SPCO news notes

Posted at 4:57 PM on December 7, 2006 by Don Lee

Three items related to the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra have popped up today:

1. Andreas Delfs, the conductor who stepped down in 2004 as SPCO music director, says he will leave the Milwaukee Symphony in 2009. He's been there since 1997. Delfs told The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel he plans to be a freelancer, saying that as the father of young kids during his St. Paul and Milwaukee tenures, "I neglected the international career, but now it's time to get back in the game."

2. This weekend, the orchestra's guest soloist is a practitioner of the oud, a Middle Eastern lute. Minnesota Public Radio's Alison Young has an interview with the soloist, Iraqi-born musician Rahim AlHaj, here.

3. When the orchestra visits Vienna and Budapest next month, it will take along four students from the Minneapolis and St. Paul public schools. The students earned places on the tour by explaining, persuasively, how they plan to share their experiences with classmates when they return home.