Manfred Honeck to help out in Aspen

Manfred Honeck, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra's music director, has recently stated that he is pulling back on guest engagements because of his primary committments with the PSO, Stuttgart Opera and the Czech Philharmonic. In fact, this season he has no guest conducting engagements at all, and he is pulling out of Stuttgart. But he apparently had enough time for Alan Fletcher, the head of the Aspen Music Festival and the former head of the Carnegied Mellon University School of Music and perhaps most importantly, a composer who has had a two PSO commissions in the Honeck era. Whatever the reason, Honeck will help Fletcher fill out the gap left by the abrupt quiting of AMF music director David Zinman. Honeck will conduct July 16, when he is in the United States to led the PSO in a short run out to a Festival near Montrea. Here's guessing he feels at home among mountains as specacular as the Austrian Alps of his homeland.