Absentee Conductors Need Not Apply

When the board and management of the San Antonio Symphony made the decision not to renew music director Larry Rachleff’s contract recently, it caught the orchestra, the public, and the entire industry by surprise. But board members insist that, while they respect Rachleff as a conductor, they feel strongly that his primary job as a professor at Rice University in Houston, where he lives, was at odds with the needs of the SAS.