The tenure of Chad Smith, the innovative arts leader who last year left the Los Angeles Philharmonic to run the comparatively old-fashioned Boston Symphony Orchestra, is beginning to take shape.
In an announcement on Thursday, the Boston Symphony said that Andris Nelsons, its music director, would move to a rolling, evergreen contract rather than one with a fixed expiration date, and that he would take on a new, educational role as the head of conducting at Tanglewood.
Additionally, the orchestra appointed Carlos Simon to a newly created post of composer chair; and announced that it would establish the Boston Symphony Orchestra Humanities Institute, an initiative with the goal of expanding the ensemble’s relationship with Boston outside its storied concert hall.
“I came to the Boston Symphony with the idea that this is an extraordinary institution with a remarkable history,” Smith said in an interview. “But the opportunities of what we can do in the future were most compelling.”
This announcement is the beginning of that work, he added.
Smith took over at the Boston Symphony last fall after two decades at the Los Angeles Philharmonic, where, in shaping its programming, he played a large role in establishing the orchestra as one of the most creative and exciting in the country. In 2019, he became the Philharmonic’s chief executive.
The orchestra in Boston, while a perennial generator of new music, is widely seen as traditional. Thursday’s announcements draw from both of those reputations, with forward-thinking aspiration.
Nelsons’s contract as music director was set to expire at the end of the 2024-25 season; with the move to an evergreen one, it will automatically renew. And with his new title at Tanglewood, the Boston Symphony’s summer season in the Berkshires, he will take on a more educational role. Smith described Nelsons’s master classes as “revelatory.”
In a statement, Nelsons said: “It seems like just yesterday that I began my role as music director of the B.S.O. And yet, over the past 10 years, the B.S.O. has not only been a beloved orchestra, but my home.”
Simon’s appointment to the inaugural composer chair, endowed by Deborah and Philip Edmundson, will be for three seasons beginning this fall. More than a straightforward residency, the post was described by the orchestra as also curatorial, with a hand in programming, education and community initiatives. Simon — who has been the composer in residence at the Kennedy Center in Washington since 2021, where his term was recently extended until 2027 — has been an increasingly in-demand artist for the past decade, especially as classical music institutions started to diversify their repertoire after the murder of George Floyd.
His position is also meant to interact with the Humanities Institute, which will take shape as its leadership and staff are named. (The orchestra said it would hire a director of humanities, and appoint a humanities chair.) The Humanities Institute will be administered with the Tanglewood Learning Institute, whose Linde Center for Music and Learning opened in 2019.
Part of the idea, the orchestra said, is to tap into the rich, far-reaching history of both the Boston Symphony and its city, to generate themes in it programming and engagement with help from thinkers beyond the world of music.
“It allows the B.S.O. to get out of the walls of Symphony Hall and Tanglewood and create meaningful collaborations,” Smith said, “with the idea that through this, we can broaden the work that we do.”
