Summary: Listen to the concert preview. Making his BSO debut, Czech conductor Jiří Bělohlávek is chief conductor of the BBC Symphony and chief conductor designate of the Czech Philharmonic. The program opens with John Harbison's BSO-commissioned Symphony No. 5 (premiered in 2008) for baritone, mezzo-soprano, and orchestra, a dramatic, lyrical work setting poems inspired by the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. The program's second half features American pianist Jonathan Biss in Beethoven's equally dramatic and lyrical Fourth Piano Concerto. To finish, Beethoven's powerful "Leonore" Overture No. 3 offers another musical take on the transportive power of love.
