BSO 2018/19 Season - Concert Previews

BSO Music Director Andris Nelsons speaks with Brian Bell about the Copland Symphony No. 3, performed on February 7-12, 2019.

Aaron Copland's Symphony No. 3, premiered by the BSO under Serge Koussevitzky in 1946, is a substantial, expressively rich work incorporating the composer's familiar Fanfare for the Common Man as the theme of its final movement. Video produced by Anthony Princiotti

Juanjo Mena speaks with Brian Bell about his upcoming BSO performances, being performed on January 31-February 5, 2019.

The Georgian violinist Lisa Batiashvili joins Andris Nelsons and the BSO as soloist in the important Polish composer Karol Szymanowski's Violin Concerto No. 1, a brilliant piece colored by both French Impressionism and German late Romanticism. American orchestral works open and close the concert. The St. Louis-born Olly Wilson, who died in March 2018 (and whose Sinfonia was commissioned by the BSO for its centennial), was a longtime faculty member at the University of California, Berkeley. His well-traveled orchestral work Lumina is a scintillating, single-movement orchestral landscape. Aaron Copland's Symphony No. 3, premiered by the BSO under Serge Koussevitzky in 1946, is a substantial, expressively rich work incorporating the composer's familiar Fanfare for the Common Man as the theme of its final movement.

Andris Nelsons dicusses Puccini, whose "Suor Angelica" is on an upcoming program.

A quick look at Duke Ellington's lush, impressionistic tone poem "A Tone Parallel to Harlem". Video produced by Anthony Princiotti

The popular Spanish conductor Juanjo Mena collaborates with Lithuanian violinist Julian Rachlin in Mendelssohn's evergreen Violin Concerto, among the most charming works in the standard repertoire. Joseph Haydn's Symphony No. 44, Trauer ("Mourning"), is one of the composer's most serious and closely worked symphonies, written during a period of experimentation that saw the composer rapidly expanding the potential of the genre. Closing the program are two works from the 1920s by the great Czech composer Leoš Janáček: a suite of music from his folk-tale opera The Cunning Little Vixen and his brass-dominated Sinfonietta, both of which feature the pungent influence of the Czech musical tradition.

Closing the program are two works from the 1920s by the great Czech composer Leoš Janáček: a suite of music from his folk-tale opera The Cunning Little Vixen and his brass-dominated Sinfonietta, both of which feature the pungent influence of the Czech musical tradition. Video produced by Anthony Princiotti

A quick look at Bruckner's magisterial Symphony No. 9, a work left just short of completion at the composer's death in 1896. Video produced by Anthony Princiotti

Andris Nelsons and the BSO are joined by the firebrand Chinese pianist Yuja Wang for Schumann's Piano Concerto, a work blending the composer's unique Romantic lyricism and brilliance. Video produced by Anthony Princiotti

Closing the program are two works from the 1920s by the great Czech composer Leoš Janáček: a suite of music from his folk-tale opera The Cunning Little Vixen and his brass-dominated Sinfonietta, both of which feature the pungent influence of the Czech musical tradition. Video produced by Anthony Princiotti

A quick look at Bruckner's magisterial Symphony No. 9, a work left just short of completion at the composer's death in 1896. Video produced by Anthony Princiotti

Andris Nelsons and the BSO are joined by the firebrand Chinese pianist Yuja Wang for Schumann's Piano Concerto, a work blending the composer's unique Romantic lyricism and brilliance. Video produced by Anthony Princiotti

An in-depth look at Sibelius's final symphony, No. 7. Video produced by Anthony Princiotti

An in-depth look at Sibelius's final symphony, No. 7. Video produced by Anthony Princiotti