The New Year Brings New Talent to the New York Philharmonic

It is a maxim of orchestra management that when you hire a new music director, you should immediately start looking for the next one.

Gustavo Dudamel arrives this fall as the New York Philharmonic’s music director designate, then as its music and artistic director in the 2026-27 season. No one is looking to replace him quickly, but even with an incoming superstar, any orchestra’s responsibility is to keep casting around for rising talent — to see who has chemistry with the players, who is worthy of being invited back and who might even be an intriguing candidate for a hopefully well-in-the-future opening.

The new year has brought some of this new blood to the podium at David Geffen Hall, with back-to-back debuts from two maestros in their 40s, of the same generation as Dudamel. I heard them on back-to-back evenings: Kevin John Edusei on Tuesday and Daniele Rustioni on Wednesday.

Both concerts were excellent. The Philharmonic has emerged from its holiday break sounding fresh and vigorous, yet open to a pair of conductors clearly interested in drawing out subtleties.

Edusei’s debut was perhaps the more impressive achievement, since this German musician, who is finishing a term as principal guest conductor of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra in Texas, was presenting a program of pieces that can be difficult to put across. Strauss’s “Also Sprach Zarathustra,” like all this composer’s tone poems, can come off leaden and overlong. Berlioz’s set of six songs “Les Nuits d’Été” can feel too delicate to really register in a big concert hall.

“Zarathustra” is, of course, famous for its swelling, blasting opening, the brass fanfare that Stanley Kubrick used so memorably in “2001: A Space Odyssey.” But much of the half-hour work is not in this triumphal vein; it’s evocative grumbling, chamber-style closeness, eerily murmured music.