Casual Fridays

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 >

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)

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

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)

Hannu Lintu, conductor
Leonidas Kavakos, violin

BERG Violin Concerto
Intermission
SCHUMANN Symphony No. 4

Postlude
Tanglewood Festival Chorus
 James Burton, conductor

Roxanna PANUFNIK Love Endureth
BYRD Ave Verum Corpus
Roderick WILLIAMS Ave Verum Corpus re-imagined
THOMPSON The Peaceable Kingdom

Finnish conductor Hannu Lintu leads the BSO and frequent guest Leonidas Kavakos in Alban Berg’s final finished piece; quoting poignantly from Bach, this haunting 1935 Violin Concerto was written in response to the death of a friend’s daughter. In closing, Robert Schumann’s majestic Symphony No. 4, which draws inspiration from Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony in its use of recurring musical themes to tie together the work’s four movements.

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.

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.

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.