FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: September 24, 2009
PROGRAM INCLUDES SHOSTAKOVICH’S SYMPHONY NO. 10, STRAVINSKY’S SCHERZO FANTASTIQUE, AND
RACHMANINOFF’S THE ISLE OF THE DEAD
MR. PETRENKO CONDUCTS CONCERTS OCT. 8, 9, AND 10,
BSO ASSISTANT CONDUCTOR JULIAN KUERTI
CONDUCTS THE PROGRAM OCT. 13
October 8, 10, and 13 at 8:00 p.m; October 9 at 1:30 p.m.
Young Russian conductor Vasily Petrenko makes his Boston Symphony Orchestra debut in an all-Russian program October 8-10. Mr. Petrenko leads the BSO in Stravinsky’s colorful Scherzo fantastique, Rachmaninoff’s atmospheric symphonic poem The Isle of the Dead, and Shostakovich’s powerful Symphony No. 10, one of the first major works of art created after the death of Stalin and the fall of his oppressive regime. This program replaces concerts originally scheduled to be conducted by Daniele Gatti. BSO assistant conductor Julian Kuerti will conduct the program on October 13.
Written between June 1907 and March 1908, Stravinsky’s Scherzo fantastique was one of his final compositions as an apprentice with Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, and some have noted a resemblance in spots to the older composer’s Flight of the Bumblebee, prompting Stravinsky’s publisher to concoct a scenario that Stravinsky’s work was about a day in the life of a beehive. It was this work that first brought Stravinsky to the attention of the great impresario Sergei Diaghilev, who heard a performance of it in 1909 and subsequently commissioned the ballet scores that catapulted Stravinsky into the musical limelight.
Rachmaninoff wrote his symphonic poem, The Isle of the Dead, between January and March 1907. He was inspired by a mysterious series of paintings of the same name by Swiss artist Arnold Böcklin, portraying a boat with a coffin on it, guarded by a white-robed figure, traversing a dark sea toward a rocky island, on which stands a tomb-like structure amidst cypress trees. Throughout the 20-minute work, the music is infused with the first four notes of the plainchant setting of the Dies Irae, which the composer used again and again in his music.
For self-preservation and to support his family, Dmitri Shostakovich was forced for much of his career to subjugate his social/political ideology to the dictates of Stalin. But while he was churning out a body of public music that Soviet authorities would consider appropriate to a Stalinist agenda, he was also composing a very different, intensely personal style of music for himself. When Stalin died in 1953, Shostakovich and other Soviet artists were finally allowed the freedom to make their true creative expression public. Just four months later, Shostakovich began writing his powerful, enigmatic Symphony No. 10, celebrated as one of the first major works of art created in post-Stalinist USSR, becoming a symbol in the country of cultural awakening following the demise of Stalin’s relentless oppression.
Photos and full artist biographies are available in the BSO’s online press kit at www.bso.org/presskit.
VASILY PETRENKO
Gramophone’s 2007 Young Artist of the Year, Vasily Petrenko is the chief conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, for which he was recently awarded Honorary Doctorates by the University of Liverpool and Liverpool Hope University in recognition of his immense impact on the orchestra as well as the city’s cultural scene. He is the youngest conductor ever assigned to the post, with a contract extending to 2015. He is also principal conductor of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. Born in 1976, Mr. Petrenko started his music education at the St. Petersburg Capella Boys Music School – the oldest music school in Russia. He then studied at the St. Petersburg Conservatoire and has also participated in master classes with such major figures as Mariss Jansons, Yuri Temirkanov and Esa-Pekka Salonen. Highlights of the 2009/10 season and beyond include debuts with the Philharmonia, London Philharmonic, Russian National Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, Frankfurt and Finnish Radio Symphonies, NHK Symphony Orchestra and Accademia di Santa Cecilia. After making a series of highly successful U.S. debuts last season (including Dallas, Baltimore, Cincinnati, and St. Louis Symphony Orchestras), he will debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Atlanta Symphony, and San Francisco Symphony in 2010, and the Philadelphia and Minnesota Orchestras and National Symphony Orchestra Washington in 2011. His repertoire of more than 30 operas includes Le Villi, I due Foscari,and Boris Godounov (Netherlands Reisopera) and Pique Dame (Hamburg State Opera). Future plans include his debuts at Glyndebourne Festival Opera (Macbeth), and the Opera de Paris (Eugene Onegin). Recordings with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra include a rare double bill of Fleishman’s Rothschild’s Violin and Shostakovich’s The Gamblers, and a disc of suites from Tchaikovsky’s ballets. Recently released are his debut recordings for Naxos of Tchaikovsky’s Manfred Symphony, Liszt Piano Concertos, and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 11.
JULIAN KUERTI
Now in his third season as an assistant conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Julian Kuerti was appointed to that position by James Levine in February 2007 and made his BSO debut with subscription concerts in March 2008, leading music of Knussen, Dvorák, and Beethoven (the Emperor Concerto, with soloists Leon Fleisher and, as a last-minute replacement in the final performance, Mr. Kuerti’s father, the famed pianist Anton Kuerti). During the 2008 Tanglewood season, he substituted at short notice for James Levine, leading a program of Haydn, Bach, Mozart, and Schubert with pianist Peter Serkin. He has also appeared with the Boston Symphony Chamber Players. He served as assistant conductor to Iván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra and has conducted extensively in Europe and in North and South America, including concerts with the Toronto, Edmonton and Victoria Symphony orchestras, the National Symphony Orchestra, and Berliner Symphoniker. Born in Toronto in 1976 into a musical family, Mr. Kuerti began his training on the violin. While completing an honors degree in engineering and physics at the University of Toronto, he was also concertmaster and soloist with various orchestras. He began his conducting studies in 2000 at the University of Toronto. That summer he was accepted as a student at the renowned Pierre Monteux School for Conductors in Maine, where he studied with Michael Jinbo and Claude Monteux. In 2005, Mr. Kuerti was a Fellow of the Tanglewood Music Center, where he worked with James Levine, Kurt Masur, Stefan Asbury, and Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos. Mr. Kuerti is the founder and artistic director of Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop in Berlin, with which he recorded a debut CD for Sony/BMG with Italian cellist/composer Giovanni Sollima.
TICKET INFORMATION
Tickets for the regular-season Boston Symphony Orchestra concerts on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, as well as Friday afternoons, are priced from $29 to $105; concerts on Friday and Saturday evenings and Sunday afternoons are priced from $30 to $115. Open rehearsal tickets are priced at $19 each (general admission). Tickets may be purchased by phone through SymphonyCharge (617-266-1200 or 888-266-1200), online through the BSO’s website (www.bso.org), or in person at the Symphony Hall Box Office (301 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston). There is a $5.50 service fee for all tickets purchased online or by phone through SymphonyCharge.
American Express, MasterCard, Visa, Diners Club, and Discover, as well as personal checks (in person or by mail) and cash (in person only) are all accepted at the Symphony Hall Box Office. A limited number of rush tickets for Boston Symphony Orchestra subscription concerts on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and Friday afternoons are set aside to be sold on the day of a performance. These tickets are sold at $9 each, one to a customer, at the Symphony Hall Box Office on Fridays beginning at 10 a.m. and Tuesdays and Thursdays beginning at 5 p.m. Gift certificates are available in any amount and may be used toward the purchase of tickets (subject to availability) to any Boston Symphony Orchestra or Boston Pops performance at Symphony Hall or Tanglewood. Gift certificates may also be used at the Symphony Shop to purchase merchandise.
Patrons with disabilities can access Symphony Hall through the Massachusetts Avenue lobby or the Cohen Wing on Huntington Avenue. An access service center, accessible restrooms, and elevators are available inside the Cohen Wing entrance. For ticket information, call the Disability Services Information Line at 617-638-9431 or TDD/TTY 617-638-9289.
PRE-CONCERT TALKS
The Boston Symphony Orchestra offers 30-minute Pre-Concert Talks in Symphony Hall before all BSO subscription concerts, beginning at 6:45 p.m. prior to the 8 p.m. evening concerts and at 12:15 p.m. prior to Friday-afternoon concerts. Open Rehearsal Talks begin one hour before the start of all Thursday-morning and Wednesday-evening Open Rehearsals. These informative talks, which include recorded musical examples, enhance the concert going experience by providing valuable insight into the music being performed.
RADIO BROADCASTS, STREAMING, PODCASTS, AND “CLASSICAL COMPANION”
The Boston Symphony Orchestra’s extensive website, www.bso.org is the largest and most-visited orchestral website in the country, receiving more than 7.5 million visitors annually and generating $48 million in revenue since its launch in 1996. The BSO’s website offers fans information and music beyond the concert hall, providing interactive new media that includes “Classical Companion,” an interactive supplement of special BSO concerts that provides interviews with composers and performers, archival images, and video and sound clips. BSO Concert Preview Podcasts, focusing on each of the programs of the BSO’s 2009-2010 season, are available through www.bso.org and on iTunes.
BSO concerts can be heard regularly on the radio. The Friday-afternoon concerts are broadcast on WGBH 89.7 FM, and the Saturday-evening concerts are broadcast on WCRB 99.5 FM. WGBH also streams the concerts live through their website at www.wgbh.org.
SYMPHONY CAFÉ AND SYMPHONY SHOP
Symphony Café offers buffet-style dining from 5:30 p.m. until concert time for all evening Boston Symphony Orchestra concerts. In addition, Symphony Café is open for lunch prior to Friday afternoon concerts. Patrons enjoy the convenience of pre-concert dining at the Café in the unique ambiance of historic Symphony Hall. The cost of dinner is $32.50 per person; the cost of lunch is $19.00. The Café is located in Higginson Hall; patrons enter through the Cohen Wing entrance on Huntington Avenue. Please call 617-638-9328 for reservations.
The Symphony Shop, located in the Cohen Wing on Huntington Avenue, is open Tuesday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday from noon to 6 p.m., and from one hour before concert time through intermission. A satellite shop, located on the first-balcony level, is open only during concerts. Merchandise may also be purchased by visiting the BSO website at www.bso.org.
SYMPHONY HALL TOURS
The Boston Symphony Association of Volunteers offers free public tours of Symphony Hall Wednesdays at 4:00 p.m. (September 30 – December 9, 2009 and January 1 – June 23, 2010), and the second Saturday of every month at 2:00 p.m. (October 10 – December 12 and January 9 – June 12, 2010) during the BSO season. Tours begin at the Massachusetts Avenue lobby entrance. Schedule subject to change. Please email bsav@bso.org, or call 617-638-9391 to confirm specific dates and times.
SPONSORSHIPS
UBS will continue its partnership with the Boston Symphony Orchestra as its exclusive season sponsor, building on the mutually successful partnership that began in 2003. EMC Corporation is the supporting partner of the 2009-10 BSO season. Pre-concert Talks and the Symphony Cafe are supported by New England Coffee, official coffee of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The Fairmont Copley Plaza Boston, together with Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, is the official hotel of the BSO. Commonwealth Worldwide Chauffeured Transportation is the official chauffeured transportation provider of the BSO.
All programs and artists are subject to change. For current program information, dial 617-CONCERT (266-2378). For further information, call the Boston Symphony Orchestra at 617-266-1492. The Boston Symphony Orchestra is online at www.bso.org.
PRESS CONTACTS:
Bernadette Horgan, Director of Public Relations (bhorgan@bso.org) 617-638-9285
Kathleen Drohan, Associate Director of Public Relations (kdrohan@bso.org) 617-638-9286
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BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA PROGRAM LISTING, OCTOBER 8-13, 2009
Thursday October 8, 8 p.m.
Friday Oct. 9, 8 p.m.
Saturday, Oct. 10, 8 p.m.
Tuesday Oct. 13, 8 p.m.
BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
VASILY PETRENKO, conductor (October 8, 9, 10)
JULIAN KUERTI, conductor (October 13)
STRAVINSKY Scherzo fantastique
RACHMANINOFF The Isle of the Dead, Symphonic poem
SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 10
Download this Press Release:
BSO Press Release, September 24, 2009
