similar way during his tenure.

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