2023-24 BSO Season Performances

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Seong-Jin Cho, piano

Tania LEÓN Stride
RAVEL Piano Concerto for the left hand
Intermission
STRAVINSKY The Rite of Spring

Tania León’s Pulitzer Prize-winning piece Stride draws on her Cuban heritage and her long association with dance to create music rich with rhythmic vitality and scintillating instrumental colors. Superstar Korean pianist Seong-Jin Cho plays Maurice Ravel’s dramatic Piano Concerto for the left hand, originally composed for pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who lost his arm during World War I. Closing the concert is and one of the most influential pieces in history: Igor Stravinsky’s ballet score The Rite of Spring, a work of primal power.

This week’s performances of Tania León Stride are supported in part by income from the Morton Margolis fund in the BSO’s endowment.

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Seong-Jin Cho, piano

Tania LEÓN Stride
RAVEL Piano Concerto for the left hand
Intermission
STRAVINSKY The Rite of Spring

Tania León’s Pulitzer Prize-winning piece Stride draws on her Cuban heritage and her long association with dance to create music rich with rhythmic vitality and scintillating instrumental colors. Superstar Korean pianist Seong-Jin Cho plays Maurice Ravel’s dramatic Piano Concerto for the left hand, originally composed for pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who lost his arm during World War I. Closing the concert is and one of the most influential pieces in history: Igor Stravinsky’s ballet score The Rite of Spring, a work of primal power.

This week’s performances of Tania León Stride are supported in part by income from the Morton Margolis fund in the BSO’s endowment.

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

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Kristine Opolais, soprano (Katerina Izmailova)
Brenden Gunnell, tenor (Sergei)
Peter Hoare, tenor (Zinovy Izmailov)*
Günther Groissböck, bass (Boris Izmailov and Ghost of Boris)
Michelle Trainor, soprano (Aksinya)
Alexandra LoBianco, soprano (Female Convict)
Maria Barakova, mezzo-soprano (Sonyetka)
Matthew DiBattista, tenor (Teacher)
Neal Ferreira, tenor (Foreman)
Charles Blandy*, tenor (Foreman & Drunken Guest)
Yeghishe Manucharyan*, tenor (Foreman & Coachman)
Charles Blandy, tenor (Drunken Guest)
Yeghishe Manucharyan, tenor (Coachman)
Alexander Kravets, tenor (Shabby Peasant)
David Kravitz, baritone (Millhand)
Alexandros Stavrakakis, bass-baritone (Porter & Policeman)
Joo Won Kang, baritone (Steward)
Patrick Guetti, bass (Officer and Sentry)
Goran Juric, bass (Priest)
Anatoli Sivko, bass (Chief of Police)
Paata Burchuladze, bass (Old Convict)
Tanglewood Festival Chorus
 James Burton, conductor

SHOSTAKOVICH Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk*

*Sung in Russian with English supertitles

This performance is the most ambitious endeavor in the BSO and Andris Nelsons’ multi-year survey of the works of Dmitri Shostakovich, just as Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk was an immense undertaking for its 24-year-old composer. Shostakovich began the score in late 1930, basing it on Nikolai Leskov’s 1865 novella of the same name; the story is a dark portrayal of Katerina Ismailova, the oppressed, ambitious, and ultimately murderous wife of a provincial merchant. The opera was a worldwide sensation following its 1934 premiere, but after Josef Stalin attended a performance in January 1936, an unsigned Pravda editorial titled “Muddle instead of Music” unequivocally damned the piece and put Shostakovich in real danger. The composer responded by hastily writing the ostensibly heroic, triumphant Fifth Symphony, thus surviving the first of many confrontations with Stalin and the Soviet regime.

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Kristine Opolais, soprano (Katerina Izmailova)
Brenden Gunnell, tenor (Sergei)
Peter Hoare, tenor (Zinovy Izmailov)*
Günther Groissböck, bass (Boris Izmailov and Ghost of Boris)
Michelle Trainor, soprano (Aksinya)
Alexandra LoBianco, soprano (Female Convict)
Maria Barakova, mezzo-soprano (Sonyetka)
Matthew DiBattista, tenor (Teacher)
Neal Ferreira, tenor (Foreman)
Charles Blandy*, tenor (Foreman & Drunken Guest)
Yeghishe Manucharyan*, tenor (Foreman & Coachman)
Charles Blandy, tenor (Drunken Guest)
Yeghishe Manucharyan, tenor (Coachman)
Alexander Kravets, tenor (Shabby Peasant)
David Kravitz, baritone (Millhand)
Alexandros Stavrakakis, bass (Porter & Policeman)
Joo Won Kang, baritone (Steward)
Patrick Guetti, bass (Officer and Sentry)
Goran Juric, bass (Priest)
Anatoli Sivko, bass (Chief of Police)
Paata Burchuladze, bass (Old Convict)
Tanglewood Festival Chorus
 James Burton, conductor

SHOSTAKOVICH Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk*

*Sung in Russian with English supertitles

This performance is the most ambitious endeavor in the BSO and Andris Nelsons’ multi-year survey of the works of Dmitri Shostakovich, just as Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk was an immense undertaking for its 24-year-old composer. Shostakovich began the score in late 1930, basing it on Nikolai Leskov’s 1865 novella of the same name; the story is a dark portrayal of Katerina Ismailova, the oppressed, ambitious, and ultimately murderous wife of a provincial merchant. The opera was a worldwide sensation following its 1934 premiere, but after Josef Stalin attended a performance in January 1936, an unsigned Pravda editorial titled “Muddle instead of Music” unequivocally damned the piece and put Shostakovich in real danger. The composer responded by hastily writing the ostensibly heroic, triumphant Fifth Symphony, thus surviving the first of many confrontations with Stalin and the Soviet regime.

Andris Nelsons, conductor

Tania LEÓN Stride
STRAVINSKY The Rite of Spring

Tania León’s Pulitzer Prize-winning piece Stride draws on her Cuban heritage and her long association with dance to create music rich with rhythmic vitality and scintillating instrumental colors. Closing the concert is and one of the most influential pieces in history: Igor Stravinsky’s ballet score The Rite of Spring, a work of primal power.

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Randall Goosby, violin

SMYTH Overture to The Wreckers
BRUCH Violin Concerto No. 1
Intermission
MENDELSSOHN Symphony No. 5, Reformation

Music Director Andris Nelsons opens the program with the overture to the 1906 opera The Wreckers by Dame Ethel Smyth, a composer and suffragist who was one of England’s leading musicians of her time. American violinist Randall Goosby, the youngest-ever winner of the Sphinx Concerto Competition, makes his BSO debut with Max Bruch’s spirited Violin Concerto No. 1. The program closes with Felix Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 5, composed in 1830 as part of celebrations of the 300th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. The music quotes the familiar hymn “Ein feste Berg,” a link to Reformation leader Martin Luther.

Karina Canellakis, conductor
Alisa Weilerstein, cello
Karen Cargill, mezzo-soprano
Johannes Martin Kränzle, bass-baritone

HAYDN Cello Concerto in C
Intermission
BARTÓK Bluebeard’s Castle*

*Concert performance; sung in Hungarian with English supertitles

American conductor Karina Canellakis returns to lead a concert performance of Béla Bartók’s chilling and evocative opera Bluebeard’s Castle. Based on the fable of the cruel duke whose new wife discovers his terrible past, the opera features some of Bartók’s most riveting orchestral writing. Scottish mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill returns and German bass-baritone Johannes Martin Kränzle makes his BSO debut. Also returning to the BSO stage is American cellist Alisa Weilerstein performing Joseph Haydn’s playful Cello Concerto in C.

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

Friday afternoon's performance by Alisa Weilerstein is supported by the May and Dan Pierce Guest Artist Fund.

Alison LOGGINS-HULL Homeland for solo flute
BRAHMS String Sextet No. 2 in G, Op. 36

Tugan Sokhiev, conductor
Yunchan Lim, piano

RACHMANINOV Piano Concerto No. 3
Intermission
CHAUSSON Symphony in B-flat

South Korean pianist Yunchan Lim — the youngest person ever to win the gold medal in the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition — joins returning guest conductor Tugan Sokhiev to perform one of the greatest, most popular, and most virtuosic works in the repertoire: Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No. 3, which the composer himself played with the BSO in 1919 and 1935. Sokhiev also leads a rare gem of a piece: French composer Ernest Chausson’s passionate one and only symphony. The Symphony in B-flat (1890) was a favorite of former BSO Music Director Charles Munch, and the BSO last performed it in 1993.

John Storgårds, conductor
Pekka Kuusisto, violin

Outi TARKIAINEN Midnight Sun Variations
NIELSEN Violin Concerto
Intermission
SIBELIUS The Oceanides and The Bard
SIBELIUS Tapiola

Finland and its culture dominate Symphony Hall in this concert. Finnish conductor John Storgårds leads the first in our Music of the Midnight Sun series, an exploration of Nordic storytelling and music. Finnish composer Outi Tarkiainen’s vivid soundscapes prove she is a worthy successor to her compatriot Jean Sibelius; her nuanced and colorful Midnight Sun Variations that transport you to her homeland. Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto debuts with the BSO as the orchestra performs the great Danish composer Carl Nielsen’s 1911 Violin Concerto for the first time. The program closes with three of Sibelius’s tone poems based on Finnish legends, their moods ranging from sweeping power to contemplative mystery.

John Storgårds, conductor
Pekka Kuusisto, violin

Outi TARKIAINEN Midnight Sun Variations
NIELSEN Violin Concerto
Intermission
SIBELIUS The Oceanides and The Bard
SIBELIUS Tapiola

Finland and its culture dominate Symphony Hall in this concert. Finnish conductor John Storgårds leads the first in our Music of the Midnight Sun series, an exploration of Nordic storytelling and music. Finnish composer Outi Tarkiainen’s vivid soundscapes prove she is a worthy successor to her compatriot Jean Sibelius; her nuanced and colorful Midnight Sun Variations that transport you to her homeland. Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto debuts with the BSO as the orchestra performs the great Danish composer Carl Nielsen’s 1911 Violin Concerto for the first time. The program closes with three of Sibelius’s tone poems based on Finnish legends, their moods ranging from sweeping power to contemplative mystery.

John Storgårds, conductor
Pekka Kuusisto, violin

Outi TARKIAINEN Midnight Sun Variations
NIELSEN Violin Concerto
Intermission
SIBELIUS Tapiola

Finland and its culture dominate Symphony Hall in this concert. Finnish conductor John Storgårds leads the first in our Music of the Midnight Sun series, an exploration of Nordic storytelling and music. Finnish composer Outi Tarkiainen’s vivid soundscapes prove she is a worthy successor to her compatriot Jean Sibelius; her nuanced and colorful Midnight Sun Variations that transport you to her homeland. Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto debuts with the BSO as the orchestra performs the great Danish composer Carl Nielsen’s 1911 Violin Concerto for the first time. The program closes with three of Sibelius’s tone poems based on Finnish legends, their moods ranging from sweeping power to contemplative mystery.

Dima Slobodeniouk, conductor
Georgia Jarman, soprano
Actors from Concert Theatre Works
Tanglewood Festival Chorus
 James Burton, conductor

GRIEG Peer Gynt
written and directed by Bill Barclay adapted from the play by Henrik Ibsen

In the second of the Music of the Midnight Sun concerts, Finland-based Russian conductor Dima Slobodeniouk leads a staged performance of Peer Gynt, by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen and composer Edvard Grieg. This fantastical, epic tale, theatrically reimagined by director-playwright Bill Barclay, follows Peer on his adventures from his home village through the Hall of the Mountain King, to Northern Africa, and back.

Dima Slobodeniouk, conductor
Georgia Jarman, soprano
Actors from Concert Theatre Works
Tanglewood Festival Chorus
 James Burton, conductor

GRIEG Peer Gynt
written and directed by Bill Barclay adapted from the play by Henrik Ibsen

In the second of the Music of the Midnight Sun concerts, Finland-based Russian conductor Dima Slobodeniouk leads a staged performance of Peer Gynt, by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen and composer Edvard Grieg. This fantastical, epic tale, theatrically reimagined by director-playwright Bill Barclay, follows Peer on his adventures from his home village through the Hall of the Mountain King, to Northern Africa, and back.

NIELSEN Wind Quintet, Op. 43
Anna THORVALDSDOTTIR Spectra, for violin, viola, and cello
SCHUBERT (arr. Hans ABRAHAMSEN) Four Pieces from Moments musicaux, for winds and strings

Sir Mark Elder, conductor
Blaise Déjardin, cello
Tanglewood Festival Chorus
 James Burton, conductor

RAVEL Mother Goose (complete)
Elena LANGER The Dong with a Luminous Nose, for cello, chorus, and orchestra (American premiere; BSO co-commission) Commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Andris Nelsons, Music Director, through the generous support of the Arthur P. Contas Commissioning Fund.
Intermission
DVOŘÁK The Noonday Witch
JANÁČEK Sinfonietta

Eminent English conductor Sir Mark Elder returns to Symphony Hall for the first time since 2011 to lead a program full of whimsy, fantasy, and folklore. Opening the program, Maurice Ravel’s Mother Goose ballet score began as a suite of children’s piano pieces, each movement illustrating an iconic tale. Next is the American premiere of Elena Langer’s The Dong with a Luminous Nose, a setting of Edward Lear’s delightful “nonsense poem” written for the BSO and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, which gave the first performance in March 2023 featuring BSO principal cello Blaise Déjardin as soloist with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus. Antonín Dvořák’s The Noonday Witch is based on a much darker Czech folktale. Czech composer Leoš Janáček’s energetic, masterful Sinfonietta closes the concert.

Clark Rundell, conductor
esperanza spalding, vocalist and bass
Leo Genovese, piano
Terri Lyne Carrington, drums
Dayna Stephens, saxophone

ALL-WAYNE SHORTER PROGRAM
Causeway, Midnight in Carlotta’s Hair, Orbits, Forbidden Plan-iT
Excerpts from …(Iphigenia)
Gaia, for jazz quartet and orchestra

This tribute concert honors the life and legacy of the great jazz innovator, composer, bandleader, and saxophonist Wayne Shorter who passed away in March 2023. These performances feature five longtime Shorter collaborators in their BSO debuts, including the Grammy Award-winning bassist and vocalist esperanza spalding. spalding wrote the libretto for Shorter’s 2022 opera …(Iphigenia), which was premiered in Boston in 2021 and is based on the ancient Greek tragedy by Euripides.

Clark Rundell, conductor
esperanza spalding, vocalist and bass
Leo Genovese, piano
Terri Lyne Carrington, drums
Dayna Stephens, saxophone

ALL-WAYNE SHORTER PROGRAM
Causeway, Midnight in Carlotta’s Hair, Orbits, Forbidden Plan-iT
Gaia, for jazz quartet and orchestra

This tribute concert honors the life and legacy of the great jazz innovator, composer, bandleader, and saxophonist Wayne Shorter who passed away in March 2023. These performances feature five longtime Shorter collaborators in their BSO debuts, including the Grammy Award-winning bassist and vocalist esperanza spalding. spalding wrote the libretto for Shorter’s 2022 opera …(Iphigenia), which was premiered in Boston in 2021 and is based on the ancient Greek tragedy by Euripides.

Domingo Hindoyan, conductor
Pablo Ferrández, cello

Roberto SIERRA Symphony No. 6 (American premiere; BSO co-commissioned° by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Andris Nelsons, Music Director, as part of the Koussevitzky150 initiative, with generous support from the New Works Fund established by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency, and Catherine and Paul Buttenwieser.)
ELGAR Cello Concerto
Intermission
DVOŘÁK Symphony No. 7

Venezuelan conductor Domingo Hindoyan makes his BSO debut leading the American premiere of Roberto Sierra’s Symphony No. 6, a BSO co-commission. Also making his BSO debut is Spanish cellist Pablo Ferrández in Edward Elgar’s regal and impassioned Cello Concerto, often interpreted as a profound reaction to the First World War. One of the repertoire’s greatest symphonies, Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s darkly majestic Symphony No. 7 exudes his love for his native Bohemia as well as the influence of his mentor, Johannes Brahms.

Garrick Ohlsson, piano

program to include:
MESSIAEN Quartet for the End of Time, for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Yefim Bronfman, piano
Anna Gawboy, lighting research
Justin Townsend, lighting designer
Tanglewood Festival Chorus
 James Burton, conductor

Anna CLYNE Color Field
WAGNER Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde
Intermission
LISZT Prometheus
SCRIABIN Prometheus, Poem of Fire, for piano, color organ, chorus, and orchestra

A program of color: It opens with Anna Clyne’s Color Field, inspired in part by the vibrancy of a Mark Rothko painting. Followed by Richard Wagner’s ecstatic Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde, and Franz Liszt’s Prometheus. The program closes with Alexander Scriabin’s Prometheus, Poem of Fire. When Alexander Scriabin’s wrote Prometheus, Poem of Fire, he conceived of a “light organ” that would project colors corresponding to his music. Prometheus premiered in 1911 with future BSO Music Director Serge Koussevitzky, whose 150th birthday year we celebrate in 2024.

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Yefim Bronfman, piano
Anna Gawboy, lighting research
Justin Townsend, lighting designer
Tanglewood Festival Chorus
 James Burton, conductor

Anna CLYNE Color Field
WAGNER Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde
Intermission
LISZT Prometheus
SCRIABIN Prometheus, Poem of Fire, for piano, color organ, chorus, and orchestra

A program of color: It opens with Anna Clyne’s Color Field, inspired in part by the vibrancy of a Mark Rothko painting. Followed by Richard Wagner’s ecstatic Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde, and Franz Liszt’s Prometheus. The program closes with Alexander Scriabin’s Prometheus, Poem of Fire. When Alexander Scriabin’s wrote Prometheus, Poem of Fire, he conceived of a “light organ” that would project colors corresponding to his music. Prometheus premiered in 1911 with future BSO Music Director Serge Koussevitzky, whose 150th birthday year we celebrate in 2024.

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Yuja Wang, piano
Cécile Lartigau, ondes Martenot

MESSIAEN Turangalîla-symphonie

French composer Olivier Messiaen was famously synesthetic, “hearing” colors as harmony and seeing colors in sound. The Turangalîla-symphonie summed up the composer’s passions for nature, birdsong, Catholicism, Eastern philosophy, music, and romantic love as embodied in the legend of Tristan and Isolde; in this concert, Andris Nelsons leads this work that the BSO premiered in 1949 under Leonard Bernstein’s baton. The brilliant Yuja Wang takes on the work’s hefty piano part and Cécile Lartigau performs on the ondes Martenot, an early electronic instrument. Turangalîla was commissioned by Serge Koussevitzky.

Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras (BYSO)
Marta Żurad, conductor
Matt Roberts, magician

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Hilary Hahn, violin

MOZART Symphony No. 33
Anna THORVALDSDOTTIR Archora
Intermission
BRAHMS Violin Concerto

Opening the program is Wolfgang Mozart’s charming Symphony No. 33, followed by Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s orchestrally imaginative Archora, inspired by the “primordial energy” of her homeland, Iceland. Closing the program, international star Hilary Hahn is soloist in one of the greatest works in the repertoire: Brahms’s Violin Concerto. Brahms composed this rich, lyrical work in 1878 for, and with the advice of, his friend Joseph Joachim, a towering virtuoso of the age.

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Hilary Hahn, violin

MOZART Symphony No. 33
Anna THORVALDSDOTTIR Archora
Intermission
BRAHMS Violin Concerto

Opening the program is Wolfgang Mozart’s charming Symphony No. 33, followed by Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s orchestrally imaginative Archora, inspired by the “primordial energy” of her homeland, Iceland. Closing the program, international star Hilary Hahn is soloist in one of the greatest works in the repertoire: Brahms’s Violin Concerto. Brahms composed this rich, lyrical work in 1878 for, and with the advice of, his friend Joseph Joachim, a towering virtuoso of the age.

Thursday evening's performance by Hilary Hahn is supported by the Roberta M. Strang Memorial Fund.

Thursday evening’s concert is in memory of Eric N. Birch, supported by Sandra O. Moose.

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Thomas Rolfs, trumpet

Sofia GUBAIDULINA Prologue for Orchestra (American premiere; BSO co-commission)
Detlev GLANERT Trumpet Concerto
Intermission
PROKOFIEV Symphony No. 4

The program begins with the American premiere of Prologue for Orchestra. Dedicated to Beethoven, the BSO co-commissioned this piece from one of the greatest living composers, Sofia Gubaidulina. BSO principal trumpet Thomas Rolfs is the soloist in Detlev Glanert’s Trumpet Concerto, an eclectic, dramatic work, commissioned for and premiered by Rolfs in 2019. The program concludes with Sergei Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 4, commissioned by longtime BSO music director Serge Koussevitzky for the orchestra’s 50th anniversary in 1931.

Thursday evening’s performance is supported by Hemenway & Barnes LLP.

Andris Nelsons, conductor
J’Nai Bridges, mezzo-soprano
Lawrence Brownlee, tenor
John Relyea, bass-baritone
Tanglewood Festival Chorus
 James Burton, conductor

BERLIOZ Roméo et Juliette*

*Sung in French with English supertitle

The works of William Shakespeare deeply influenced composer Hector Berlioz. In fact, it was actress Harriet Smithson’s performances of two great Shakespearean heroines — Ophelia in Hamlet and of Juliet in Romeo and Juliet — that captivated the composer and led to their (ill-fated) marriage. As we close the season, Andris Nelsons leads one of Berlioz’s most successful and vibrant compositions, Roméo et Juliette. Berlioz called his Roméo et Juliette a “symphony with choruses,” highlighting the importance of the orchestra and of the work’s overall form. These performances celebrate the role of French repertoire in the BSO’s rich history; the complete symphony and movements from it were frequently programmed by Pierre Monteux, Serge Koussevitzky, Charles Munch, and Seiji Ozawa.

Friday afternoon's performance by J’Nai Bridges is supported by a gift in loving memory of Alan J. Dworsky.