De Waart to return

Globe-hopping conductor Edo de Waart will return to the Twin Cities as an artistic partner of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra.

He left the Twin Cities in 1995, after nine years as music director of the Minnesota Orchestra.

De Waart, 66, will join the SPCO for four seasons beginning in 2010, it was announced Wednesday. He will conduct here three weeks each season.

De Waart is credited with being tough and with giving the Minnesota Orchestra a needed makeover. The St. Paul ensemble isn't in need of a disciplinarian, said John Mangum, the SPCO's vice president for artistic planning. But de Waart is seen as a complement to other artistic partners, including soprano Dawn Upshaw and pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard, who are better known as musicians than conductors.

"With his roots in chamber music but with four decades in large orchestras and opera, Edo will bring a perspective to us that is very different from anyone else on the artistic-partners roster," Mangum said. "He looks at it through a very different lens."

The Dutch-born conductor has guested and recorded with orchestras around the world and held posts in recent years in Hong Kong, Sydney and the Netherlands.

He led the San Francisco Symphony from 1977 to 1985, and brought violinist Jorja Fleezanis from there to Minneapolis, where she is still concertmaster of the Minnesota Orchestra.

De Waart will lead a concert opera by either Mozart or Strauss with the SPCO in January 2010, Mangum said.

As previously announced, De Waart will become music director of the Milwaukee Symphony in 2010-11.

The two posts in the Midwest reflect De Waart's stated desire to give his family, which includes two young children, ages 5 and 7, a more settled life. De Waart and his sixth wife, Rebecca, have bought a house near Madison, Wis., where she grew up.