La Jornada: Scott Yoo will be the new director of Ofunam

The American violinist and conductor Scott Yoo will conduct the baton before the Philharmonic Orchestra of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (Ofunam) starting at the beginning of next year, the group of the highest house of studies reported in a statement.

Specialists consider Scott Yoo one of the great conductors of today and highlight his memorable, shocking, spectacular and moving version of Dimitri Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony, known as the Leningrad Symphonywhich he performed with the Mexico City Philharmonic Orchestra (OFCM), a group that also performed special concerts on the occasion of the 50th death anniversary of said Russian composer, which will be celebrated in 2025.

Born in Tokyo in 1971, Yoo has been artistic director of the OFCM since 2016, and last February he advanced The Day his departure from said group at the end of this year. On that occasion, he stated: “You can’t stay in one place for too long, no matter how great it is. If you want to continue growing, you have to do new things, and it’s time for me to do something new.”

At the head of that group he conducted prestigious works, for example Gustav Mahler’s Symphony Number 3, considered one of the most complicated pieces in the history of music. In this regard, the director told this newspaper: “it’s like when you walk in Teotihuacan, Mexico City or Paris and you realize that the world is immense and one is tiny. Next to this work I am like an ant.”

During his management the album was also recorded New Orchestral Music from Mexicothe first in 20 years dedicated exclusively to the symphonic creation of Mexican composers in the history of the OFCM. As for recent world premieres, there are River Triptychof Nonis Prado; el Clarinet Concertoby Marcela Rodríguez; open your eyes, by Charles Daniels, and Symphony Number 1 by Federico Ibarra.

Regarding his departure from said group, the orchestra director said he was happy for the challenges ahead and excited for the achievements: “I hope to have professionalized the artistic administration of the orchestra. I know for sure that the rehearsals feel much more professional than when I started. And we have a legacy of many great concerts, many world premieres, and we made a couple of excellent recordings together. I think that, given the difficulties, we achieved a lot.”

Scott Yoo has conducted the most prestigious symphony orchestras, such as the London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Britten Sinfonia, English Chamber Orchestra, City of London Sinfonia, Orchester Philharmonique de Radio France, Ensemble Orchestral de Paris and Estonian National Symphony.

In the United States he conducted the orchestras of Colorado, Dallas, Indianapolis, New World, San Francisco and Utah; also the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, both in its Elliott Carter festival and in its debut at Carnegie Hall. Meanwhile, in Asia he led the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, in Tokyo, Japan, and the Seoul and Busan Philharmonic Orchestras, in South Korea.

prodigy child

Yoo was a child prodigy who was fascinated by both physics and music, especially the violin. He took his first classes to master that instrument when he was 3 years old and at 7 he debuted as a soloist in New York.

Born to a Japanese mother and Korean father, but raised in the United States, Scott Yoo’s way of conducting mixes passion and spirit with the rigor of discipline and therefore: “choosing between discipline and freedom, between intellectuality and emotion is a false dilemma. In reality there is no such thing. Although in music, as in any other area or profession, you cannot be great or talented if discipline and work are not involved.”

During his youth, the American musician trained both in orchestra conducting and in his career as a soloist, in addition to graduating as a physicist from Harvard, from which he graduated with honors in 1993. In this regard, he referred during an interview with The Daymade on September 22, 2009: “From my point of view, music and physics are disciplines that, in principle, seem to have nothing to do with each other. When I was a student, I played around 30 concerts a year. I didn’t want to study music at the university then, but rather something totally different, to take a break.”

His work in Mexico had a clear guideline: to put Mexican music at the center, prioritizing rarely heard works in order to bring the public closer to the plurality of said pieces, while highlighting the importance of contemporary composers.

Meanwhile, the current director of Ofunam, Sylvain Gasançon, will continue until the end of this year at the head of the group and will later join the program as a guest director.