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Casual FridaysAndris Nelsons conducts Maskats, Tchaikovsky, and Shostakovich

Casual Fridays
Andris Nelsons conducts Maskats, Tchaikovsky, and Shostakovich

Boston Symphony Orchestra

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Four Friday evening concerts — one each in November, February, March, and April — are designated “Casual Fridays” this season. You are invited to wear your favorite casual attire, and to arrive early to enjoy a free, pre-concert reception before you take your seat. This lower-priced series also features a special section for Conductor Cam seating, which allows patrons to watch the conductor from the orchestra's perspective. Immediately after the performance, head to the post-concert reception, where, along with enjoying live music, snacks, and a cash bar, you are invited to mingle and share what you’ve just experienced at the BSO concert.

TechSpace: ConcertCue and Conductor Cam

No need to store your electronic devices in this section! Keep your cell phone on (with sound off) and check out ConcertCue, an online tool featuring interactive program notes that sync to the live music of the performance. In addition, our Conductor Cam gives you the opportunity to see the concert from a different perspective – a musician’s! This view provides a live video feed of our music director, Andris Nelsons, from the unique perspective of a musician on stage.

Test your talent at the Instrument Bar

The Instrument Bar provides a fun opportunity to explore new sounds and try out instruments before you take your seats for the performance. Before the concert, discover your hidden talent and enjoy meeting other concert-goers.

 

Featured Performers & Ensembles

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Andris Nelsons, conductor View biography in full page >

The 2020-2021 season is Andris Nelsons seventh as the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Ray and Maria Stata Music Director. In summer 2015, following his first season as music director, his contract with the BSO was extended through the 2021-22 season. In February 2018 Mr. Nelsons was also named Gewandhauskapellmeister of the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. On October 5, 2020, the BSO and GHO jointly announced extensions to Mr. Nelsons current contracts. His contract with the BSO was extended until 2025, and his GHO contract until 2027. An evergreen clause in his BSO contract reflects a mutual intention for a long-term commitment between the BSO and Mr. Nelsons beyond the years of the agreement.

Mr. Nelsons’ two positions, in addition to his leadership of a pioneering alliance between the institutions, have firmly established the Grammy Award-winning conductor as one of the most renowned and innovative artists on the international scene today. In fall 2019 Mr. Nelsons and the BSO hosted the Gewandhausorchester in historic concerts at Symphony Hall that included two performances by the GHO as well as concerts featuring the players of both orchestras together.

In the 2019-20 season, Andris Nelsons led the BSO in repertoire ranging from favorites by Beethoven, Dvořák, Grieg, Mozart, Mahler, Ravel, and Tchaikovsky to world and American premieres of BSO-commissioned works from Eric Nathan, Betsy Jolas, and the Latvian composer Arturs Maskats. The season also brought the continuation of his complete Shostakovich symphony cycle with the orchestra and collaborations with an impressive array of guest artists. Mr. Nelsons’ work with the BSO resumes with his return to Boston at the start of 2021.

Andris Nelsons’ and the BSO’s ongoing series of recordings of the complete Shostakovich symphonies for Deutsche Grammophon has included the composer’s symphonies 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, and 11 (The Year 1905), and most recently a two-disc set pairing Shostakovich’s symphonies 6 and 7 (Leningrad). The cycle has earned three Grammy awards for Best Orchestral Performance and one for Best Engineered Album. The next installment, featuring symphonies nos. 1, 14, and 15 and the Chamber Symphony, Op. 110a (arr. Rudolf Barshai), is scheduled for release in summer 2021. Future releases will go beyond the symphonies to encompass the composer’s concertos for piano, violin, and cello, and his monumental opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. Mr. Nelsons’ other recordings with the orchestra include the complete Brahms symphonies for the BSO Classics label and a Naxos release of BSO-commissioned world premiere works by four American composers: Timo Andres, Eric Nathan, Sean Shepherd, and George Tsontakis.

The fifteenth music director in the history of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Andris Nelsons made his BSO debut at Carnegie Hall in March 2011, his Tanglewood debut in July 2012, and his BSO subscription series debut in January 2013. In November 2017, Mr. Nelsons and the BSO toured Japan together for the first time. They have so far made three European tours together: immediately following the 2018 Tanglewood season, when they played concerts in London, Hamburg, Berlin, Leipzig, Vienna, Lucerne, Paris, and Amsterdam; in May 2016, a tour that took them to eight cities in Germany, Austria, and Luxembourg; and, after the 2015 Tanglewood season, a tour that took them to major European capitals and the Lucerne, Salzburg, and Grafenegg festivals. A scheduled February 2020 tour to East Asia was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic emergency.

In his capacity as BSO Music Director and Gewandhauskapellmeister of the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Mr. Nelsons brings the BSO and GHO together for a unique multi-dimensional alliance including a BSO/GHO Musician Exchange program and an exchange component within each orchestra’s acclaimed academy for advanced music studies. A major aspect of the alliance is a focus on complementary programming, through which the BSO celebrates “Leipzig Week in Boston” and the GHO celebrates “Boston Week in Leipzig,” highlighting each other’s musical traditions through uniquely programmed concerts, chamber music performances, archival exhibits, and lecture series. The two orchestras have jointly commissioned and premiered works from Latvian, American, and German and Austrian composers.

In addition to his Shostakovich recordings with the BSO, Mr. Nelsons’ exclusive partnership with Deutsche Grammophon includes two other major projects. With the Gewandhausorchester he continues his critically acclaimed Bruckner symphonic cycle under the Yellow Label, of which four volumes have been released to date. His recordings of Beethoven’s complete symphonies with the Wiener Philharmoniker were released by Deutsche Grammophon in October 2019.

Mr. Nelsons frequently leads such orchestras as the Berlin Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. As an opera conductor, he has made regular guest appearances at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and the Bayreuth Festival. Born in Riga in 1978 into a family of musicians, Andris Nelsons began his career as a trumpeter in the Latvian National Opera Orchestra before studying conducting. He was Music Director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (2008-2015), Principal Conductor of Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie in Herford, Germany (2006-09), and Music Director of the Latvian National Opera (2003-07).

 
Andris Nelsons, conductor Daniel Lozakovich, violin
Daniel Lozakovich, violin View biography in full page >

Daniel Lozakovich was born in Stockholm in 2001, and began playing the violin in 2007, making his concerto debut with the Moscow Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra and Vladimir Spivakov two years later. Daniel has already performed as a soloist throughout Europe with orchestras including the the Orchestre national de France, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Vienna Chamber Orchestra, Tchaikovsky Symphony, Moscow Philharmonic, National Philharmonic of Russia, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, and the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra.

Recently, Daniel made his debuts with Leonard Slatkin and the Orchestre National de Lyon, Vasily Petrenko and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the Orchestre national du Capitole de Toulouse and Lorenzo Viotti, the Swedish Radio Symphony with Robin Ticciati, the Danish National Chamber Orchestra and Adam Fischer.

Daniel has a close collaboration with Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, since they played together during the New Year’s concert 2015 at the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in Moscow. He returned to the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra to perform the Beethoven violin concerto at the closing anniversary concert of the 15th Moscow Easter Festival, and later at the Stars of the White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg, also the Baltic Sea Festival in Stockholm’s Berwaldhallen and at the Rotterdam Gergiev Festival with Prokofiev concerto. Daniel opened the Münchner Philharmoniker festival, MPHIL 360°, alongside Maestro Valery Gergiev and Munich Philharmonic Orchestra with Mozart violin concerto. He also performed the Bach Concerto for Two Violins with Shlomo Mintz and the Cameristi della Scala and Daniel Cohen at the Crans-Montana Classics 2016 New Year’s Concert.

Daniel has a love of chamber music and has enjoyed collaborations with, among others, Ivry Gitlis, Daniel Hope, Martin Fröst, and Maxim Vengerov. In September 2015, Daniel recorded a selection of Bartók’s Violin Duos with Daniel Hope for Deutsche Grammophon, having previously performed together on ARTE’s Concert television program.

Daniel is a regular performer at the Verbier Festival and many other international music festivals, the Progetto Martha Argerich in Lugano, Corinthian Summer Music Festival in Austria, the Colmar Festival, Moscow Meets Friends, the International Mstislav Rostropovich Festival in Baku, and the Sommets musicaux de Gstaad, where he returned in February 2016 to perform both the Bach Concerto in A minor BWV 1041 and Concerto for Two Violins BWV 1043 with Renaud Capuçon and the Festival Strings Lucerne. He also made his chamber music debut at the Aix en Provence Festival de Pâques in 2016 with Renaud Capuçon, and Khatia Buniatishvili.

Highlights for the 17/18 season include: tours in Japan with Valery Gergiev at the Pacific Music Festival (PMF); Japan tour with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra conductor Andreas Orozko-Estrada; a return to the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic with Semyon Bychkov and the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse and Tugan Sokhiev; Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France with Krzysztof Urbanski; Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra with Lahav Shani. Daniel will have his debut concerts with the Boston Symphony Orchestra with Andris Nelsons at Tanglewood; Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra; Liege Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with Christian Arming; Orchester der Komischen Oper Berlin; Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai Torino; Gothenburg Symphony; Orchestra of Staatstheater Karlsruhe and Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra with Nikolaj Znaider. Furthermore, he will perform recitals at the Aix en Provence Festival; Salle Molière de Lyon; Les Grandes Voix – Les Grands Solistes; Tonhalle Zürich and return to the Verbier Festival.

At the Festival of the Nations Daniel has been awarded the prize of “The Young Artist of the Year 2017” and will perform with Munich Radio Orchestra and Mischa Damev.

Daniel has been awarded numerous international prizes including the 1st prize at the 2016 Vladimir Spivakov International Violin Competition; both the 1st Prize and the “Grand Prix” at the 2012 EMCY international music competition, “Ohrid PEARLS”, Macedonia; 1st Prize and the “Gulda Nutcracker” at the 12th Nutcracker International Television Contest for Young Musicians in Moscow, 2011; 2nd Prize at the “Yehudi Menuhin International Competition for Young Violinists”, Austin, USA, 2014, and the 2015 Manfred Grommek Prize from Kronberg Academy. Daniel won three prestigious awards: the “Viennese Classics”, “String Soloists”, and “Best Interpretation of Sarasate ‘Gypsy Airs’” at the 2014 International Summer Academy of the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna, Excelentia Prizes under the Honour Presidence of Queen Sofia of Spain.

In June 2016, Daniel Lozakovich signed an exclusive recording deal with Deutsche Grammophon and will begin his long-term cooperation with the label by recording two orchestral albums and a recital disc.
Since 2012, Daniel studies at the Karlsruhe University of Music with Professor Josef Rissin, and he is mentored by Eduard Wulfson. Currently, he is a student at the Collège du Léman in Geneva. In his limited spare time, Daniel enjoys playing football, boxing, tennis and chess.

 
Daniel Lozakovich, violin
Matthew Anderson, tenor
Matthew Anderson, tenor View biography in full page >

Matthew Anderson has been praised for the warm tenor voice and polished musicality he brings to oratorio, opera, and musical theater. An accomplished interpreter of the music of Bach, Mr. Anderson sings regularly as a soloist in Boston’s renowned Emmanuel Music Bach Cantata Series. He appeared at the Aldeburgh Festival as a soloist in the St. Matthew Passion and spent several summers at the Carmel Bach Festival. He has received particular acclaim for his portrayals of the Evangelists in Bach’s Passions, which he has performed throughout the United States. He is a two-time prizewinner in the American Bach Society Competition and winner of the second prize in the Oratorio Society of New York Solo Competition. Recent performances from Mr. Anderson’s varied repertoire include Handel’s Acis and Galatea (Damon) with the Mark Morris Dance Group; Bach’s Coffee Cantata with Boston Baroque; Mozart’s Requiem with the National Chorale at Avery Fisher Hall; Stravinsky’s Renard at Tanglewood and the Mostly Mozart Festival with the Mark Morris Dance Group; Handel’s Messiah with the Masterwork Chorus at Carnegie Hall; John Harbison’s Winter’s Tale with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project; Haydn’s Creation and Bach’s St. John Passion and Christmas Oratorio (Evangelist) with Emmanuel Music; Britten’s Serenade with Discovery Ensemble; A Little Night Music (Mr. Erlanson) with Emmanuel Music; and Britten’s Les Illuminations with the Orchestra of Indian Hill. Also recognized as a gifted performer of the American songbook, Mr. Anderson recently joined Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops for their Bernstein Centennial Tribute at Symphony Hall. In previous seasons, he appeared with the Pops in Carousel (Mr. Snow) and in celebrations of the music of Richard Rodgers and Cole Porter. An alumnus of the Tanglewood Music Center, Matthew Anderson studied Classics at Harvard and voice at the New England Conservatory. A Kansas native, he lives in Boston with his husband John and daughter Nora.

www.MatthewAndersonTenor.com
Matthew Anderson, tenor
Tanglewood Festival Chorus
Tanglewood Festival Chorus
Tanglewood Festival Chorus, (TFC) View biography in full page >

Tanglewood Festival Chorus
James Burton, BSO Choral Director and Conductor of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus
John Oliver (1939-2018), Founder

The Tanglewood Festival Chorus joins the BSO this season for performances of Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy and Poulenc’s Gloria led by Andris Nelsons (September 19-21, the opening program of the 2019-20 subscription season); Galina Grigorieva’s On Leaving and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 2, also under Maestro Nelsons (November 21-26); Duruflé’s Requiem under Giancarlo Guerrero (February 27-March 3), and Stravinsky’s Perséphone with Thomas Adès conducting (March 26-28). In addition, to mark the TFC’s fiftieth anniversary in April 2020, James Burton leads the ensemble in a post-concert Casual Friday performance of Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil (April 17). Originally formed under the joint sponsorship of Boston University and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the all-volunteer Tanglewood Festival Chorus was established in 1970 by its founding conductor, the late John Oliver, who stepped down from his leadership position with the TFC at the end of the 2015 Tanglewood season. In February 2017, following appearances as guest chorus conductor at Symphony Hall and Tanglewood, and having prepared the chorus for that month’s BSO performances of Bach’s B minor Massled by Andris Nelsons, James Burton was named the new Conductor of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, also being appointed to the newly created position of BSO Choral Director. Mr. Burton occupies the Alan J. and Suzanne W. Dworsky Chair on the Boston Symphony Orchestra roster.

Though first established for performances at the BSO’s summer home, the Tanglewood Festival Chorus was soon playing a major role in the BSO’s subscription season as well as BSO concerts at Carnegie Hall; the ensemble now performs year-round with the Boston Symphony and Boston Pops. It has performed with the BSO on tour in Hong Kong and Japan, and on two European tours, also giving a cappella concerts of its own on those two occasions. The TFC made its debut in April 1970 at Symphony Hall, in a BSO performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Leonard Bernstein conducting. Its first recording with the orchestra, Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust with Seiji Ozawa, received a Grammy nomination for Best Choral Performance of 1975. The TFC has since made dozens of recordings with the BSO and Boston Pops, with Seiji Ozawa, Bernard Haitink, James Levine, Leonard Bernstein, Sir Colin Davis, Keith Lockhart, and John Williams. In August 2011, with John Oliver conducting and soloist Stephanie Blythe, the TFC gave the world premiere of Alan Smith’s An Unknown Sphere for mezzo-soprano and chorus, commissioned by the BSO for the ensemble’s 40th anniversary. Its most recent recordings on BSO Classics, all drawn from live performances, include a disc of a cappella music marking the TFC’s 40th anniversary; Ravel’s complete Daphnis et Chloé (a 2009 Grammy-winner for Best Orchestral Performance), Brahms’s German Requiem, and William Bolcom’s Eighth Symphony for chorus and orchestra (a BSO 125th Anniversary Commission). On July 4, 2018, the Tanglewood Festival Chorus joined Keith Lockhart for the “Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular” on the Charles River Esplanade.

Besides their work with the BSO, TFC members have also performed with Zubin Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic and in a Saito Kinen Festival production of Britten’s Peter Grimes under Seiji Ozawa in Japan. The ensemble had the honor of singing at Sen. Edward Kennedy’s funeral; has performed with the Boston Pops for the Boston Red Sox and Boston Celtics; and can be heard on the soundtracks of Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River, John Sayles’s Silver City, and Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan. TFC members regularly commute from the greater Boston area and beyond to sing with the chorus in Boston and at Tanglewood. For more information about the Tanglewood Festival Chorus and upcoming auditions, please visit www.bso.org/tfc.

 
James Burton
James Burton, conductor View biography in full page >

James Burton was appointed Conductor of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, and to the newly created position of BSO Choral Director, in February 2017. He made his BSO subscription-series conducting debut in October 2018, leading the Tanglewood Festival Chorus in Maija Einfelde’s Lux aeterna. In August 2019 he led the Boston Symphony Children’s Choir and Boston Symphony Orchestra in the world premiere of his The Lost Words, a BSO co-commission, as part of the summer’s gala Tanglewood on Parade concert. In April 2020 he will conduct the Tanglewood Festival Concert in a post-concert Casual Friday performance of Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil to celebrate the TFC’s fiftieth anniversary. Mr. Burton made his debut with the Boston Pops in December 2017, returned to the Pops podium last December—as he will again for Holiday Pops concerts in December 2019—and led the Pops this past June at Tanglewood in a program celebrating Queen with Marc Martel.

Born in London, James Burton holds a master’s degree in orchestral conducting from the Peabody Conservatory, where he studied with Frederik Prausnitz and Gustav Meier. He began his training at the Choir of Westminster Abbey, where he became head chorister, and was a choral scholar at St. John’s College, Cambridge. He has conducted concerts with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Hallé Orchestra, the Orchestra of Scottish Opera, the Royal Northern Sinfonia, BBC Concert Orchestra, and Manchester Camerata. Opera credits include performances at English National Opera, English Touring Opera, Garsington Opera, and the Prague Summer Nights Festival, and he has served on the music staff of the Metropolitan Opera and Opera de Paris. Mr. Burton’s extensive choral conducting has included guest invitations with professional choirs including the Gabrieli Consort, the Choir of the Enlightenment, Wrocław Philharmonic, and the BBC Singers, with whom he performed in the inaugural season of Dubai’s Opera House in 2017. From 2002 to 2009 he served as choral director at the Hallé Orchestra, where he was music director of the Hallé Choir and founding conductor of the Hallé Youth Choir, winning the Gramophone Choral Award in 2009. From 2002 to 2017 he was music director of the Schola Cantorum of Oxford. Well known for his inspirational work with young musicians, he was director of the National Youth Choir of Japan in 2017 and founded the Boston Symphony Children’s Choir in 2018. Mr. Burton has given conducting master classes at the Royal Academy of Music in London and at the Tanglewood Music Center, and founded a scholarship for young conductors at Oxford. His growing composition portfolio includes works for commissioners including the National Portrait Gallery in London, the 2010 World Equestrian Games, the Choir of St. John’s College, Cambridge, and the Exon Festival, where he was composer-in-residence in 2015. His works are published by Edition Peters. As BSO Choral Director and Conductor of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, James Burton occupies the Alan J. and Suzanne W. Dworsky Chair, endowed in perpetuity.

 
Program Notes Audio
Arturs MASKATS - “My River runs to thee…”
(Homage to Emily Dickinson)
(world premiere; BSO co-commission) (15 min) 		Download Program Notes
TCHAIKOVSKY - Violin Concerto Download Program Notes Download Program Audio
SHOSTAKOVICH - Symphony No. 2, To October Download Program Notes
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