Hanson will wrap up his tenure at TSO

He will return as music director laureate in the 2015-16 season - his 20th since joining the orchestra in 1996 - to conduct two programs.

The TSO will begin an extensive search next season that will include inviting a few candidates to guest conduct. TSO Executive Director Andrew Birgensmith said he expects the orchestra will form a committee in the next month or so and "we'll start looking at how all of this will play out."

Hanson said he plans to reignite his career in Europe, particularly as an opera conductor. For his first six seasons in Tucson, Hanson commuted to Germany as music director and conductor of the Wuppertal Symphony and Opera, and he said he misses the opera repertoire.

"In the early 2000s, I realized I was going to have to put the notion of building a career on hold for awhile," said Hanson, the father of three boys. "I looked at my twin boys through my jet-lagged, weary eyes and realized that for nine, 10, 11 months of the year I was either flying, sleeping, eating or conducting. There was nothing else."

Hanson said he and his wife, German-born Petra Boehm, decided "we had to choose a continent. We chose Tucson based on the potential I saw here."

Hanson, who started his 16th season with the orchestra earlier this month, said he still sees potential in Tucson. He said he is proud of the orchestra's accomplishments over the past 15 seasons, notably the artistic growth that served the musicians well in the TSO's 2008 international recording with Canadian pianist Alain Lefèvre.

"I think the musicians and I have a great deal to be proud about," Hanson said last Thursday.

"The board has appreciated George's work throughout and has seen consistent growth and has seen the orchestra continue to grow and blossom," said Tucson Symphony Society Board of Trustees President Barbara R. Levy. "They are extraordinary musicians, and George has brought out their best."

Levy said she hopes the TSO's next conductor continues the community building Hanson has nurtured.

"And obviously we want someone who brings excitement and new ideas to the orchestra," she added.

Birgensmith said the ideal candidate also would put down roots in Tucson, as Hanson did.

"It is rare for an orchestra today to have a music director who is on the ground, living here like George has for the past 16 years," Birgensmith said. "Today most music directors live somewhere else. ... Having someone living here is really key to the fundraising."

Hanson said he already has a few guest-conducting jobs lined up, including a production of Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor" in Germany in December. He also will make his debut in Leipzig next spring.

Next summer, he takes over as artistic director of Oregon's Sunriver Music Festival, which takes place over a few weeks in August.

Did you know?

George Hanson is the longest-serving conductor of the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, beating out by a year Frederic Balazs' 15-year tenure in the 1950s and '60s. Hanson started his 16th season with the orchestra earlier this month.

Contact reporter Cathalena E. Burch at cburch@azstarnet.com or 573-4642.