BSO 2018/19 Season - Concert Previews

BSO Associate Conductor Ken-David Masur leads four very special performances Thursday, October 19- Tuesday, October 24 of the incidental music Edvard Grieg wrote for Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt. Extremely popular and well-known in the context of the two concert suites Grieg constructed later, this music is rarely heard in its original, complete form. (Its last complete BSO performances were led by Mr. Masur's father, Kurt, in 1985.) These concerts provide an even rarer opportunity for audiences to experience a new stage adaptation of the work by director Bill Barclay, set designer Cristina Todesco, and costume designer Kathleen Doyle, the same team behind the BSO's concert-staged performances of Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream in January 2016. In addition to Mr. Masur and the orchestra, the adaptation will include a cast of actors, soprano Camilla Tilling, and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, James Burton, conductor. To open the program, Mr. Masur leads the orchestra in Beethoven's incidental music to Egmont.

BSO Associate Conductor Ken-David Masur leads four very special performances Thursday, October 19- Tuesday, October 24 of the incidental music Edvard Grieg wrote for Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt. Extremely popular and well-known in the context of the two concert suites Grieg constructed later, this music is rarely heard in its original, complete form. (Its last complete BSO performances were led by Mr. Masur's father, Kurt, in 1985.) These concerts provide an even rarer opportunity for audiences to experience a new stage adaptation of the work by director Bill Barclay, set designer Cristina Todesco, and costume designer Kathleen Doyle, the same team behind the BSO's concert-staged performances of Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream in January 2016. In addition to Mr. Masur and the orchestra, the adaptation will include a cast of actors, soprano Camilla Tilling, and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, James Burton, conductor. To open the program, Mr. Masur leads the orchestra in Beethoven's incidental music to Egmont

Outstanding American violinist Hilary Hahn returns to Symphony Hall for her first appearances with the BSO since 2010 in three performances of Dvořák's Violin Concerto Thursday, October 12-Saturday, October 14. Conducting the concerts is Spanish-born maestro and music director of the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg Gustavo Gimeno, who makes his Symphony Hall debut. Mr. Gimeno opens the program with György Ligeti's early, Bartók-influenced Concert Românesc, partly based on Romanian folk music. Robert Schumann's Symphony No. 1, Spring, was inspired by the composer's wife, Clara, who soon after their marriage encouraged him to write a symphony. It was premiered by his good friend Felix Mendelssohn.

Outstanding American violinist Hilary Hahn returns to Symphony Hall for her first appearances with the BSO since 2010 in three performances of Dvořák's Violin Concerto Thursday, October 12-Saturday, October 14. Conducting the concerts is Spanish-born maestro and music director of the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg Gustavo Gimeno, who makes his Symphony Hall debut. Mr. Gimeno opens the program with György Ligeti's early, Bartók-influenced Concert Românesc, partly based on Romanian folk music. Robert Schumann's Symphony No. 1, Spring, was inspired by the composer's wife, Clara, who soon after their marriage encouraged him to write a symphony. It was premiered by his good friend Felix Mendelssohn.

BSO Associate Conductor Ken-David Masur leads four very special performances Thursday, October 19- Tuesday, October 24 of the incidental music Edvard Grieg wrote for Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt. Extremely popular and well-known in the context of the two concert suites Grieg constructed later, this music is rarely heard in its original, complete form. (Its last complete BSO performances were led by Mr. Masur's father, Kurt, in 1985.) These concerts provide an even rarer opportunity for audiences to experience a new stage adaptation of the work by director Bill Barclay, set designer Cristina Todesco, and costume designer Kathleen Doyle, the same team behind the BSO's concert-staged performances of Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream in January 2016. In addition to Mr. Masur and the orchestra, the adaptation will include a cast of actors, soprano Camilla Tilling, and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, James Burton, conductor.

Outstanding American violinist Hilary Hahn returns to Symphony Hall for her first appearances with the BSO since 2010 in three performances of Dvořák's Violin Concerto Thursday, October 12-Saturday, October 14. Conducting the concerts is Spanish-born maestro and music director of the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg Gustavo Gimeno, who makes his Symphony Hall debut. Mr. Gimeno opens the program with György Ligeti's early, Bartók-influenced Concert Românesc, partly based on Romanian folk music. Robert Schumann's Symphony No. 1, Spring, was inspired by the composer's wife, Clara, who soon after their marriage encouraged him to write a symphony. It was premiered by his good friend Felix Mendelssohn.

Outstanding American violinist Hilary Hahn returns to Symphony Hall for her first appearances with the BSO since 2010 in three performances of Dvořák's Violin Concerto Thursday, October 12-Saturday, October 14. Conducting the concerts is Spanish-born maestro and music director of the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg Gustavo Gimeno, who makes his Symphony Hall debut. Mr. Gimeno opens the program with György Ligeti's early, Bartók-influenced Concert Românesc, partly based on Romanian folk music. Robert Schumann's Symphony No. 1, Spring, was inspired by the composer's wife, Clara, who soon after their marriage encouraged him to write a symphony. It was premiered by his good friend Felix Mendelssohn.

Andris Nelsons and the BSO welcome violinist Gil Shaham, who has been a frequent guest at Symphony Hall and Tanglewood since his debut with the orchestra in 1993, for three concerts Thursday, October 5-Saturday, October 7 featuring Tchaikovsky's sweepingly passionate Violin Concerto. Opening the program is Moler by American composer and former Tanglewood Music Center fellow Arlene Sierra-a 2012 work inspired by the teeth-grinding habit brought out in a composer by a looming deadline. Closing the concerts is Rachmaninoff's 20th-century, hyper-Romantic Symphony No. 2.

Andris Nelsons and the BSO welcome violinist Gil Shaham, who has been a frequent guest at Symphony Hall and Tanglewood since his debut with the orchestra in 1993, for three concerts Thursday, October 5-Saturday, October 7 featuring Tchaikovsky's sweepingly passionate Violin Concerto. Opening the program is Moler by American composer and former Tanglewood Music Center fellow Arlene Sierra-a 2012 work inspired by the teeth-grinding habit brought out in a composer by a looming deadline. Closing the concerts is Rachmaninoff's 20th-century, hyper-Romantic Symphony No. 2.

Andris Nelsons and the BSO welcome violinist Gil Shaham, who has been a frequent guest at Symphony Hall and Tanglewood since his debut with the orchestra in 1993, for three concerts Thursday, October 5-Saturday, October 7 featuring Tchaikovsky's sweepingly passionate Violin Concerto. Opening the program is Moler by American composer and former Tanglewood Music Center fellow Arlene Sierra-a 2012 work inspired by the teeth-grinding habit brought out in a composer by a looming deadline. Closing the concerts is Rachmaninoff's 20th-century, hyper-Romantic Symphony No. 2.

The BSO and Andris Nelsons continue their multi-year survey of the complete Shostakovich symphonies with his Symphony No. 11, which the BSO has never performed. Conceived to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the first, failed Russian Revolution (thus the nickname "The Year 1905"), it was completed in 1957 and earned Shostakovich the prestigious Lenin Prize, a sign of considerable official approval. In keeping with its subject matter, the symphony makes extensive reference to Russian revolutionary songs. To begin the program, English pianist Paul Lewis is soloist in Beethoven's lyrical and poetic Piano Concerto No. 4, which famously opens with a disarmingly intimate passage for solo piano.

In several concerts this season the BSO celebrates the centennial of the great Leonard Bernstein, the legendary conductor, Broadway and concert composer, pianist, educator, and personality whose talent changed the course of American music. Born in Lawrence, MA, in 1918, Bernstein attended Boston Latin School and Harvard University. A member of the very first class of the Tanglewood Music Center in 1940 and a protégé of legendary BSO conductor Serge Koussevitzky, Bernstein remained a dynamic, irrepressible, and inspiring presence at Tanglewood for fifty years. Led by Andris Nelsons, this Opening Night program features popular vocal selections sung by host Frederica von Stade and acclaimed soprano Julia Bullock, as well as BSO principal flute Elizabeth Rowe. Bookending the program are the composer's delightfully varied Divertimento and familiar, vibrant music drawn from West Side Story.

Franz Joseph Haydn and Gustav Mahler defined the genre of the symphony during their respective eras- Haydn as one of its originators in the late 18th-century Classical era, and Mahler as revitalizer and innovator at the end of the Romantic era. Haydn's Drumroll Symphony-not performed by the BSO since 1995-was the next-to-last symphony he wrote, in the first half of the 1790s. Written nearly 100 years later, the first of Mahler's nine symphonies employs folk-music references and a conventional four-movement form that have their foundations in Haydn's time. Its expanded scope and instrumentation are evidence of the genre's 19th-century transformation as well as Mahler's own stretching of the form.

In several concerts this season the BSO celebrates the centennial of the great Leonard Bernstein, the legendary conductor, Broadway and concert composer, pianist, educator, and personality whose talent changed the course of American music. Born in Lawrence, MA, in 1918, Bernstein attended Boston Latin School and Harvard University. A member of the very first class of the Tanglewood Music Center in 1940 and a protégé of legendary BSO conductor Serge Koussevitzky, Bernstein remained a dynamic, irrepressible, and inspiring presence at Tanglewood for fifty years. Led by Andris Nelsons, this Opening Night program features popular vocal selections sung by host Frederica von Stade and acclaimed soprano Julia Bullock, as well as BSO principal flute Elizabeth Rowe. Bookending the program are the composer's delightfully varied Divertimento and familiar, vibrant music drawn from West Side Story.

In several concerts this season the BSO celebrates the centennial of the great Leonard Bernstein, the legendary conductor, Broadway and concert composer, pianist, educator, and personality whose talent changed the course of American music. Born in Lawrence, MA, in 1918, Bernstein attended Boston Latin School and Harvard University. A member of the very first class of the Tanglewood Music Center in 1940 and a protégé of legendary BSO conductor Serge Koussevitzky, Bernstein remained a dynamic, irrepressible, and inspiring presence at Tanglewood for fifty years. Led by Andris Nelsons, this Opening Night program features popular vocal selections sung by host Frederica von Stade and acclaimed soprano Julia Bullock, as well as BSO principal flute Elizabeth Rowe. Bookending the program are the composer's delightfully varied Divertimento and familiar, vibrant music drawn from West Side Story.