“Deborah Borda, the chief executive of the New York Philharmonic, sees big things coming for the 38-year-old conductor James Gaffigan, who just led the orchestra in its annual tour of the city’s parks. In 2015, he impressed me enormously when he led the Philharmonic in the crackling premiere of Andrew Norman’s fantastical “Split,” a breathless fantasy for piano (Jeffrey Kahane) and orchestra. Mr. Gaffigan has also won praise for his approach to the standard repertory. He ended the Philharmonic’s concert last week in Central Park with a colorful account of a piece I never tire of: Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Scheherazade.” Here he leads an uncommonly dramatic account of Mozart’s Requiem, recorded in 2017 with the Orchestre National de France at the Basilica of St. Denis in the Paris suburbs. Let’s hope the future Ms. Borda envisions for him regularly includes the New York Philharmonic.”
ANTHONY TOMMASINI, New York Philharmonic, full review.
