The Philadelphia Orchestra announced Monday that it has hired Esteban Batallán as its principal trumpet, luring the musician away from the Chicago Symphony for the 2024-25 season — and possibly longer.
While playing in Philadelphia, Batallán will enter a yearlong leave of absence from the CSO, where he currently serves as Chicago orchestra’s principal trumpet. He returns to play select subscription concerts next season, including a solo appearance in June 2025 conducted by music director emeritus Riccardo Muti.
Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association president Jeff Alexander announced the news internally to trustees this morning. In his own email to the Tribune, Alexander said current members of the CSO trumpet section will cover Batallán’s seat in the interim, with guest principals sitting in “from time to time.”
Batallán’s CSO seat is arguably the most coveted in the trumpet-playing world, its reputation forged through the long and transformative career of the late Adolph “Bud” Herseth. Batallán’s focused, coloristic sound established him as a candidate to watch in guest appearances with the orchestra before his appointment in 2019. He’s left a distinctive stamp on the orchestra’s sound in the years since, whether declaiming the beginning of Mahler 5 with a preacher’s conviction or, as in a recent Ravinia concert, tossing off a ragtime solo with waggish virtuosity.
It is currently unclear whether Batallán’s departure is final. Musicians have been known to return to the CSO after winning auditions with other orchestras. After being named principal clarinet of the New York Philharmonic, for example, Stephen Williamson joined that orchestra for its 2013/14 season before returning to the CSO. Former principal flutist Mathieu Dufour likewise saw out a three-month-long stint at the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2009 before returning to Chicago midseason.
More often, however, roving players break with their former employers permanently. Batallán’s predecessor, Chris Martin, left the CSO for New York in 2016. The year before, Dufour and then-principal oboist Eugene Izotov left the CSO for the Berlin Philharmonic and San Francisco Symphony, respectively.
That Batallán would consider leaving his seat at all is a staggering blow to the orchestra’s brass section, which is already contending with other transitions. Last week, the CSO posted auditions for a new principal trombone starting in the 2025-26 season, signaling the impending retirement of Jay Friedman, a cornerstone of the section since 1962. Friedman is one of the longest-serving orchestral musicians in the world, having been hired by Fritz Reiner and appointed principal trombone in 1965.
New principal horn Mark Almond, who joined the orchestra last season, was among the last of Muti’s hires before he stepped down as CSO music director in 2023. Almond was granted tenure earlier this year, making him the orchestra’s first tenured principal horn since Dale Clevenger’s retirement in 2013. David Cooper served as the CSO’s principal horn from 2019 to 2023 but was dismissed last season after being denied tenure, a decision some musicians and patrons considered contentious. (Cooper is now a tenured member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.)
Much like the academic tenure process, orchestral tenure confers significant job protections to musicians after a probationary period — no longer than two seasons, in the CSO’s case, but sometimes shorter at the candidate’s request. A committee of the candidate’s peers then votes for or against granting tenure. Its recommendation is presented to the music director, who holds the sole decision-making power in all tenure decisions.
According to Alexander, Muti will complete all remaining tenure deliberations when he returns to conduct the CSO this fall.
Going forward, future hires and their subsequent tenure decisions will be the domain of music director designate Klaus Mäkelä, appointed in April. Mäkelä won’t formally succeed Muti until the 2027-28 season, but the terms of his contract allow him to make personnel decisions in the intervening seasons.
He has his work cut out for him. Even if Batallán remains in the CSO, Mäkelä must hire a new principal trombone, principal harp, assistant principal flute, second oboe, bass clarinet, contrabassoon and three violas — including an assistant principal — in coming seasons. He will also adjudicate final round auditions for section violins and cellos this October.
Batallán declined to comment for this story. In his email to the Tribune, Alexander said he was aware of Batallán’s reasons for leaving the CSO but that they are “his reasons and not for me to share.”
When asked if the CSO planned to evaluate why it has lost two principal trumpet players in the span of less than a decade — positions most musicians would consider lifetime appointments, with few higher professional perches to scale — Alexander responded matter-of-factly: “Yes.”
Hannah Edgar is a freelance writer.