In his first extensive remarks since the dismissal of conductor Andris Nelsons, Boston Symphony Orchestra president Chad Smith acknowledged an urgent need to repair relations with the orchestra’s musicians, who were blindsided by Nelsons’ ouster and are fuming at their bosses.
“We have a lot of work to do to rebuild trust with the musicians,” Smith said Friday, saying it will be “a major focus for me and the board going forward.”
Smith and other BSO leaders have come under withering criticism since they announced Nelsons’ contract would not be renewed, offering little more explanation than that the conductor wasn’t “aligned on future vision.”
Audiences want a fuller explanation and a coherent vision. BSO musicians, deeply loyal to Nelsons, said Smith no longer has their “trust or buy-in,” and are demanding leadership be more transparent about its plans for the future. They also worry Nelsons’ removal signals a new top-down governance culture at the BSO.
In an interview Friday, Smith sought to provide more specifics on the situation, offering a glimpse of what he hopes a post-Nelsons era might look like.
His remarks followed a tense meeting he and select board members had Thursday with musicians, which the players described as discouraging.
“We received no reassurance that there is a path to rebuilding trust,” the musicians said in a statement Friday. “The meeting itself was very difficult for the Players and, ultimately, frustrating: the lack of response to, or acknowledgment of institution-wide dysfunction, the inability to articulate any artistic vision, and the lack of accountability for managerial failure that led to the crisis, all went unaddressed.”
In response, Smith said the manner of Nelsons’ ouster was the result of a considered process that “rolled out in the way that it had to roll out.”
“The board made a deliberate decision about the future of the BSO,” Smith said, “and that is entirely what we have to focus on.”
He later clarified in a follow-up statement: “Of course I wish this had played out differently and that we could have landed at a more amicable resolution, but the negotiations led to this outcome.”
As for the future, Smith described an expansive — if still developing — plan that includes thematic festivals and artist residencies, renovation and possible expansion of Symphony Hall, and a yet-to-be-defined flagship education program.
Seated in his redecorated office, Smith said the BSO faces daunting financial and demographic challenges. Ticket sales are down, the organization has had to draw on its endowment, and its facilities are in major need of repair. Meanwhile, traditional audiences are aging out, the subscription model is fading, and competition to attract younger audiences grows fiercer.
He added that in order to gain new patrons, the BSO must target programming that appeals to different sectors of the city, citing as examples the business, scientific, and academic communities, as well as specific cultural groups.
“All of this work in programming is about rebuilding our audience,” said Smith. “The more we’re able to diversify what we put into our seasons — the way that we’re able to more directly connect with specific audiences — the more we’re going to be able to rebuild.”
He added: “We’re going to have to do it one audience at a time, and we’re going to have to understand that the classical music audience is not monolithic.”
In a separate interview, BSO board member Tom Kuo said he supported changes in terms of “moving forward and looking to the future.” He too acknowledged Nelsons’ departure could have been handled differently and has created a regrettable divide.
“We’re sort of in camps,” he said of the schism within the BSO. “I don’t think that’s in service of the long-term sustainability and thriving of this great orchestra.”
Kuo, who studied violin as a child and grew up listening to BSO recordings, said he joined the board because he was inspired by BSO’s tradition of excellence.
“But I’m also here because I know that that is not enough to sustain the organization going forward,” he said. “We are on the board, volunteers, who care deeply about this orchestra and this institution. No one’s here to tear it down. We’re here to build it up.”
Another board member, Ray Hammond, also sought to smoothen relations with the musicians while keeping the focus on the future of the symphony.
“Nobody takes that lightly,” Hammond said. “What we also can’t take lightly are the problems the orchestra faces, and what we have to do to deal with those over the next 5 to 10 years.”
BSO leadership has repeatedly declined to say where Nelsons and the board diverged on their future visions for the orchestra.
One persistent criticism of Nelsons, however, was that he never fully committed to Boston. His home remained in Europe, and he kept up a busy schedule, leading Leipzig’s Gewandhaus Orchestra and working as a guest conductor with other orchestras.
The result: BSO players may have loved Nelsons, but he never became a local emissary for the orchestra as his predecessors such as Seiji Ozawa had.
Smith said musicians will be central in the search for a new conductor. He added that whoever holds the role will be a “musician at the highest level of excellence.”
Kuo, meanwhile, stressed that the next director also has to be both a great leader of artists and “a true civic and community leader. That is not an easy combination.”
Orchestra members, for their part, have said they were skeptical the search would identify a musician better suited to lead the BSO than Nelsons. They added that because they were not consulted before he was dismissed, they have little faith their opinions will now be heeded.
“They keep telling us they’re not making artistic decisions, but they’re making a momentous artistic decision,” said one orchestra player who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. “We are being asked to trust people who have shown repeatedly that they’re not trustworthy.”
In their statement, the musicians continued to question “whether Player positions and opinions were accurately conveyed to the Board leading up to the decision to terminate Nelsons.”
Posed that question Friday, Smith reiterated that the vote not to renew Nelsons’ contract was the result of a “very considered decision.”
Going forward, he said, the BSO plans to present a symphonic cycle each year of the complete works of a great composer. Canonical works will also be paired with new compositions to “find connections” and offer context to both works.
Smith added the BSO also plans to partner with the MIT Media Lab next year for a thematic program that looks at music and technology. That’s in addition to artist residencies and artist-led series, such as a week of programming cellist Yo-Yo Ma is curating this summer at Tanglewood.
“Music doesn’t exist in a silo,” he said. “It is a part of our cultural ecosystem. We want to find those ways to connect more deeply to …specific audiences.”
Smith has previously said the BSO faces some $90 million worth of deferred maintenance. The organization is now contemplating a capital campaign to help renovate, and possibly expand, Symphony Hall. He said the campaign would also seek to “recapitalize” the endowment, which stood at $536 million at the end of the 2023 fiscal year.
He declined to cite a figure on the campaign, but said, “I will tell you that the BSO has attempted this many, many times over the past 40 years.” He added: “It’s going to be a big number.”
Finally, he said, the BSO hopes to create some type of marquee community-facing educational program.
“We need to do more here in Boston for young people,” he said. “It has to be built upon what our community needs.”
Editor’s note: Barbara Hostetter, chair of the BSO’s Board of Trustees, is the co-founder of the Barr Foundation, which has supported the Globe’s reporting on education and inequality.
Malcolm Gay can be reached at malcolm.gay@globe.com.