New DSO oboist raring to go — as soon as he graduates

• He beat 105 other candidates to replace principal Don Baker%2C who retired last year after 41 years.
• Alex Kinmonth%2C 21%2C is a senior at the Juilliard School in New York and scheduled to graduate in May.
• Kinmonth took up the violin at 5 and added the oboe to his repertoire at age 9.
• He participated in the 2010 National Junior Olympics for fencing and likes soccer and pole vaulting.

The Detroit Symphony Orchestra's newly hired principal oboist Alexander Kinmonth has a lot to do before he takes his place next fall at the center of the wind section on stage at Orchestra Hall.

He's got a two-month summer gig at the Tanglewood Music Center in Massachusetts and a week at the Mainly Mozart Festival in San Diego. Of course, he also has to relocate to Detroit and find a place to live. Oh, and one more thing:

He has to graduate from college.

Kinmonth, 21, is a senior at the Juilliard School in New York and scheduled to graduate in May. He'll become one of the youngest principal players in a major American orchestra and one of the youngest titled players in DSO history when he assumes his post. He turns 22 in June.

Going straight from Juilliard to the principal oboe job at an orchestra like the DSO is akin to jumping straight from a college baseball team to starting shortstop for the Tigers with no time in the minor leagues.

Kinmonth's appointment also puts an exclamation point on the rapid transformation of the DSO under music director Leonard Slatkin, who has been rebuilding the ensemble following the epic six-month musicians strike in 2010-11 that threatened to push the orchestra into bankruptcy. Since the start of Slatkin's tenure in 2008, he has appointed 10 current principal players and 27 total musicians, about a third of the ensemble.

Kinmonth, a native of a Carlisle, Mass., a bedroom community northwest of Boston, beat out 105 other candidates to replace Don Baker, who retired last year after 41 years with the DSO. Kinmonth won the audition in December and played two trial weeks with the DSO in February during the orchestra's Tchaikovsky Festival.

(Kinmonth can be seen in a close-up at the 1:44 mark in the video below.)

"I feel very lucky that I got the position," said Kinmonth. "I'm nervous just because it's a big job and everyone is expecting a lot from me. But I also think I have the capability to do a really good job, and I'm really excited at the opportunity to make great music with such great musicians. Playing with the orchestra during my trial was definitely one of the most fun experiences I've had in music."

Details of Kinmonth's contract were not disclosed. Minimum salaries in the DSO will be $86,200 next season, but principal players, whose contracts are negotiated individually, make more.

It's not unheard of for musicians to land orchestral principal jobs at a young age, but it's still out of the ordinary in a field where experience, confidence and familiarity with the repertoire can make all the difference in the fiercely competitive audition process.

Other high-profile young principals appointed in recent years include Chicago Symphony principal bassoonist Keith Buncke, who won his job earlier this year at age 21. (He left the Atlanta Symphony, where he had briefly been principal after winning the job at age 20 in 2014.) Philadelphia Orchestra tubist Carol Jantsch was 20 when she was appointed in 2006.

The DSO's former principal bassist Alex Hanna was 22 when he won his job in 2008. (He became principal bass of the Chicago Symphony in 2012.) Longtime DSO French horn player Mark Abbott was named assistant principal at age 18 in the early '80s.

Setting the tone

Section principals play a leadership role, establishing the basics of tone and phrasing for the ensemble and handling the solos. Principal oboe is a particularly critical chair, because the position is the de facto leader of the entire wind section, and most standard works in the repertoire include important, typically lyrical solo passages for oboe. The principal oboe also gives the orchestra its tuning note at the start of performances.

"The oboe sets, literally, the tone for the whole orchestra," said Slatkin, who pointed to the poise and musicality of the solos that Kinmonth played during the Tchaikovsky concerts. "Alex has all the gifts and should really solidify the orchestra the second he starts with us in September.

"The fact that I will no longer have to deal with a series of substitutes is exciting. Imagine, even with top-quality subs, having a Mercedes that has a couple BMW accessories. We need to keep the same model going as much as possible."

DSO auditions are held blind, meaning that the committee members can't see who is playing. DSO principal flutist David Buck said he was surprised to see someone as young as Kinmonth emerge from behind the screen. But Buck said that Kinmonth was already an astonishingly mature musician and would not have difficulty in shouldering the responsibilities of the job.

"He has a very projecting and beautiful sound, and I was really struck by the way it fit into the orchestra and the style of the way the wind section plays," said Buck. "He has very thoughtful approach to phrasing. ... The DSO plays with a big sound, so you need to have a strong core in your sound to project as a solo player. But you also have to do it in a way where you maintain elegance and beauty. Alex does that."

Coming from a musical family

Kinmonth, whose primary teacher at Juilliard is Nathan Hughes, principal oboe of the Metropolitan Opera, grew up in a musical household. His mother, Janet Kinmonth, who grew up near Ann Arbor, is co-owner of Keefe Piccolo, a small, high-end manufacturer in Massachusetts.

Alex Kinmonth took up the violin at 5 and added the oboe to his repertoire at age 9, falling in love with the double-reed instrument's unique and seductively singing tone. He set his sights on a professional career late in high school and focused his energy at Juilliard into preparing for big-time orchestral gig. He took about eight auditions last year and made it to the finals for the principal job with the San Francisco Symphony.

Kinmonth said the most important aspect of his approach to music was understanding what a composer is trying to say emotionally. "I try to get a clear idea in my head what the piece means emotionally and the little gestures that I can make to have those emotions come into play for an audience," he said.

Outside of music, Kinmonth participated in the 2010 National Junior Olympics for fencing, and he also enjoys soccer, pole vaulting and downhill mountain biking.

In addition to Kinmonth's post, Slatkin's other principal appointments have been concertmaster (first violin), cello, bass, flute, clarinet, trumpet, tuba, timpani and percussion. Slatkin said that orchestra was close to choosing a new principal violist. The principal second violin job remains open. Some of the orchestra's many openings were a result of people leaving in the wake of the strike, but most were the result of natural churn, including players winning jobs in more prestigious orchestras and retirements.

The DSO has been on a hot streak, balancing its budget for two consecutive years, seeing year-over-year increases in ticket sales and fund-raising and negotiating a new labor agreement with the musicians last year with little fanfare and even less angst.

Though the orchestra still faces significant financial challenges, its improving bottom line, flowering artistic initiatives, influx of talented new stars and the building of more respectful relationships between musicians and management have all helped to push the bad blood from the strike into the rear-view mirror.

"I think morale is very high," said Buck. "I wasn't here during the strike, so I can't speak to that. But I can speak to the way the group has come together and really worked to move past what happened as a unified orchestra. It's really been an inspiration to see that. I think other orchestras that went through difficulties haven't been able to that as we have."

Contact Mark Stryker: 313-222-6459 or mstryker@freepress.com