Naming Names In St. Louis

Sarah Bryan-Miller is not a popular individual with some St. Louis Symphony Orchestra musicians at the moment, due to her decision to break a little-known taboo in her reviews of the ensemble. Bryan-Miller is not known for overly caustic reviews, and doles out far more regular praise than some of her predecessors in the city, but last year, she made a decision to use her platform to address one of the problems that nearly every orchestra faces, but no one ever talks about. “There are several players [in the SLSO] who sometimes appear in the spotlight but are simply not up to the challenge. A couple of them are downright bad. And there’s no apparent end to the problem: In the absence of a music director, no one can fire an inadequate player. What to do? Last season, I reluctantly began naming names.”