So Kent Nagano is officially taking over the reins in Montreal. But his contract with the orchestra doesn’t begin until the fall of 2006, and he’ll conduct only two weeks of the 2004-05 season, due to Nagano’s prior commitment to Berlin’s Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester. Furthermore, Nagano is already speaking out on the necessity of a new concert hall for the MSO, a project which has consistently gone nowhere with the provincial government of Quebec. And how much does a top-flight conductor make these days, anyway? No one at the MSO is saying, but it’s a good bet that the orchestra’s annual budget (currently CAN$18-$19 million) will have to rise to meet Nagano’s salary.