Hot Off The Press!!!!

After the unfortunate passing of William Bennet, one of my beloved oboe professor at SFCM. The principal oboe position of the Grammy Award winning San Francisco Symphony had been vacant for almost two years.

It wasn’t until last spring, that the SF Symphony held auditions for the Principal Oboe position. Of the hundreds of oboist that applied and auditioned, I learned that it had come down to four finalist.

• Jonathan Fischer (Principal Oboist of Houston Symphony)

• Eugene Izotov (Principal Oboist of Chicago Symphony)

• Mingjia Liu (Principal Oboist of SF Opera)

• Dwight Parry (Principal Oboist of Cincinnati Symphony)

The symphony ended up offered the position to Eugene Izotov, but Eugene was hesitant to give them an answer to if he was willing to accept the job. Soon after that annoncment, I heard that the Chicago Symphony caught wind of this and offered Eugene a better incentive to stay with them. It had been months without any word on Eugene’s choose or if the symphony offered the position to one of the other oboist.

Yesterday the internationally famed oboist Eugene Izotov announced

his final decision:

Before this is "spun" by various critics depending on their geography and affiliation, here's my official statement regarding my appointment as Principal Oboe of the San Francisco Symphony:“This is a deeply personal decision for me since much of my life is connected to these two great American orchestras and cities. As I look forward to making music with maestro Michael Tilson Thomas and my colleagues of the San Francisco Symphony, I know my heart will be filled with wonderful memories of music-making with Chicago Symphony and profound gratitude to maestro Riccardo Muti for his humanity, support, and inspiration.”

It looks like the west coast just might be… the place to be!