The career trajectory of Elena Dubinets continues to soar upwards. The current Artistic Director of London Philharmonic Orchestra is now headed to the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra next season to assume its Artistic Directorship. She will help to steady the tiller of one of the world’s most storied orchestras that has nevertheless seen some recent upheaval, lacking an Artistic Director since Ulrike Niehoff’s sudden departure last year, and a Chief Conductor since the sacking of the scandal-ridden Daniele Gatti in 2018. Her term will presumably overlap with the formal start of Klaus Mäkalä’s Chief Conductorship in 2027 (at a mere 28 years old, Mäkalä is the Concertgebouw’s chief conductor designate, and in a particularly eyebrow-raising move he recently announced that he would also assume the Music Directorship of Chicago Symphony Orchestra starting that same year).
Born in Moscow in 1969, Dubinets (pronounced “doo-bin-YETS”), grew up in the Soviet Union, earned her PhD from Moscow Conservatory, then emigrated to the US in 1996 when her husband accepted a software engineering position at Microsoft. She quickly rose in the Northwest music community, joining Seattle Chamber Players as a programmer in 2001, then joining Seattle Symphony in 2003 where she became Vice President for Artistic Planning during the final years of Gerard Schwarz’s long tenure as Music Director. She retained the position through the legendary Ludovic Morlot/Simon Woods era from 2011 to 2018 during which the Symphony reached a zenith in its international standing, driven largely by its new music initiatives, including the [untitled] series of concerts in the Grand Lobby of Benaroya Hall that often featured Symphony musicians performing contemporary chamber and electroacoustic works, plus numerous high-profile commissions and premieres of full orchestra works by Elliott Carter, Valentin Silvestrov and John Luther Adams among others.
After the departure of Morlot and Woods, Dubinets found herself unwanted by the Symphony’s new and more parsimonious leadership team, whereupon she decamped to the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, thence to the London Philharmonic Orchestra, where she serves as the co-equal of the orchestra’s Chief Executive David Burke. Since the LPO retains a Principal Conductor (currently Edward Gardner) instead of a Music Director, Dubinets enjoys complete autonomy over the orchestra’s programming, a role that she has clearly relished after many years spent managing the intricate politics of US orchestras. Her projects in London have included a much-acclaimed production of Heiner Goebbels’ A House of Call and a high-profile US tour with violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja.
Dubinets is also the author of Russian Composers Abroad: How they left, stayed, returned, published by Indiana University Press in 2021. Those of us with fond memories of her time in the Pacific Northwest wish her well with this exciting appointment.