Jaap van Zweden to leave New York Philharmonic after 2023-24 season

The 60-year-old Jaap van Zweden cited the coronavirus pandemic as causing him to change priorities

He has been music director of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra since 2012, a tenure expected to run until 2024

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Jaap van Zweden conducts the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in Dallas in September 2011. Photo: AP

Published: 8:42am, 16 Sep 2021Updated: 11:05am, 16 Sep 2021

Jaap van Zweden will leave the New York Philharmonic at the end of the 2023-24 season after six years as music director, the shortest tenure of anyone in a half-century.

Van Zweden cited the coronavirus pandemic as causing him to change priorities. He informed the orchestra at the end of a rehearsal on September 15, two days before the orchestra resumes performances after an 18-month stoppage.

“So much has changed because of Covid-19, including thoughts about my own future, my life, and my family,” he wrote in a letter to the orchestra that was made public.

The 60-year-old conductor succeeded Alan Gilbert in September 2018. His six-season tenure will be the shortest since Pierre Boulez succeeded Leonard Bernstein and led the orchestra from 1971-77.

Van Zweden’s tenure was interrupted by a pandemic that led to the cancellation of the final 27 subscription concerts of the 2019-20 season plus six non-subscription concerts. All 103 subscription concerts of the 2020-21 season plus 16 non-subscription concerts were also cancelled.