The financial news is far from rosy, but there is good news this morning for the city’s classical music lovers. It looked to be a rudderless, vanilla season for the National Symphony Orchestra, without a Music Director since the departure of Leonard Slatkin at the end of last season. But the NSO has just announced a September surprise: veteran conductor Christoph Eschenbach (pictured), most recently of the Philadelphia Orchestra, will be appointed Music Director for the 2010-11 season. He will also hold the position of Music Director of the Kennedy Center, working with that organization’s president, Michael Kaiser, on concert and festival programming.

As Slatkin’s term ended and the future seemed very much unresolved, there was speculation about Eschenbach as a successor. We heard tell that some of the NSO musicians wanted Eschenbach, but it seemed financially impossible. Deep-pocketed orchestra patrons Roger and Vicki Sant appear to have helped matters, by donating another $5 million to the endowment funding the salary of the NSO Music Director. Sour relations with the Philadelphia Orchestra musicians reportedly brought Eschenbach’s tenure to an end there, but the conductor’s interaction with the NSO players has so far been more positive. Eschenbach brings considerable international renown (he is also Music Director of the Orchestre de Paris through 2010) and an active relationship with a recording company. As Eschenbach showed in his last appearance with the Philadelphians here in Washington, he has daring (not to say off-putting) taste in repertory choice and makes varied, beautiful, if sometimes unpredictable decisions at the podium. It all sounds like good news for Washington.