While the appointment of Neeme Järvi in New Jersey may have come as a shock to the orchestra industry, the new partnership is already looking like a natural match. After all, Newark is not so terribly different a city from Detroit, where Järvi has spent the last 14 seasons. And the NJSO couldn’t ask for a more down-to-earth musician to match its down-to-earth base of operations: by all accounts, Järvi’s strength is in his ability to take music seriously without ever forgetting that he and his musicians are entertainers first. “Do you know what is the difference between God and a conductor?” he asks. “God doesn’t think he’s a conductor!”