This Weekend's Programs in Brief

July 17-19, 2026

Boston Symphony Orchestra Music Director Andris Nelsons' two programs with the orchestra on Friday and Sunday this weekend feature some of the most celebrated soloists in the world today, along with a 20-year-old rising star, violinist Keila Wakao. Saturday night, composer-conductor Joe Hisaishi, whose music is known worldwide from his scores to the animated films of Studio Ghibli, leads a program of his own music along with Maurice Ravel's Piano Concerto in G with soloist Jean-Yves Thibaudet.

The celebrated American composer John Adams changed the operatic landscape with his Nixon in China. Richard Nixon's historic visit with his wife Pat and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in 1972 still resonated in world politics when the opera was premiered in 1987, and the event remains a touchpoint in 20th-century American history. Friday's concert opens with BSO Composer Chair Carlos Simon's brief orchestral contemplation of "Amazing Grace," followed by the acclaimed young American violinist Keila Wakao performing Samuel Barber's Violin Concerto. The concerto was first performed by the BSO under steadfast Barber champion Serge Koussevitzky's direction at Tanglewood just a few months after its February 1941 premiere.

Familiar to fans of Hayao Miyazaki's animated masterpieces, Japanese composer Joe Hisaishi's music is increasingly in demand for orchestral concerts. Hisaishi conducts music from the hit film Princess Mononoke; his Adagio for 2 Harps and Strings, inspired by the Adagietto from Mahler's Symphony No. 5, and his concert work DA•MA•SHI•E. Tanglewood favorite Jean-Yves Thibaudet plays Ravel's Piano Concerto in G, a work featuring a sublime slow movement and fiery rhythms and orchestration inspired by jazz and music of Spain.

Sunday, pianist Daniil Trifonov joins Andris Nelsons and the orchestra for Dmitri Shostakovich's cheeky Piano Concerto No. 1, which features a prominent solo trumpet part here played by BSO Principal Trumpet Thomas Rolfs. An excellent pianist, Shostakovich wrote the concerto in 1933 for himself to play. Contrasting symphonies by the Viennese Classical composers Joseph Haydn and his student (briefly) Ludwig van Beethoven bracket the concerto. Written early in the evolution of the genre, Haydn's Symphony No. 22 dates from 1764 and acquired the nickname "The Philosopher" because of its relatively serious character. Though heftier, Beethoven's Second is on the other end of the scale, a cheerful and exuberant piece, paradoxically composed when he was grappling with his increasing deafness.

Robert Kirzinger