A most unfortunate announcement, Karina Canellakis, assistant conductor to the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, will leave the company after two seasons. With her contract expiring at the end of this term, Canellakis doesn't appear to be renewing her tenure.
Canellakis is a supreme talent. When she took the podium, her skills were received by those watching from their seats. In a review of her leadership by Mark Swed in the L.A. Times, he writes:
"Karina Canellakis' debut with the orchestra was over the weekend. I heard her at UCLA's Royce Hall Sunday night. In the old days, when cigar-chomping autocrats ran orchestras and couldn't care less about boards or committees, they simply signed as they saw fit. Canellakis is an astonishing musician. If this were the old days, she would already have a contract.
"But she is also the model of a modern musician, one that would never have existed in the conventional old days."
She has also helped out her company in other ways. Once, when music director Jaap van Zweden was absent from his post, Ms. Canellakis stepped up at the last minute to save the performance.
In another write up, Canellakis was also described as:
"On closer inspection, perhaps the mysterious elements of the East - anywhere East of Vienna, that is - provide the clue. Although it might not have been conductor Karina Canellakis intention to focus on tunes and rhythms borrowed from the East in the works, her meticulous attention to the score brought out the best individual characteristics of each, and created a mood for an evening worthy of an Arabian feast."
Along with her talents, also, she has demonstrated her musicianship in smaller concerts by the DSO, performances in dealing with smaller-scale "Remix concerts."
So it's with a heavy heart that we bid farewell to a most exuberant conductor. Her next venture should be even greater than the last.
Check out a performance of Canellakis below.
