2022-23 Season Programs

Andris Nelsons opens the new BSO season with A Toast!, which John Williams originally wrote in 2014 to welcome Nelsons to the BSO. American pianist Awadagin Pratt, making his BSO debut, performs a work written for him, American composer Jessie Montgomery’s Rounds, and J.S. Bach’s Concerto in A. English composer Gustav Holst’s orchestral showpiece The Planets ranges from Venus’ sweet lyricism to Mars’ propulsive energy.

Opening Night at Symphony, a stand-alone fundraising event to benefit the BSO, will be set inside majestic Symphony Hall. The evening will featuring dynamic pianist Lang Lang performing works including Saint-Saëns' Piano Concerto No. 2 with Andris Nelsons and the BSO. Learn more about Opening Night at Symphony, including attending the full celebration.

Dynamic Chinese pianist Yuja Wang plays not one but both of Dmitri Shostakovich’s piano concertos, written 24 years apart, part of the BSO and Andris Nelsons’ multi-season exploration of the composer’s major works with orchestra. The concert closes with Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 100, whose nickname comes from the surprising appearance of percussion in the slow movement. The American composer Julia Adolphe, who has earned praised for the sonic and narrative inventiveness of her music, says of her new work, “Makeshift Castle captures contrasting states of permanence and ephemerality, of perseverance and disintegration, of determination and surrender.”

Andris Nelsons leads two works new to the BSO repertoire: the BSO-commissioned Starling Variations by American composer Elizabeth Ogonek and Dmitri Shostakovich’s rarely heard 1930 Symphony No. 3 for chorus and orchestra, an early, jingoistic hymn to the Soviet experiment, continuing Nelsons’ and the BSO’s multi-season survey of the composer’s complete symphonies. The Tanglewood Festival Chorus also joins the BSO for Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, sung in Hebrew and featuring Linus Schafer-Goulthorpe, boy soprano, as soloist, and American violinist Jennifer Koh makes her Boston Symphony Orchestra debut as soloist in Bernstein’s Serenade.

This week’s performances by the Tanglewood Festival Chorus are supported by the Alan. J. and Suzanne W. Dworsky Fund for Voice and Chorus.

Colombian conductor Andrés Orozco-Estrada in his BSO debut is joined by American pianist Emanuel Ax for Wolfgang Mozart’s high-spirited Piano Concerto No. 18. Hungarian composer Béla Bartók’s lurid Miraculous Mandarin Suite and the Romanian French composer George Enescu's folk music-inspired Romanian Rhapsody both make exciting and colorful demands on the orchestra.

After the performance, Emanuel Ax, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, and Director of Program Publications Robert Kirzinger will take questions from the audience. See what else makes this Casual Friday concert special >

Colombian conductor Andrés Orozco-Estrada in his BSO debut is joined by American pianist Emanuel Ax for Wolfgang Mozart’s high-spirited Piano Concerto No. 18. The familiar, yearning Romeo and Juliet Overture is one of several works Pyotr Tchaikovsky based on Shakespeare plays. Hungarian composer Béla Bartók’s lurid Miraculous Mandarin Suite and the Romanian French composer George Enescu's folk music inspired Romanian Rhapsody both make exciting and colorful demands on the orchestra.

Bonnie Bewick & Takumi Taguchi, violins
Steven Laraia, viola
Mickey Katz, cello
Traditional (Arr. ASLAMAZYAN) Selections from La Lyre armenienne
Fazil SAY String Quartet, Op. 29, Divorce
DVOŘÁK String Quartet No. 12 in F, Op. 96, American

Gustav Mahler’s intensely emotional Symphony No. 6, written in 1903–04, is arguably his most heartfelt symphonic statement — his wife Alma called it "the most completely personal of his works." The Sixth features three powerful and ominous hammer blows in its finale, which evidently represented for Mahler "three blows of fate."

Join us for more intimate performances with the Boston Symphony Chamber Players’ (BSCP) on Sunday afternoons at New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall. Founded in 1964, the BSCP combines the talents of BSO principal players and renowned guest artists to explore the full spectrum of chamber music repertoire.

with
David Deveau, piano

SCHUBERT Trio in B-flat for violin, viola, and cello, D.471
GÁL Serenade for clarinet, violin, and cello, Op. 93
Yehudi WYNER Into the Evening Air for wind quintet
MAHLER Quartet in A minor for piano and strings
STRAUSS arr. WEBERN Schatzwalzer, Op. 418
STRAUSS arr. SCHOENBERG Kaiserwalzer, Op. 437

Bonnie Bewick & Takumi Taguchi, violins
Steven Laraia, viola
Mickey Katz, cello

Traditional (Arr. ASLAMAZYAN) Selections from La Lyre Armenienne
Fazil SAY String Quartet, Op. 29, Divorce
DVOŘÁK String Quartet No. 12 in F, Op. 96, American

Japanese pianist Mitsuko Uchida joins Andris Nelsons and the BSO for Ludwig van Beethoven’s monumental Emperor piano concerto. Criticism in the Soviet press of Dmitri Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District put him in a precarious position with Soviet authorities. His response was the powerful and outwardly triumphant Fifth Symphony.

For this fall’s "What I Hear" event, Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer Caroline Shaw curates a program of chamber music in connection with the BSO's performance of her Punctum later that evening. New England Conservatory musicians perform her string quartets Valencia and Entr’acte, plus her works Aurora Borealis and Gustave Le Gray, along with selections from the string quartet of Maurice Ravel. BSO Assistant Artistic Administrator Eric Valliere moderates a conversation with the composer.

Caroline SHAW Valencia, for string quartet
SHAW Gustave Le Gray, for piano
SHAW Aurora Borealis, for soprano and piano
RAVEL String Quartet in F (movements I & II)
SHAW Entr’acte, for string quartet

Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer Caroline Shaw wrote her Bach-inspired Punctum originally for string quartet; the BSO-commissioned orchestral version was premiered in summer 2022. The second of his final trilogy of symphonies, composed in 1788, Wolfgang Mozart’s riveting No. 40 in G minor is for many his most familiar symphony. Richard Strauss’ amazingly vivid Alpine Symphony depicts the picturesque ascent and (much faster!) descent of a Bavarian mountain.

Julianne Lee and Sophie Wang, violins
Danny Kim, viola
Owen Young, cello
COLERIDGE-TAYLOR Five Fantasiestücke for string quartet, Op. 5
BRAHMS String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 51, No. 2

Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras (BYSO)
Adrian Slywotzsky, conductor
Genevieve Lefevre, narrator
PROKOFIEV Peter and the Wolf

Genevieve Lefevre is an actor, musician, and writer from Boston, MA who graduated from Harvard College in 2020 with a degree in Theater, Dance & Media. Recent acting credits include The Golden Goose with The Rev Theatre, Vindicta and Simulations with Anawan Street Productions, and Thumbelina: A Little Musical with the American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.). An original piece of hers, Wade, was featured in GRRL HAUS CINEMA’s Best of Animation as well. Genevieve is a 2015 BYSO alum (viola) and is thrilled to be able to collaborate with BYSO for a second year during the production of Peter and the Wolf.

BSO Assistant Conductor Anna Rakitina leads pianist Inon Barnatan in Sergei Rachmaninoff’s last piano-and-orchestra work, featuring both astonishing virtuoso passages and Rachmaninoff’s best-known melody. The orchestral suite from composer Elena Langer’s witty and touching opera Figaro Gets a Divorce is by turns mysterious, songful, and jazzy. Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, orchestrated brilliantly by Maurice Ravel, is a magical response to marvelous paintings.

Friday afternoon's performance by Inon Barnatan is supported by the Elfers Fund for Performing Artists.
Inon Barnatan’s performance on Saturday evening is supported by The Helen and Josef Zimbler Fund.

Performing with the BSO at Symphony Hall for the first time since 2003, renowned violinist Midori joins Israeli conductor Omer Meir Wellber in his BSO debut for Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s beloved Violin Concerto. Israeli composer Ella Milch-Sheriff’s The Eternal Stranger for narrator and orchestra relates Ludwig van Beethoven’s difficulty in society due to his personality and deafness to the hostility and rejection experienced by refugees and other “strangers.” The funeral march from the Eroica Symphony and the overture from Beethoven’s opera about a political imprisonment remind us of the composer’s abiding universal humanity.

Omer Meir Wellber, conductor
Midori, violin
Eli Danker, narrator

TCHAIKOVSKY Violin Concerto (35)
---- Intermission----
Ella MILCH-SHERIFF The Eternal Stranger, for narrator and orchestra (American premiere) Text in English (18)

BEETHOVEN Marcia funebre from Symphony No. 3, Eroica (15)

BEETHOVEN Leonore Overture No. 3 (14)

American conductor Alan Gilbert and frequent BSO guest Garrick Ohlsson premiere Justin Dello Joio’s piano concerto Oceans Apart, written for Ohlsson. Swedish composer Wilhelm Stenhammar’s wide-ranging 1911 Serenade has a satisfyingly symphonic scope. French composer Lili Boulanger’s impressionistic 1918 depiction of a spring morning and Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s celebratory Carnival Overture, from 1891, complete the program.

Alan Gilbert, conductor
Garrick Ohlsson, piano

BOULANGER D’un Matin de printemps (5)

STENHAMMAR Serenade (34)

---- Intermission----

Justin DELLO JOIO Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, Oceans Apart (world premiere; BSO commission) (20)

DVOŘÁK Carnival Overture (10)

Making her BSO debut, violinist Nicola Benedetti joins conductor Karina Canellakis in her Symphony Hall debut for Karel Szymanowski’s scintillating Violin Concerto No. 2 from 1933, his last major work. His compatriot Witold Lutosławski’s folk-music influenced Concerto for Orchestra (1954) helped establish his international reputation. Antonín Dvořák’s nature-inspired tone poem Wood Dove has not been played by the BSO since 1905.

Karina Canellakis, conductor
Nicola Benedetti, violin

DVOŘÁK Wood Dove (18)

SZYMANOWSKI Violin Concerto No. 2 (22)

---- Intermission----

LUTOSŁAWSKI Concerto for Orchestra (28)

For this winter’s "What I Hear" event, American composer Steven Mackey curates a program of chamber music in connection with the BSO's performance of his Concerto for Curved Space later that evening. New England Conservatory musicians perform his works String Theory, See Ya Thursday and Physical Property (with the composer on electric guitar), along with the second movement ‘Vivace’ from Beethoven’s Op. 135 string quartet. BSO Assistant Artistic Administrator Eric Valliere moderates a conversation with the composer.

Steven MACKEY String Theory, for string quartet and electronics
MACKEY See Ya Thursday, for marimba
BEETHOVEN String Quartet in F, Op. 135 (II. Vivace)
MACKEY Physical Properties, for string quartet and electric guitar

Latvian violinist Baiba Skride returns to Symphony Hall for Dmitri Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 2, written for the great Ukrainian violinist David Oistrakh in 1967. Johannes Brahms’ profound and majestic Fourth Symphony closes the program.

Hear introductory remarks from principal trombonist Toby Oft before the concert and stay after for a post-show conversation with Director of Program Publications Robert Kirzinger and violinist Baiba Skride.

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Baiba Skride, violin

SHOSTAKOVICH Violin Concerto No. 2 (33)

BRAHMS Symphony No. 4 (42)

Music Director Andris Nelsons leads the world premiere of a BSO-commissioned Concerto for Curved Space, for orchestra by Grammy-winning American composer/guitarist Steven Mackey, whose vibrant music embraces a range of influences, from Ludwig van Beethoven to modern rock. Latvian violinist Baiba Skride returns to Symphony Hall for Dmitri Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 2, written for the great Ukrainian violinist David Oistrakh in 1967. Johannes Brahms’ profound and majestic Fourth Symphony closes the program.

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Baiba Skride, violin

Steven MACKEY Concerto for Curved Space, for orchestra (world premiere; co-commissioned by the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Andris Nelsons, Music Director, through the generous support of the New Works Fund established by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.) (30)

SHOSTAKOVICH Violin Concerto No. 2 (33)

---- Intermission----

BRAHMS Symphony No. 4 (42)

Thomas Martin, clarinet
Michael Zaretsky, viola
Alina Polyakov, piano
REINECKE Trio for clarinet, viola and piano, Op. 264
MOZART Trio in E-flat for clarinet, viola and piano, K.498, Kegelstatt

Andris Nelsons and the BSO’s continuing tradition of performing opera in concert brings us excerpts from Richard Wagner’s early opera Tannhäuser, which had its premiere in Dresden in 1845. A German minstrel-knight, Tannhäuser (tenor Klaus Florian Vogt), struggles to reject the world’s sensual pleasures, represented by the "Venusburg Music" of the opera’s Act I. He is redeemed by the pure love of Elisabeth, sung by Amber Wagner, and with the help of the wise minstrel Wolfram, sung by Christian Gerhaher.

Sung in German with English supertitles

This week’s performances by the Tanglewood Festival Chorus are supported by the Alan J. and Suzanne W. Dworsky Fund for Voice and Chorus.

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Amber Wagner, soprano (Elisabeth)
Klaus Florian Vogt, tenor (Tannhäuser)
Christian Gerhaher, baritone (Wolfram)
Marina Prudenskaya, soprano (Venus)
Tanglewood Festival Chorus, James Burton, conductor

ALL-WAGNER program

Overture and Venusberg Music from Tannhäuser (25)

---- Intermission----

Tannhäuser Act III (60)

Exciting young English cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason makes his BSO debut in Ernest Bloch’s 1916 Schelomo ("King Solomon"), in which the expansively melodic cello role represents the voice of the king. Opening the concert is the premiere of a BSO-commissioned work by the talented Washington, D.C.-based composer Carlos Simon. Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 builds in excitement from its atmospheric introduction through its thrilling finale.

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Sheku Kanneh-Mason, cello

Carlos SIMON Four Black American Dances (world premiere; commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Andris Nelsons, Music Director, through the generous support of

the New Works Fund established by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.)

Israeli conductor Lahav Shani, making his Symphony Hall debut, and elegant French pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet perform Camille Saint-Saëns’ Piano Concerto No. 5, Egyptian, a brilliantly virtuosic but tuneful Romantic-era work for which Thibaudet is an ideal interpreter. Sergei Prokofiev’s delightful First Symphony was conceived as a 20th-century successor to works by Wolfgang Mozart and Joseph Haydn. Sergei Rachmaninoff’s ingeniously constructed, brilliantly colorful Symphonic Dances was his last finished work.

Lahav Shani, conductor
Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano

PROKOFIEV Symphony No. 1, Classical (15)

SAINT-SAËNS Piano Concerto No. 5, Egyptian (29)

---- Intermission----

RACHMANINOFF Symphonic Dances (33)

Join us for more intimate performances with the Boston Symphony Chamber Players’ (BSCP) on Sunday afternoons at New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall. Founded in 1964, the BSCP combines the talents of BSO principal players and renowned guest artists to explore the full spectrum of chamber music repertoire.

with
Alessio Bax, piano

Program to include:

Valerie COLEMAN Umoja, for wind quintet
PROKOFIEV Quintet in G minor for oboe, clarinet, violin, viola, and double bass, Op. 39

FRAME:
Bonnie Bewick, violin
Lawrence Wolfe, bass
Ken Bewick, guitar
with Bennett Konesni, vocalist

Blending their unique foundations of rock, classical and Celtic stylings, Frame’s music is a delightful mixture of songs and tunes playing on coastal themes, New England folk ballads, Celtic fiddle, and much more! Joining Frame will be guest vocalist Bennett Konesni, paying tribute to the Maritime song history of New England.

FRAME:
Bonnie Bewick, violin
Lawrence Wolfe, bass
Ken Bewick, guitar
with Bennett Konesni, vocalist

Blending their unique foundations of rock, classical and Celtic stylings, Frame’s music is a delightful mixture of songs and tunes playing on coastal themes, New England folk ballads, Celtic fiddle, and much more! Joining Frame will be guest vocalist Bennett Konseni, paying tribute to the Maritime song history of New England.

Lucia Lin and Bracha Malkin, violins
Rebecca Gitter, viola
Owen Young, cello
Charles Overton, harp
April Sun, piano
Michael-Thomas FOUMAI Printing Kapa and Defending Kalo, for harp and violin
BEETHOVEN String Quartet No. 10 in E-flat, Op. 74
STILL Ennanga, for harp, piano and string quartet

Dr. Kabria Baumgartner (Tufts University), panelist
Dr. Kerri Greenidge (Northeastern University), panelist
Dr. Kendra Taira Field (Tufts University), panelist

Since the late 19th century, Boston has been home to many African American composers, musicians, and performers from the likes of Flora Batson, Robert Nathaniel Dett, Matilda Sissieretta Joyner Jones, and Roland Hayes. Long before Boston’s Symphony Hall opened in 1900, these performers found support within Black communities across the diaspora, and cultivated a Black artistic tradition embedded in the legacy of African descended musicians in Boston’s contemporary classical music scene. Join scholars Dr. Kerri Greenidge, Dr. Kendra Field, and Dr. Kabria Baumgartner in lecture and discussion about Boston’s classical music history and the African descended musicians, performers, and composers who have shaped it.

American conductor André Raphel leads this first program in a series exploring complex social issues. The centerpiece of these concerts is Philadelphia jazz pianist and composer Uri Caine’s gospel and popular music-based The Passion of Octavius Catto, which tells of the 19th-century civil rights leader’s fight for justice. In four movements, “Longing,” “Sorrow,” “Humor,” and “Aspiration,” William Grant Still’s 1930 Afro-American Symphony, his best-known work, is a blues-tinged panorama of the composer’s heritage.

After the performance, Uri Caine and André Raphel will take questions from the audience. See what else makes this Casual Friday concert special >

Festival: Voices of Loss, Reckoning, and Hope is supported by the generosity of the Elinor V. Crawford Living Trust, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Richard Saltonstall Charitable Foundation.

Support for these performances of “The Passion of Octavius Catto” has been generously provided by Vita L. Weir and Edward Brice, Jr., and Pamela Everhart and Karl Coiscou.

Andre Raphel, conductor
Uri Caine Trio
Uri Caine, piano
Mike Boone, bass
Clarence Penn, drums
Barbara Walker, vocalist
Catto Chorus

STILL Symphony No. 1, Afro-American

Uri CAINE The Passion of Octavius Catto

Castle of Our Skins
Matthew Vera, violin
Annie Rabbat, violin
Ashleigh Gordon, viola
Lev Mamuya, cello
Special Guest Student Performers from Project STEP

WHITE (arr. Rita POFIRIS) Spiritual from From the Cotton Fields, Opus 18
PRICE Negro Folksongs in Counterpoint for string quartet
TILLIS Spiritual Fantasy No. 12 for string quartet (25 mins)
Anthony R. GREEN Catto’s Courage
(featuring special guest student performers from Project STEP)

A Spiritual Fantasy highlights African American composers who had a woven connection with Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and William Grant Still: Clarence Cameron White was born five years after Coleridge-Taylor and later studied with him; Florence Price was born six years before Grant Still and grew up as neighbors in Arkansas; Frederick Tillis was born the same year audiences first heard Grant Still's Afro-American Symphony. All were greatly influenced by the Negro Spiritual, a truly unique expression of African American strength, resilience, and community. A Spiritual Fantasy explores these themes in music, knowing the same sense of strength, resilience, and community were pivotal forces that inspired civil rights activist Octavius Catto, whose story is told in the BSO's later performance of The Passion of Octavius Catto.

Co-Presented with Boston Conservatory at Berklee

American conductor André Raphel leads this first program in a series exploring complex social issues. The centerpiece of these concerts is Philadelphia jazz pianist and composer Uri Caine’s gospel and popular music-based The Passion of Octavius Catto, which tells of the 19th-century civil rights leader’s fight for justice. English composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s charming potpourri Petite Suite de Concert dates from about 1911. In four movements, “Longing,” “Sorrow,” “Humor,” and “Aspiration,” William Grant Still’s 1930 Afro-American Symphony, his best-known work, is a blues-tinged panorama of the composer’s heritage.

Festival: Voices of Loss, Reckoning, and Hope is supported by the generosity of the Elinor V. Crawford Living Trust, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Richard Saltonstall Charitable Foundation.

Support for these performances of “The Passion of Octavius Catto” has been generously provided by Vita L. Weir and Edward Brice, Jr., and Pamela Everhart and Karl Coiscou.

André Raphel, conductor
Uri Caine Trio
Uri Caine, piano
Mike Boone, bass
Clarence Penn, drums
Barbara Walker, vocalist
Catto Chorus

COLERIDGE-TAYLOR Petite Suite de Concert
STILL Symphony No. 1, Afro-American
---- Intermission----

Uri CAINE The Passion of Octavius Catto

The BSO’s principal players and special guests present a program of chamber works exploring themes of cultural and musical identity. The concert will include spoken introductions by composers, as well as a post-performance discussion.

Festival: Voices of Loss, Reckoning, and Hope is supported by the generosity of the Elinor V. Crawford Living Trust, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Richard Saltonstall Charitable Foundation.

with BSO members Associate Principal Flute Elizabeth Klein, violinist Lucia Lin, and cellist Alexandre Lecarme
and Jorge Soto, conductor
Charles Overton, harp
Joy Cline Phinney, piano

KAY Sonata for bassoon and piano
Michael-Thomas FOUMAI Printing Kapa and Defending Kalo, for harp and violi
James Lee III Chôro sem tristeza for flute solo
Jessie MONTGOMERY Sgt. McCauley for winds and strings

This is a free, ticketed event.

For this season’s final "What I Hear" event, American composer Anthony Davis curates a program of chamber music in connection with the BSO's performance of his You Have the Right to Remain Silent later that evening. New England Conservatory musicians perform a program including his works Middle Passage, Still Waters III, and the aria “They Wanted a Girl” from his opera Amistad, along with Alvin Singleton’s Be Natural, for strings. BSO Artistic Administrator Eric Valliere moderates a conversation with the composer.

David Sterling Brown, panelist
Anthony Davis, panelist
Terrell Donnell Sledge, panelist
Keith Hamilton Cobb, panelist
David C. Howse, panelist
Robert Manning, Jr., panelist

A Private Conversation in Public

The Right to "Remain" Silent vs the Right to Fully Express

Six Black men, all creative professionals, discuss amongst themselves a question: What expression, however pressing, however relevant, do we make public, and what are we liable to encounter as a consequence? Relating to the BSO’s performances of Anthony Davis’s You Have the Right to Remain Silent, panelists include the Pulitzer Prize Winner Composer Anthony Davis, Shakespeare and critical race studies scholar David Sterling Brown, Ph.D.; actor and community arts advocate Terrell Donnell Sledge; Emmy nominated actor Keith Hamilton Cobb; a recognized leader in the Boston arts and theatre scene, David C. Howse; and NAACP Theatre Award winner Robert Manning, Jr. We invite the BSO audience to be present and to listen to them as they discuss the nuance between public expression and consequences as it pertains to racial injustice: The Right to "Remain" Silent vs. The Right to Fully Express.

In the second program of a series of concerts exploring complex social issues, conductor Thomas Wilkins leads clarinetist Anthony McGill in Anthony Davis’ concerto You Have the Right to Remain Silent, a musical response to a tense encounter with law enforcement in a case of mistaken identity. Margaret Bonds’ spiritual-based Montgomery Variations is a 1963 tribute to Montgomery, Alabama, and to Martin Luther King. William Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony was a huge success upon its premiere at New York’s Carnegie Hall in 1934 with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Leopold Stokowski. The symphony’s themes are taken from the melodies of spirituals.

Festival: Voices of Loss, Reckoning, and Hope is supported by the generosity of the Elinor V. Crawford Living Trust, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Richard Saltonstall Charitable Foundation.

Thomas Wilkins, conductor
Anthony McGill, clarinet

BONDS Selection from Montgomery Variations (I. Decision; II. Prayer Meeting; III. March)
Anthony DAVIS You Have the Right to Remain Silent, for clarinet and orchestra
Intermission
DAWSON Negro Folk Symphony

Arielle Gray (WBUR), moderator
Julia Wolfe, composer
Dr. Jane Kamensky (Harvard University), panelist
Dr. Robyn C. Spencer-Antoine (Lehman College), panelist

Julia Wolfe’s Her Story captures the ongoing struggle for women’s voices in America. Lorelei joins forces with the Boston Symphony to tell this important history. Moderated by WBUR’s Arielle Gray, Wolfe and a panel of scholars discuss the history and process of building this spectacular work. From a letter of Abigail Adams to the words of Sojourner Truth, Her Story is a personal and emotional response to the ongoing quest for equal rights.

In this third concert in a series exploring complex social issues, frequent guest Giancarlo Guerrero leads American composer Julia Wolfe’s BSO co-commissioned Her Story, featuring the Lorelei Ensemble women’s vocal group. Originally commissioned to commemorate the centenary of women’s right to vote in the U.S., the piece broadly speaks of the continuing struggle for women’s rights. The three movements of Polish composer Henryk Górecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs movingly contemplates the anguish of the separation of a mother from her child.

Festival: Voices of Loss, Reckoning, and Hope is supported by the generosity of the Elinor V. Crawford Living Trust, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Richard Saltonstall Charitable Foundation.

GÓRECKI performed with English supertitles

Giancarlo Guerrero, conductor
Aleksandra Kurzak, soprano
Lorelei Ensemble
Beth Willer, conductor
Eliza Bagg, soprano
Taylor Boykins, alto
Sarah Brailey, soprano
Meg Dudley, soprano
Christina English, alto
Stephanie Kacoyanis, alto
Michele Kennedy, soprano
Emily Marvosh, alto
Sophie Michaux, alto
Sonja DuToit Tengblad, soprano
Anne Kauffman, stage director
Jeff Sugg, scenic, lighting, and production designer
Márion Talán De La Rosa, costume designer
Andrew Cotton, sound designer

GÓRECKI Symphony No. 3, Symphony of Sorrowful Songs
Intermission
Julia WOLFE Her Story, for vocal ensemble and orchestra (Co-commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Andris Nelsons, Music Director; the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Nashville Symphony, the National Symphony, and the San Francisco Symphony. The Boston Symphony Orchestra commission is through the generous support of the New Works Fund established by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency, and the Morton Margolis Fund.)

English composer Thomas Adès returns to lead two works from The Dante Project, a three-part ballet score from 2021 based on Dante Alighieri’s 14th-century Italian epic poem Commedia. The piece was written to mark the 700th anniversary of the poet’s death. Igor Stravinsky’s mythology-based Perséphone for narrator, tenor, chorus, and orchestra is a magically surreal neoclassical retelling of the goddess Persephone’s abduction by Hades, god of the underworld.

Sung in French with English supertitles

Friday afternoon’s appearance by Edgaras Montvidas is supported by a gift in loving memory of Alan J. Dworsky.

Thomas Adès, conductor
Edgaras Montvidas, tenor
Danielle de Niese, narrator
Tanglewood Festival Chorus
 James Burton, conductor
The Boys of the St. Paul’s Choir School
 James Kennerly, director

STRAVINSKY Perséphone
Intermission
Thomas ADÈS Inferno Suite
Thomas ADÈS Paradiso

Elita Kang & Takumi Taguchi, violins
Danny Kim & Rebecca Gitter, violas
Will Chow, cello
Tom van Dyke, cello/bass
BOCCHERINI String Quintet in F, Op. 39/2, G.338
Aigerim SEILOVA Baqsi, for string quartet
SCHOENBERG Verklärte Nacht

Download the Youth Concert Social Story

ELGAR Overture, from The Wand of Youth, Suite No. 1
ELGAR The Wild Bears, from The Wand of Youth, Suite No. 2
MENDELSSOHN Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream
BEETHOVEN Excerpts from Symphony No. 1
Carlos SIMON Fate Now Conquers
Valerie COLEMAN Seven O'Clock Shout
Mason BATES B-Sides: Warehouse Medicine
MÁRQUEZ Danzón No. 2

From Beethoven to Carlos Simon, this family-friendly program explores the journeys of major composers who wrote groundbreaking works while they were young, and how today’s young composers are having the same significant impact.

*The 10am concert is a sensory-friendly performance

Boston Symphony Orchestra
Francisco Noya, Conductor
Rebecca Sheir, Program Host
Ye Sol (Joanna) Yi, bassoon (12pm only)

10am Program:
ELGAR Overture, from The Wand of Youth, Suite No. 1
ELGAR The Wild Bears, from The Wand of Youth, Suite No. 2
MENDELSSOHN Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream
BEETHOVEN Excerpts from Symphony No. 1
Carlos SIMON Fate Now Conquers
Valerie COLEMAN Seven O'Clock Shout
Mason BATES B-Sides: Warehouse Medicine
MÁRQUEZ Danzón No. 2

12pm Program:
ELGAR Overture, from The Wand of Youth, Suite No. 1
ELGAR The Wild Bears, from The Wand of Youth, Suite No. 2
MENDELSSOHN Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream
HUMMEL Bassoon Concerto in F (first movement)
 Ye Sol (Joanna) Yi, bassoon
BEETHOVEN Excerpts from Symphony No. 1
Carlos SIMON Fate Now Conquers Valerie
COLEMAN Seven O'Clock Shout
Mason BATES B-Sides: Warehouse Medicine

Elita Kang & Takumi Taguchi, violins
Danny Kim & Rebecca Gitter, violas
Will Chow, cello
Tom van Dyke, cello/bass
BOCCHERINI String Quintet in F, Op. 39/2, G.338
Aigerim SEILOVA Baqsi, for string quartet
SCHOENBERG Verklärte Nacht

BSO Assistant Conductor Earl Lee, making his full-program Symphony Hall debut, is joined by acclaimed young Chinese American pianist Eric Lu for Wolfgang Mozart’s passionate, stormy D minor piano concerto. The title of South Korean-born composer Unsuk Chin’s brief, exciting concert opener translates as "suddenly, with power." Composed during one of his periods of chronic depression, Robert Schumann’s Second Symphony is nevertheless wonderfully affirmative and optimistic in character.

Eric Lu’s performance Friday afternoon is supported by the May and Dan Pierce Guest Artist Fund.

Earl Lee, conductor
Eric Lu, piano

Unsuk CHIN subito con forza
MOZART Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K.466
Intermission
SCHUMANN Symphony No. 2

Bring the whole family to Symphony Hall for this fun and engaging concert series, designed to encourage an appreciation for live performance and orchestral music.

Music Director Andris Nelsons leads the American premiere of a new work for cello and orchestra by French organist-composer Thierry Escaich, written for soloist Gautier Capuçon. Maurice Ravel’s exuberantly orchestrated Alborada del gracioso is tinged with Flamenco rhythms and Spanish flavors. Sergei Rachmaninoff’s by turns lush and exuberant Symphony No. 2 closes the program.

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Gautier Capuçon, cello

RAVEL Alborada del gracioso
Thierry ESCAICH Les Chants de l'aube, for cello and orchestra (American premiere; co-commissioned by the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Andris Nelsons, Music Director, through the generous support of Catherine and Paul Buttenwieser.)
Intermission
RACHMANINOFF Symphony No. 2

Join us for more intimate performances with the Boston Symphony Chamber Players’ (BSCP) on Sunday afternoons at New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall. Founded in 1964, the BSCP combines the talents of BSO principal players and renowned guest artists to explore the full spectrum of chamber music repertoire.

Randall Hodgkinson, piano

RAVEL Introduction and Allegro for harp, flute, clarinet, and strings
Sofia GUBAIDULINA Sonata for double-bass and piano
BEETHOVEN Septet in E-flat for clarinet, horn, bassoon, violin, viola, cello and double bass, Op. 20

Andris Nelsons leads superstar violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter in the American premiere of English composer Thomas Adès’ new Sibelius-inspired Air for violin and orchestra, a BSO co-commission written for Mutter. In her BSO debut, the young South African soprano Golda Schultz sings Jean Sibelius’ Luonnotar, a dramatic tone poem with voice based on Finnish creation myth. Though his Fifth Symphony was an enormous success at its 1915 premiere, Sibelius extensively revised the original four-movement work, completing the final three-movement version in 1919.

Friday afternoon's performance by the vocal soloist is supported by a generous gift from the Ethan Ayer Vocal Soloist Fund.

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Anne-Sophie Mutter, violin
Golda Schultz, soprano

SIBELIUS Luonnotar
MOZART Violin Concerto No. 1
Intermission
Thomas ADÈS Air, for violin and orchestra (American premiere; co-commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Andris Nelsons, Music Director, through the generous support of the New Works Fund established by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency and the Arthur P. Contas Commissioning Fund.)
SIBELIUS Symphony No. 5

Jenny Ahn & Sophie Wang, violins
Cathy Basrak, viola
Adam Esbensen, cello
Caroline SHAW Punctum, for string quartet
HAYDN Sonata II: Grave e cantabile, from Seven Last Words on the Cross, Op. 51
TCHAIKOVSKY String Quartet No. 1 in D, Op. 11

Jenny Ann & Sophie Wang, violins
Cathy Basrak, viola
Adam Esbensen, cello
Caroline SHAW Punctum, for string quartet
HAYDN Sonata II: Grave e cantabile, from Seven Last Words on the Cross, Op. 51
TCHAIKOVSKY String Quartet No. 1 in D, Op. 11

Acclaimed South Korean pianist Seong-Jin Cho returns to Symphony Hall for Maurice Ravel’s Concerto in G, one of the composer’s final works, which ranges from jazzy energy to poignant lyricism. Igor Stravinsky’s 1911 ballet Petrushka, the second of his great trilogy for the Ballets Russes company, depicts the hapless living puppet title character in gloriously scored scenes from a carnival fair.

Post-Concert speakers: Suzanne Nelsen and Robert Sheena
Robert Kirzinger, Moderator

Friday evening’s performance by Seong-Jin Cho is supported by the Nathan R. Miller Family Guest Artist Fund.

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Seong-Jin Cho, piano

RAVEL Piano Concerto in G
STRAVINSKY Petrushka (1947 version)

Acclaimed South Korean pianist Seong-Jin Cho returns to Symphony Hall for Maurice Ravel’s Concerto in G, one of the composer’s final works, which ranges from jazzy energy to poignant lyricism. Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer Caroline Shaw’s Punctum, is a meditation on a moment from J.S. Bach. Igor Stravinsky’s 1911 ballet Petrushka, the second of his great trilogy for the Ballets Russes company, depicts the hapless living puppet title character in gloriously scored scenes from a carnival fair.

Saturday evening’s performance by Seong-Jin Cho is supported by the Roberta M. Strang Memorial Fund.

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Seong-Jin Cho, piano

Caroline SHAW Punctum
RAVEL Piano Concerto in G
Intermission
STRAVINSKY Petrushka (1947 version)

This special concert presents Argentina-born American composer Osvaldo Golijov’s Falling Out of Time, composed for a multicultural, multistylistic instrumental ensemble. Drawing powerfully on popular and folk music styles, based on David Grossman’s experimental novel about parents’ grief at the loss of a child, Golijov’s urgently impactful piece is here presented in a semi-staged performance.

Semi-staged production, presented in association with Celebrity Series of Boston.

Biella da Costa, Woman

Nora Fischer, Centaur

Yoni Rechter, Man

Ensemble: Dan Brantigan, trumpet and flugelhorn; Shawn Conley, acoustic and electric bass; Jeremy Flower, electric guitar and synthesizer; Johnny Gandelsman, violin; Mario Gotoh, viola; Karen Ouzounian, cello; Shane Shanahan, percussion; Mazz Swift, violin; Megan Conley, harp

Osvaldo GOLIJOV Falling Out of Time

Related Programming

On Sunday, April 23, 2023, join The Vilna Shul: Boston’s Center for Jewish Culture for an exclusive conversation with Osvaldo Golijov and Falling Out of Time musicians Nora Fischer and Yoni Rechter on the origins and journey of this artistic work.

Presented by The Vilna Shul in association with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Celebrity Series and BroadBand Collaborative.

Falling Out of Time: A Conversation
Sunday, April 23, 2023 | 3:00 - 5:00 PM
The Vilna Shul, 18 Phillips St. Boston MA 02114

Register for the Conversation

The BSO and Andris Nelsons complete their multi-season survey of Dmitri Shostakovich’s symphonies with No. 13, Babi Yar, based on poems by Yevgeny Yevteshenko. The title poem condemns Soviet revisionist history and antisemitism surrounding a Nazi massacre of Ukrainian Jews. The outstanding German bass-baritone Matthias Goerne is soloist. Opening the program, frequent BSO guest Augustin Hadelich plays Benjamin Britten’s early, lyrical and poignant Violin Concerto, the composer’s reaction to the tragedy of the Spanish Civil War.

This week’s performances by the Tanglewood Festival Chorus are supported by the Alan. J. and Suzanne W. Dworsky Fund for Voice and Chorus.

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Augustin Hadelich, violin
Matthias Goerne, bass
Tenors and Basses of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus
 James Burton, conductor
Tenors and Basses of the New England Conservatory Symphonic Choir
 Erica J. Washburn, conductor

BRITTEN Violin Concerto
Intermission
SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 13, Babi Yar

Join us for a special, free performance dedicated to the people of this great city we call home! Led by BSO Music Director Andris Nelsons and Boston Pops Conductor Keith Lockhart, Concert for the City will feature a diverse musical program meant to celebrate the City of Boston and strengthen our community through the shared experience of remarkable music. Doors open at 12:30pm for pre-concert activities.

Concert for the City is generously supported by the Li-Qiu Family Foundation

Boston Symphony Orchestra
Andris Nelsons, conductor
Boston Pops Orchestra
Keith Lockhart, conductor
Charlotte Blake Alston, narrator
The Hon. Michelle Wu, Mayor of Boston, piano

Invocation: Anjalequa Leynneyah Verona Birkett, Boston 2022 Youth Poet Laureate
John WILLIAMS Fanfare for Fenway
Geroge Whitefield CHADWICK Jubilee
Florence PRICE “Juba Dance” from Symphony No. 1
Duke ELLINGTON Come Sunday
 Charlotte Blake Alston, narrator
Valerie COLEMAN Seven O’Clock Shout
Wolfgang MOZART Piano Concerto No. 21 in C, K.467 (2nd movement, Andante)
 Michelle Wu, piano
Roberto SIERRA Fandangos
Chick COREA (Arr. Emilio SOLLA) Spain
Dropkick Murphys (Arr. Pat HOLLENBECK) Shipping Up to Boston

Elizabeth Klein, flute
Michael Wayne, clarinet
Robert Sheena, oboe
Richard Ranti, bassoon
Rachel Childers, horn
BARBER Summer Music
CARTER Woodwind Quintet
Lalo SCHIFRIN La Nouvelle Orleans
Valerie COLEMAN Red Clay & Mississippi Delta
John HARBISON Quintet for Winds (last movement)
Paquito D’RIVERA Selections from Aires Tropicales