After a four-year national search, interrupted by a pandemic, the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra has elevated one of its own to music director: Geoffrey Robson.
The selection of Robson illustrates something fundamental about choosing leaders, whether they be of nonprofit arts enterprises like the ASO or Fortune 500 companies. The best leaders are rarely careerists, people seeking to burnish a resume so they can climb the next rung of the career ladder. The best leaders are often those who have fought in the trenches with the troops and whose leadership has earned the respect of their colleagues. The best leaders are those who believe in and are dedicated to the mission of their organization, not to furthering their own ends.
Such is Robson, who joined the orchestra in 2008 as associate conductor and a member of the violin section. “I don’t think we would have gotten through COVID if it hadn’t been for Geoff,” said ASO CEO Christina Littlejohn, who called Robson “the unanimous hometown hero.”
Robson has led the orchestra since Philip Mann, the former music director, left at the end of the 2018-19 season. And he guided the ASO through what was certainly one of the most difficult periods in the orchestra’s history, the COVID-19 pandemic, when regular concerts were suspended. During this unprecedented time, Robson created programming to keep the musicians employed and audiences engaged, and the ASO gained national attention with its “Bedtime With Bach” series of brief recorded performances.
Andrew Irvin, an orchestra member who served on the search committee, said the musicians’ input was “the core and crux of the decision-making process.”
Our congratulations to Geoffrey Robson and the ASO.
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