Chicago snatches principal viola from Los Angeles
OrchestrasThe Chicago Symphony has named Teng Li as its principal viola. She presently holds that seat in the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which she joined in 2018.
Li succeeds Charles Pikler who served as Chicago’s principal viola from 1986 until 2017.
Li, born in Nanjing, China, studied at Curtis. She joined the Toronto Symphony before moving to LA.
You can hear Li with the CSO in Mahler 9 here: https://soundcloud.com/chicagosymphony/hrusa-conducts-mahler-broadcast
Hrůša conducted. It starts at 27:15. I think this is the first time she played with the orchestra.
Well the viola section doesn’t have much of a presence here. Indeed the section is barely audible most of the time. The solos sound rather tentative. Hrusa tried but this is not Mahler’s soundworld. His own orchestra is superior for this repertoire.
https://www.qobuz.com/us-en/album/mahler-symphony-no-9-in-d-major-live-bamberg-symphony-orchestra-herbert-blomstedt/oushwgqi5sthc
Well, you can anyway.
Bravo to Miss Teng!
She’s worked her way up, on a step-by-step path. No family ties, just star playing.
Her move tells us more about the crime rate in Los Angeles than anything else.
From time to time, out of sheer luck, even the CSO can do something right.
Unfortunately, this hire will do nothing to undo the disgraceful ousting of David Cooper by Muti. Furthermore, it will not help the principal trumpet, clarinet, oboe and horn sound any better.
We know, Chicagorat, you think the trumpet is too loud and the clarinet not loud enough, but all that tells us is that you need to adjust your hearing aid.
I attend CSO concerts regularly. The first trumpet and clarinet are first class every time I hear them. The horns are slipping for sure. The woman in the section (Susanna) is constantly cracking notes. But the section that needs to retire is the trombones. Too loud and sound mostly terrible. They would sound bad even in a very average college orchestra. Sad.
Worst-kept secret, I suppose. I know “snatched” generates clicks – and I guess it’s not inconceivable that the CSO pursued her after running a couple unsuccessful mass auditions – but it’s just the usual case of moving on to a better job. The LA Phil is a great orchestra but the CSO – despite some cranks on this site who claim otherwise – is still the world-conquering CSO.
“but the CSO – despite some cranks on this site who claim otherwise – is still the world-conquering CSO.”
Your sentence immediately conjured an image of a gorilla beating its chest — an accurate description of CSO’s “world-conquering” sound. Though if the recording linked here is a representation of its average performance nowadays, the gorilla has seemingly taken a bottle of Xanax.
What a reductive view. Orchestra players move around for all kinds of reasons. Two of LA Phil concertmasters, Sidney Harth and Sidney Weiss, were ex-CSO concertmasters; Glenn Dicterow was one of the co-concertmasters (with Harth) at the LA Phil before moving to New York; John Cerminaro the great principal horn moved from New York to LA to Seattle; there are many more examples. More recently principal oboe Izotov left the CSO in 2015 to join the SFS. Does that mean the SFS is a better job than the CSO? For Teng Chicago is much, much closer to her family than LA and yet it still took her nearly a year to make the decision. Teng is a great player and leader, but words like “world-conquering” reflect a mindset and environment that is not conductive to great music-making. Best of luck to Teng: LA audience will definitely miss her!
A refreshing voice of reason: thank you.
More likely, it is not “the usual case of moving on to a better job”, but just happens to be an equally usual case of geographical preference due to family reasons.
This is great news! I saw her star in Hrusa’s Mahler 9 and I thought she was a huge highlight. I also thought we permanently lost her to LA and was bummed. I don’t know where our string section ranks among the great orchestras but we’ll certainly be moving up the ranks with hires like this one!
Great for Chicago but I can’t understand that why it was take almost 7 year process to find good successor for Pikler.
I understand that principal viola chair is one of the hardest orchestral positions to fill, but there’s nowadays many great violists all over the world who would like to get that kind of key position / job in orchestra.
Now I’m a bit worried for LA Phil because there was a time when they had 10 year gap between previous principals Evan Wilson and Carrie Dennis. Because that kind of past + Teng Li’s talent – I hope that LA would find new principal viola as easily when they found Ms. Li as successor for Carrie Dennis.
Apparently Ben Ullery (assistant principal of LA Phil at the time, now associate) won the previous round of CSO audition for principal viola but rumor has it that Muti refused to hear him and offer him a trial. He also won Pittsburgh’s principal viola audition. So while Teng will not be easy to replace, Ben is also a terrific player and the viola section will remain in great shape.
Ben got his trial in Chicago. Just didn’t have support from Muti. Also got a trial in Pittsburgh but didn’t win the job in the end. Ben is one of rare people who wins many jobs but can’t seem to actually get the job. Anyone know why?
Chicago and Pittsburgh are both orchestras that are especially inept right now at hiring musicians. All three titled viola players in Pittsburgh are “acting” principals. Chicago has no titled viola players right now. Before this they don’t have a principal viola, an associate principal viola, and an assistant principal viola. So I would say the problem much more likely lies with these orchestras.
It’s not easy to find another violist who is as outstanding as Pikler. Huge shoes to fill.
A good get!
Please protect yourself, Teng, as you join the most poisonous culture in all of American orchestras.
Dear Fay,
You are a bit behind the times. Yes, under the reign of the previous orchestra committee chair, who was in the position for two decades, the situation was poisonous. He has been out of power for about five years. From what I can tell and what I hear from various sources, absent his tyrannical and manipulative leadership, it is a pretty happy workplace now. Strict about high musical standards, yes. Poisonous, no more.
Yes, we all know that the culture of a players committee for the past five years dictates the culture of a 130 year old orchestra!
“most poisonous culture”
er, d’uuuuh, that title clearly goes to the New York Philharmonic … even before all the rapey stuff
I hope she enjoys the CSO!
Great orchestra but so is the LaPhil. There is a big difference in the weather!
I like visiting Chicago but would not live there, no good asian restaurants and the weather sucks.
She’ll be back to L.A. in a year.
“the weather”
you mean the heatwave, the smoke from wild fires, the smog from the traffic, the atmospheric rivers that cause landslides and flood highways? You literally cannot breathe in LA
Please tell us you know nothing about Chicago without telling us you know nothing about Chicago…
And she won’t be back in LA, she has tenure in Chicago and already resigned from LA Phil.
She left to be closer to family. She loved her LA Phil family, both the people and the music they made together. It was nothing to do with “moving up.” It was a lateral move at best.
The LA Phil has more holes than a donut factory. What’s going on over there?
Li has been a formidable presence since she joined the LA Phil. We’ll definitely miss her.
As a player she is not as good as her predecessor Carrie Dennis, but as a leader she is much better.
And the furies still find issue:
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/gCJ8WNas3YW3JX75/?mibextid=ox5AEW