"Safe" sums up the Colorado Symphony Orchestra's 2010-11 season, and that makes sense, considering the orchestra will soon be without a music director and must continue its fight to sustain ticket sales in a stubbornly slow-to-recover economy.

The just-announced lineup mixes venerable stars such as soprano Kathleen Battle, violinist Itzhak Perlman and pianist Leon Fleisher with young up-and-comers, such as pianists Lise de la Salle and Monica Ohuchi.

The most exciting aspect of the schedule is the fresh, diverse lineup of guest conductors, seven of whom will make debuts with the symphony. Many are undoubtedly candidates to replace Jeffrey Kahane, who is stepping down as music director in June.

In an interview last

week, James Palermo, the symphony's president and chief executive officer, again refused to say who might or might not be under consideration for the job.

"We're very, very quiet about that," he said. "Anybody you've seen or will see may be a possibility, but it changes daily. So we're not going to go there."

While a degree of privacy in this search is understandable, it can be argued that symphony supporters and the public at large, which supports the orchestra through its sales-tax dollars, deserve a greater level of transparency in the process. But for now, everyone outside the symphony is just left guessing.

Because orchestras often look for candidates who contrast with their previous music conductor, it's possible the CSO might hire a European conductor because both Kahane and his predecessor, Marin Alsop, are American.

That likelihood is reinforced by this latest round of guest conductors, many of whom are, indeed, European. Among them:

Arild Remmereit (Nov. 20-21). The Norwegian maestro's biography trumpets his five important debuts in 2005, including those with the Pittsburgh and Vienna symphonies. But apparently, he has no permanent post.

Hannu Lintu (March 4-5,

2011). Finland has produced more than its share of fine conductors in recent decades. Among its latest up-and-comers is Hannu Lintu, artistic director of Finland's Tampere Philharmonic.

Juanjo Mena (April 8-10, 2011). This Spanish conductor, who formerly served as music director of the Bilbao Symphony, guest-conducted the prestigious Philadelphia Orchestra in January.

There is an American premiere and a few other notable contemporary works in the 2010-11 season, such as Edgar Meyer's Triple Concerto for Banjo, Double Bass and Tabla and Tan Dun's "Crouching Tiger Concerto."

But there is no commissioned work and no presentation of a milestone contemporary masterwork like the symphony's May performances of John Adams' homage to the victims of 9/11, "On the Transfiguration of Souls."

There is also nothing comparable to last fall's extraordinary two-weekend Rachmaninoff festival, in which the charismatic Olga Kern played all of the composer's works for keyboard and orchestra, creating a local sensation, with audiences growing as the event progressed.

The biggest change is the addition of Inside the Score, a series of seven thematic programs, ranging from tango to an examination of Beethoven's deafness. Music will be explored via multimedia presentations and sometimes supplemented with dancers and other extras.

Inside the Score, which is targeted in part to people who don't regularly attend symphony concerts or might be intimidated by classical music, can be a valuable component in broadening the orchestra's offerings.

But the series, which the symphony has tried previously in a slightly different form, is not the kind of more sweeping, imaginative initiative that will take this orchestra or symphonic music in general boldly into the future.

With classical audiences growing older and shrinking, orchestras have to find ways to reach new, younger listeners by putting greater emphasis on new brands of inventive classical crossover and rethinking the traditional two-hour concert structure.

Palermo promises additional innovative projects over the next three years, and it will be fascinating to see what those are.

Season tickets go on sale March 19. Call 303-623-7876 or visit colorado symphony.org.

Kyle MacMillan: 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com