Veteran guest conductor and recent artistic advisor Jun Märkl is ISO's new music director

After an unprecedented break between music directors, the eighth man to hold the leading artistic position

Jun Märkl cements his ISO association with a five-year contract.

with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra was announced Tuesday morning at the orchestra's home, Hilbert Circle Theatre.

Jun Märkl, a Japanese-German musician whose guest ISO appearances on the Hilbert Circle Theatre podium go back into the 1990s, takes the logical step upward from several years as "artistic advisor" following the pandemic-shortened tenure of Krzysztof Urbanski (2011-2021).

As music director designate, Märkl will conduct the orchestra next weekend in two concerts of music by Richard Strauss. His five-year contract, to take effect at the start of the 2024-25 season, calls for him to  conduct nine weeks of concerts in Indianapolis each season, starting with six weeks the first season, in addition to other duties.

Currently, he serves as music director of the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, principal guest conductor of the Oregon Symphony, and, starting with the 2025-26 season, chief conductor of the Residentie Orkest in the Hague, the Netherlands. 

Turning 65 next month, Märkl will be the second oldest ISO music director, next to its founder, Ferdinand Schaefer. A German-born musician who knew Brahms, Schaefer was a fixture in Indianapolis music for decades before guiding the new ensemble established after a few early attempts at the permanence the ISO has enjoyed since 1930, when Schaefer turned 69 as first in the series. The new music director's extensive European reputation can bear comparison with the more UK-focused resume of Raymond Leppard, who became ISO music director at age 60 in 1987.

With the ISO and cellist Zuill Bailey, Märkl made an impact on compact disc in 2012 with the Telarc release of the Dvorak Cello Concerto, usually considered the greatest piece for cello and orchestra. His extensive discography with other orchestras includes more than 50 CDs, according to his website.

The new music director's many concert appearances with the ISO are too numerous to list here. His years-long good reputation with ISO musicians was confirmed today in a statement by concertmaster Kevin Lin, who said that Märkl's "inspiring leadership and instinctive musicality will honor the historical provenance of the ISO while leading our orchestra to even greater musical heights."

Here are some of my favorites:

*His contribution to Urbanski's "Out of This World" or "Cosmos" festival in the winter of 2016, when his affinity for German music let the ISO deliver its first performance of Paul Hindemith's "Harmonie der Welt" symphony in a program linked to Gustav Holst's "The Planets."

*He also achieved wonders with the ISO in a musically far-ranging seas-and-oceans program of Elgar, Britten, Ravel, and Debussy in 2018.

*Further saturation in German music, plus his deftness in assembling great music in new arrangements, was evidenced by the way he and the ISO presented music from Wagner's "Ring" cycle of music dramas,  also in 2018.

*Last June, there was a wonderful two-part Shakespeare Festival with some suitable staging that still worked to lift up purely musical enhancements of Shakespeare's genius, with new arrangements of Prokofiev's music for the ballet of "Romeo and Juliet."