All material found in the Press Releases section is provided by parties entirely independent of Musical America, which is not responsible for content.
Press Releases
Boston Philharmonic Announces Its 44th Season: Marks Conductor Benjamin Zander's 50th Year as a Conductor
The Boston Philharmonic, which includes both the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra (BPO) and the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra (BPYO), announces its 2022-2023 concert season, marking Maestro Benjamin Zander’s 50th year as a conductor. The season includes four BPO concerts and three BPYO concerts at Boston’s Symphony Hall between October 19, 2022, and May 3, 2023, and a BPO concert at Carnegie Hall on February 26, 2023.
In keeping with previous programs, each concert will feature one major symphonic work that is universally regarded as a timeless masterpiece. “All the pieces in this coming season are not only great works, but they have also played an important part in my life during my 50 years of conducting,” says Zander. “This coming year is also a look forward to the next generation of world-class soloists.”
The BPO continues its tradition of bringing some of the world’s most exciting, emerging soloists to the public’s attention through performances of orchestral masterpieces. Zander will also once again provide his legendary “Guide to the Music” talks prior to each BPO concert. The first concert takes place Wednesday, October 19, 2022, at 8 PM, opening with Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 with Jonathan Biss (last performed by the BPO in 2003) and Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2 (last performed by the BPO in 2014), which Zander says “represents the last great flowering of Russian romanticism.”
Biss is Co-Artistic Director, alongside Mitsuko Uchida, of the Marlboro Music Festival and a guest lecturer at New England Conservatory of Music, working with composer and pianist Marc-André Hamelin. Besides being notable for his immersive focus on single composers, he is the author of Beethoven's Shadow, about the art of performing Beethoven's piano sonatas, all 32 of which he recorded over the course of 9 years on Onyx Classics, Meyer Media, and Orchid Classics, and which he finished right before the composer’s 250th year in 2020.
The BPO’s second concert on Saturday, November 12, 2022, at 8 PM opens with Dvorák’s Cello Concerto, featuring Hayoung Choi, followed by Brahms Symphony No. 2, which was the very first symphony Zander conducted in 1972.
“As a cellist, I cherished the Dvorák Cello Concerto as a constant companion on my musical journey,” says Zander. “I conducted it for my first time in 1977, featuring Yo-Yo Ma as soloist with the Boston Civic Symphony, and it still is the ultimate piece of cello music to me.”
Hayoung Choi is this year’s First Prize Winner at the Queen Elisabeth Competition for Cello, the first Korean cellist to receive the award. She also won First Prize and two special prizes at the 3rd Krzysztof Penderecki International Cello Competition in Poland in 2018. At age 13 she won first prize at the Johannes Brahms International Competition in Austria, the youngest winner in the competition’s history. The young, German-born musician has already performed in many chamber groups with such notable musicians as Gidon Kremer, Christian Tetzlaff, Kim Kashkashian, and Mitsuko Uchida, to name a few.
The third BPO concert on Friday, February 24, 2023, at 8 PM is devoted entirely to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, which was the first commercial recording made by the BPO in 1990 (soloists and chorus to be announced). “No other work delivers this particular, powerful message about the indomitable human spirit through the richest, most complex music that is still understandable 200 years later,” says Zander. The program repeats at Carnegie Hall in New York on Sunday, February 26.
The final BPO concert takes place Friday, April 14, 2023, at 8 PM and includes Schubert’s Symphony No. 8 (“Unfinished”) and Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth). The Mahler features Dame Sarah Connolly, widely considered England’s preeminent mezzo-soprano, and tenor Stefan Vinke, a renowned interpreter of Wagner’s Heldentenor roles, who will sing the famously difficult tenor songs.
Zander has an international reputation as an interpreter of Mahler. “Over my lifetime I have had an intensely personal relationship with the music of Gustav Mahler,” said Zander. “I feel as if I almost speak his music like a mother-tongue.”
The BPYO enters its second decade on Sunday, November 20, 2022, at 3 PM with Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben, performed at their very first concert in 2012, followed by their first performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, which Zander recorded with the Philharmonia Orchestra of London in 1999.
The BPYO’s second concert on Friday, March 10, 2023, at 8 PM opens with Bartok Concerto for Orchestra followed by Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 (both last performed by the BPYO in 2015). “Since this concert takes place the day after my 84th birthday, I was interested in a concerto that is both energetic and exuberant,” said Zander. “The Bartok piece is virtually a catalog of all that the modern orchestra is capable, and it is almost always the final work on the program, but Tchaikovsky’s deeply emotional Fifth Symphony presents yet another huge challenge.”
Zander returns to his beloved Mahler for the third and final BPYO concert on Wednesday, May 3, at 8 PM with Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 Resurrection, performed in their very first season in 2012 and on tour in The Netherlands in 2013. Guest artists include soprano Sonja Tengblad, mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano, and Chorus Pro Musica. “A live performance of Mahler’s Resurrection is always more than a concert—it’s a community experience,” says Zander. “There is no work in the repertory that so completely unites performers and audience members in a transformative musical affirmation.”
Subscription & Ticket Information
Subscription packages for in-person concerts are currently available; individual tickets and streaming subscriptions go on sale August 22. Boston Philharmonic Orchestra tickets are $115, $90, $60 and $30; $10 for students; Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra tickets are $60.00, $40.00 and $20.00; $10 for students. Tickets to live streams are $20 for general admission, $10 for students, and $40 for supporters. Both subscriptions and individual tickets are available at www.bostonphil.org or by calling 617-236-0999. Ticket policies are at https://www.bostonphil.org/concerts/ticket-policies and coronavirus updates are at https://www.bostonphil.org/concerts/experience/virus.
BOSTON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA SCHEDULE
Wednesday, October 19, 8 PM
Beethoven, Piano Concerto No. 4
Jonathan Biss, piano
Rachmaninoff, Symphony No. 2
Saturday, November 12, 8 PM
Dvorák Cello Concerto
Hayoung Choi, cello
Brahms Symphony No. 2
Friday, February 24, 2023, 8 PM (also Sunday, February 26, 3 PM @ Carnegie Hall)
Beethoven Symphony No. 9
Soloists & chorus to be announced
Friday, April 14, 2022, 8 PM
Schubert Symphony No. 8 (“Unfinished”)
Sarah Connolly, mezzo-soprano
Stefan Vinke, tenor
Mahler Das Lied von der Erde
BOSTON PHILHARMONIC YOUTH ORCHESTRA SCHEDULE
Sunday, November 20, 2022, 3 PM
Strauss Ein Heldenleben
Beethoven Symphony No. 5
Friday, March 10, 2023, 8 PM
Bartók Concerto for Orchestra
Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 5
Wednesday, May 3, 2023, 8 PM
Mahler Symphony No. 2
Sonja Tengblad, soprano
Jennifer Johnson Cano, mezzo-soprano
Chorus Pro Musica
###
FEATURED JOBS
RENT A PHOTO
