Apr. 26: Boston Philharmonic Orchestra Closes 40th Season with Ives and Mahler

For Immediate Release
Contact: Katy Salomon | Morahan Arts and Media
katy@morahanartsandmedia.com | 863.660.2214

BOSTON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA PRESENTS IVES AND MAHLER, APRIL 26

Listen to the BPO Perform Mahler’s Fifth Symphony
 

Boston, MA (March 20, 2019) - The Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, led by conductor Benjamin Zander, concludes its 2018-19 season with a concert featuring two great symphonies on Friday, April 26, 2019 at 8:00 p.m. at Symphony Hall.

The program showcases Mahler’s kaleidoscopic five-movement Fifth Symphony, which starts with themes of brooding, despair, and death; moves through feelings of great anguish, outlandish satire, and love-drenched musings; and concludes with optimism and hope. The concert opens with Ives’ rarely heard Third Symphony, a gentle, contemplative work for chamber orchestra which muses on old American hymns.

"We placed the Ives Third Symphony on the program with Mahler because just such a conjunction almost took place,” explains conductor Benjamin Zander. “Mahler had the intention of performing the premiere of this new work with the New York Philharmonic in the 1911 season — a season he did not live to conduct.” Its premiere was delayed until 1946 and in 1947, it was awarded a Pulitzer Prize. The only performance of this American masterpiece in Symphony Hall was in 1983.

The program’s inclusion of Mahler continues the season theme celebrating the 80th birthday of Maestro Benjamin Zander, who began conducting Mahler’s symphonies in the 1970s and has become one of the foremost Mahler conductors of our time. High Fidelity Magazine named the recording of Mahler’s Sixth Symphony by Zander and London’s Philharmonia Orchestra as the best classical recording of 2002; the recording of the Third Symphony was awarded ‘Critic’s Choice’ by the German Record Critics; and Zander’s recordings of Mahler’s Ninth, Mahler’s Second, and Bruckner’s Fifth were nominated for Grammy Awards.

The concert is preceded by Zander’s pre-concert Guide to the Music at 6:45pm. These talks offer an in-depth preview of the music, enabling audience members to gain a deeper understanding of and appreciation for the pieces.

Program Information
Ives and Mahler
Boston Philharmonic Orchestra
Benjamin Zander, Conductor
Friday, April 26, 2019 at 8:00pm
Symphony Hall | 301 Massachusetts Avenue | Boston, MA 02115

Program:
IVES - Symphony No. 3
MAHLER - Symphony No. 5

Ticket Information
Tickets are available by visiting www.bostonphil.org or by calling 617-236-0999.

About the Boston Philharmonic
The Boston Philharmonic, founded by Benjamin Zander in 1979, is comprised of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra (BPO), the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra (BPYO), and its robust series of Crescendo Education and Community Engagement programs which impact 2,000 children per week. The mission of the Boston Philharmonic 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 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 orchestral and leadership training at the highest level for talented musicians between the ages of 12 and 21, completely tuition-free. 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. Maestro Zander’s world-renowned master classes on musical interpretation have garnered more than 6 million views.

About Benjamin Zander
For the past 50 years, Benjamin Zander has occupied a unique place as a master teacher, deeply insightful and probing interpreter, and as a profound source of inspiration for audiences, students, professional musicians, corporate leaders, politicians and more. He has persistently engaged 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.

Zander founded the Boston Philharmonic in 1978 and has appeared as guest conductor with orchestras around the world. His performances have inspired thousands of musicians, renewed their sense of idealism and shed fresh, insightful and sometimes provocative light on the interpretation of the central symphonic repertoire of the 19th and 20th centuries. Critics and the public have been united in their praise of Zander’s interpretations of the central repertory.

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

In 2012, Zander founded the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra (BPYO), which draws young musicians from the entire northeastern US to its weekly rehearsals and high-profile performances in Boston. This tuition-free orchestra tours regularly, and has performed in Carnegie Hall, the Concertgebouw, and the Berlin Philharmonic among others. In the summer of 2017 the BPYO will tour South America and, in 2018, Europe.

From 1965-2012, Zander was on the faculty of the New England Conservatory of Music (NEC), where he taught Musical Interpretation, and conducted the Youth Philharmonic and Conservatory orchestras. He was the founding Artistic Director of the NEC’s joint program with The Walnut Hill School for the Performing Arts. Zander led the NEC Youth Philharmonic on fifteen international tours and made several documentaries for Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).

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

*Image at top of release by Paul Marotta

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