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.

The Symphony Hall Opening Night Celebration, 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-Saën’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with Andris Nelsons and the BSO. For more information, contact Katie Gassert at kgassert@bso.org.

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 Dutch violinist Janine Jansen is soloist in Bernstein’s Serenade.

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.

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.

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

Japanese pianist Mitsuko Uchida joins Andris Nelsons and the BSO for the first concert of a multi-year collaboration in Ludwig van Beethoven’s five piano concertos, beginning with his monumental Emperor. 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.

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.

Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras (BYSO)
Adrian Slywotzsky, conductor
PROKOFIEV 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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

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.

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.

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.

Program to include:

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

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.

The BSO’s principal players 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.

Program to include:
Jessie MONTGOMERY Sergeant McCauley for winds and strings
Anthony DAVIS song was sweeter even so, for ensemble

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.

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.

Both works performed with English supertitles

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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’ early 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.

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.

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.

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. Russian bass Ildar Abdrazakov makes his BSO debut in these performances. The title poem condemns Soviet revisionist history and antisemitism surrounding a Nazi massacre of Ukrainian Jews. Opening the program, frequent BSO guest Augustin Hadelich plays Benjamin Britten’s early, lyrical Violin Concerto, the composer’s reaction to the tragedy of the Spanish Civil War.