Boston Philharmonic Orchestra’s 43rd Season Concludes with Mahler’s Symphony No. 3, Featuring Mezzo-Soprano Susan Platts, Chorus Pro Musica, and The C

The Boston Philharmonic Orchestra (BPO), under the direction of Conductor Benjamin Zander, concludes its 43^rd season on Friday, April 8, 2022, at 8:00 PM at Symphony Hall in Boston, with Mahler’s Symphony No. 3. The orchestra will be accompanied by British-born Canadian mezzo-soprano Susan Platts, Chorus Pro Musica, and The Chorister of St. Paul’s Choir School, Harvard Square. The concert will be preceded by an in-person “Guide to the Music” talk by Zander at 6:45 PM; the concert will also be available for viewing via live streaming.

“In this vast and profound work for chorus, orchestra, and mezzo-soprano, you will hear it all—from exaltation to terror to union with the primal forces that surround us,” says Boston Philharmonic Conductor Benjamin Zander.  “In it, Mahler set out to express the essence of his relationship to nature.”

The concert marks the BPO’s fourth performance of Mahler’s longest work; they performed it last in 2002. The piece calls for by both women’s and children’s choruses, so frequent collaborator Chorus Pro Musica, a New England organization composed of more than 100 highly talented musicians selected by audition, will perform along with students from St. Paul’s Choir School in Cambridge, one of the few specialist choirs of boys and men outside New York.

Susan Platts brings a uniquely rich and wide-ranging voice to concert and recital repertoire for alto and mezzo-soprano. She is particularly esteemed for her performances of Mahler's works (see her performance of his “Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen” No. 2 here). She is a Fellow of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, which gave her the opportunity to work closely with Jessye Norman.

Ms. Platts has performed at concert halls all over the world, including Covent Garden, Royal Albert Hall, Royal Festival Hall, Teatro alla Scala, Teatro di San Carlo, Carnegie Hall, and Lincoln Center. She has been a featured soloist with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia, Cleveland, and Minnesota Orchestras, the Montreal, Toronto, American, Detroit, Milwaukee, Baltimore and Houston Symphonies, Orchestre de Paris, National Arts Centre Orchestra, Les Violons du Roy, Handel and Haydn Society, and the Los Angeles and St. Paul Chamber Orchestras.

She has also collaborated with many of today’s leading conductors, including John Adams, Marin Alsop, Roberto Abbado, Sir Andrew Davis, Ludovic Morlot, Leon Botstein, Josep Caballé-Domenech, Christoph Eschenbach, JoAnn Falletta, Jane Glover, Vladimir Jurowski, Jeffrey Kahane, Carlos Kalmar, Keith Lockhart, Kent Nagano, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Sir Roger Norrington, Peter Oundjian, Itzhak Perlman, Carlos Miguel Prieto, Bramwell Tovey, Osmo Vänska and Pinchas Zuckerman.

Recent opera highlights include Wagner’s Die Walküre with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Mozart's Die Zauberflöte at the Royal Opera House, John Adams's Nixon in China with the BBC Symphony, Britten's Albert Herring (Pacific Opera, Vancouver Opera), Erda in Wagner’s Das Rheingold (Pacific Opera), and Bernstein’s A Quiet Place (Montreal Symphony Orchestra).

Tickets are $115, $90, $60 and $30; $10 for students. Tickets to the live stream are $20 for general admission, $10 for students, and $40 for supporters. Subscription packages are also available. Tickets are available at www.bostonphil.org or by calling 617-236-0999. Ticket policies are at www.bostonphil.org/concerts/ticket-policies; coronavirus updates at www.bostonphil.org/concerts/experience/virus.

About the Boston Philharmonic

Founded by Benjamin Zander in 1979, the Boston Philharmonic is composed of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra (BPO), the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra (BPYO), and its robust series of Crescendo Education and Community Engagement programs. Its mission is to share the vibrancy of classical music with new and existing audiences, aspiring to expand the limits of possibility to reinvigorate the classical music experience for audiences and players alike.

As one of Boston’s premier orchestras and under the leadership of Maestro Benjamin Zander, the BPO features professional, student and amateur musicians who perform inspiring renditions of celebrated masterworks in Boston’s most storied concert halls. The BPYO offers year-long, tuition-free orchestral and leadership training at the highest level for talented musicians between the ages of 12 and 21. The Crescendo Education and Community Engagement programs provide high quality music education for children who would otherwise not have access, often serving the most disadvantaged, at-risk, and under-resourced children in the city.

About Benjamin Zander

For more than 50 years, Benjamin Zander has occupied a unique place as a master teacher, a deeply insightful and probing interpreter, and a profound source of inspiration for audiences, as well as students, professional musicians, corporate leaders, politicians, and more. He has persistently engaged some of the most well-informed musical and public intellectuals in a quest for insight and understanding into the Western musical canon and the underlying religious, social, and political issues that inspired its creation.

For more than 25 years, Zander has also enjoyed a unique relationship with the Philharmonia Orchestra, recording a series of Beethoven and Mahler symphonies. High Fidelity named the recording of Mahler’s 6^th as Best Classical Recording of 2002; the 3^rd was awarded Critic’s Choice by the German Record Critics; and Mahler 9^th and 2^nd and Bruckner’s 5^th recordings were all nominated for Grammy Awards.

Zander enjoys an international career as a leadership speaker, with several keynote speeches at the World Economic Forum in Davos and at TED. His best-selling book, The Art of Possibility, co-authored with his former wife, and leading psychotherapist Rosamund Zander, has been translated into eighteen languages.