 |
Carnegie Hall News
Back to Press Release List > 09/12/2008 - James Levine & Boston Symphony Orchestra Launch Carnegie Hall Season on October 20
Most current program information 
CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS THE BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
AND MUSIC DIRECTOR JAMES LEVINE IN THREE CONCERTS
THIS SEASON BEGINNING MONDAY, OCTOBER 20 AT 8:00 PM
Each Program Includes a Premiere by an American Composer:
Leon Kirchner, Elliott Carter, and Gunther Schuller
Pianists Maurizio Pollini & Daniel Barenboim
and Soprano Barbara Frittoli Are Featured
In the 2008–09 season, Carnegie Hall presents three concerts by the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) led by Music Director and Conductor James Levine in Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage on Monday, October 20 at 8:00 p.m.; Thursday, December 11 at 8:00 p.m.; and Monday, February 9 at 8:00 p.m. In each of the three programs, the BSO will present New York premieres of works by American composers including Leon Kirchner’s The Forbidden, Elliott Carter’s Interventions, and Gunther Schuller’s Where the Word Ends. Performances will also feature pianists Maurizio Pollini and Daniel Barenboim and soprano Barbara Frittoli.
• Monday, October 20 at 8:00 p.m.—Maestro Levine leads the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the New York premiere of Leon Kirchner’s The Forbidden, a BSO 125th anniversary commission. This orchestral work is based on the composer’s recent piano work of the same name, which evolved into his fourth string quartet and has now become an orchestral work. Pianist Maurizio Pollini joins the orchestra for Schumann’s Piano Concerto. (Mr. Pollini also performs works by Chopin, Beethoven, and Schumann in recital at Carnegie Hall on Sunday, October 26.) Also on the BSO program is Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6, “Pathétique.”
• Thursday, December 11 at 8:00 p.m.—Pianist Daniel Barenboim joins Maestro Levine and the BSO for a concert that celebrates composer Elliott Carter, who turns 100 on this day. Mr. Carter holds the Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair at Carnegie Hall this season. Part of Mr. Barenboim’s season-long Perspectives series at Carnegie Hall, the centerpiece of this program will be the New York premiere of Mr. Carter’s Interventions for piano and orchestra, co-commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Carnegie Hall, and the Staatskapelle Berlin. The program also includes Maestro Levine and Mr. Barenboim performing Schubert’s Fantasie in F Minor for Piano Four Hands; Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with Mr. Barenboim; and Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du printemps, a work that convinced Mr. Carter to become a composer after he first heard it conducted by Pierre Monteux at Carnegie Hall in 1928.
• Monday, February 9 at 8:00 p.m.—The BSO gives the New York premiere of Gunther Schuller’s Where the Word Ends, one of the composer’s most ambitious works to date, commissioned to mark the 125th anniversary of the BSO, with a score calling for an exceptionally large orchestra. Also on the program is Brahms’ Symphony No. 2. The orchestra is joined by soprano Barbara Frittoli for Mozart’s concert aria “Bella mia fiamma…Resta, o cara,” and “O smania! O Furie…D’Oreste, d’Ajace!” from Idomeneo.
Composer Information
Extraordinarily gifted as both a pianist and a conductor, Leon Kirchner is first and foremost a composer. A member of the American Academies of Arts and Letters and Arts and Science, he has been honored twice by the New York Music Critics' Circle (First and Second String Quartets), and received the Naumburg Award (Piano Concerto No. 1), the Pulitzer Prize (Third Quartet with electronic tape), the Friedheim Award (Music for Cello and Orchestra), and commissions from, among others, the Ford, Fromm, and Koussevitzky Foundations, the New York Philharmonic, The Philadelphia Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Symphony, Spoleto and Santa Fe Chamber Music Festivals, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge. He was composer-in-residence and a performer at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the Tanglewood Music Center, Tokyo Music Today (Takemitsu Festival), and the Spoleto, Charleston, Aldeburgh, and Marlboro music festivals. He has also conducted at a number of leading music festivals around the world, most recently at Ravinia, and taught for many years at Harvard.
Carnegie Hall has appointed Elliott Carter to its Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair and has planned a season-long celebration of his works in honor of his 100th birthday. Internationally recognized as a legendary American voice in classical music, Carter is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the first composer to receive the United States National Medal of Arts, and one of the few composers to win Germany’s prestigious Ernst von Siemens Music Prize. At 99 years of age, he has composed over 130 works, including 30 in the last ten years and nine in 2007. In the new season, Carnegie Hall pays tribute to Mr. Carter—who turns 100 in December—by programming a wide variety of his music, including a number of premieres and commissions, in contexts that illuminate his central role in the music of the last hundred years.
Carnegie Hall’s tribute to Elliott Carter launches on his 100th birthday—December 11, 2008—when James Levine leads the Boston Symphony Orchestra and pianist Daniel Barenboim in the New York premiere of his Interventions, co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall. The following day, Carter’s chamber works, including the New York premiere of 2004’s Mosaic, are featured in a Making Music program with musical selections interspersed with film interludes by Frank Scheffer. Notable champions of Carter’s music perform special concerts of his work in celebration of the centenary: pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard performs a program entitled Carter in Context, pairing the composer’s solo works for piano with selections from Bach’s The Art of Fugue; Pierre Boulez conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the New York premiere of Carter’s Réflexions on a program that also includes works by Ives and Varèse, two composers much admired by Carter; and Barenboim performs in an all-Carter chamber music program with members of the Staatskapelle Berlin, including the Quintet for Piano and Winds and the Quintet for Piano and Strings. The holders of the Carnegie Hall Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair have been Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (1995–1999), Pierre Boulez (1999–2003), John Adams (2003–2007), and Thomas Adès (2007–2008).
The composer Gunther Schuller is famously a man of many musical pursuits. He began his professional life as a horn player in both the jazz and classical worlds, working as readily with Miles Davis and Gil Evans as with Toscanini; he was principal horn of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra from age sixteen and later of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra until 1959. In the 1950s, he began a conducting career focusing largely on contemporary music, and thereafter conducted most of the major orchestras of the world in a wide range of works, including his own. Composition has had a continual central presence in Schuller's musical life: he has written more than 180 works dating back to the beginning of his career when, at age 19, he was soloist in his own Horn Concerto with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra under Eugene Goosens. His works range from solo works to concertos, symphonies, and opera, and many fall outside of any genre. Schuller's orchestral works include Concerto for Orchestra No. 1: Gala Music (1966), written for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; Concerto for Orchestra No. 2 (1976) for the National Symphony Orchestra; and Farbenspiel (Concerto for Orchestra No. 3) (1985), written for the Berlin Philharmonic.
Artist Information
James Levine became Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the fall of 2004. He is the orchestra’s 14th music director since the BSO’s founding in 1881 and the first American-born conductor to hold the position. Mr. Levine is also Music Director of the Metropolitan Opera, where, in the 37 years since his debut there, he has developed a relationship with that company unparalleled in its history and unique in the musical world today. Mr. Levine also appears at Carnegie Hall with the MET Orchestra on Sunday, October 5; Sunday, January 25; and Thursday, May 21; and leads the MET Chamber Ensemble in Weill Recital Hall on Sunday, November 9 and Sunday, November 23; and in Zankel Hall on Sunday, January 11, 2009.
Pianist Maurizio Pollini was born in 1942 in Milan, Italy. He studied the piano with Carlo Lonati and composition and conducting at The Milan Conservatory. By 1957, when he performed Chopin's Études in Milan, the press had already begun to take notice of him. His prizewinning performance at the 1960 Warsaw Chopin Competition was followed by a further period of study. Since the mid-1960s, Pollini has given recitals and appeared with major orchestras in Europe, the U.S, and the Far East. He made his US debut in 1968, undertook his first tour of Japan in 1974, and today still performs regularly at the world's great international music festivals. He has also developed a great interest in contemporary works and was one of the first pianists to champion many modern composers. His frequent ventures into chamber music and occasional appearances as a conductor testify to his interest in every aspect of music.
As a testament to his wide-ranging interests and extensive accomplishments, Daniel Barenboim returns to Carnegie Hall for his second Perspectives series. As Music Director of the Staatskapelle Berlin, Barenboim will lead the ensemble in May 2009 performances of Mahler’s symphonies, alternating at the podium with fellow conductor and musical luminary Pierre Boulez for the complete cycle. Barenboim gained early fame as a pianist, and on December 14, 2008, he will perform a solo recital on the Metropolitan Opera stage—an exceptionally rare event. Also as pianist, he will join James Levine and The MET Chamber Ensemble, take part in the celebrations of Elliott Carter’s 100th birthday this season in a chamber concert with members of the Staatskapelle Berlin, and appear with the Boston Symphony Orchestra for the New York premiere of Carter’s Interventions. In addition, from November 28 to December 20, Barenboim will take his baton to the Metropolitan Opera to conduct Wagner’s masterwork Tristan und Isolde, memorably described by Thomas Mann as a tragedy of love “lost forever in the embrace of night’s magic kingdom.”
Barbara Frittoli is widely regarded as one of the foremost Italian sopranos before the public today. In opera she is internationally acclaimed for her interpretations of the great works of Mozart and Verdi. Born in Milan, she graduated with highest honors from the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory. Highlights of Barbara Frittoli’s 2007–08 season included Così fan tutte with Riccardo Muti at the Vienna State Opera, a new production of Suor Angelica with Riccardo Chailly at La Scala as well as Le nozze di Figaro at the London’s Royal Opera. Concert performances will bring her to Chicago, Tel Aviv, London, Berlin, Moscow, London, and Vienna. In future seasons she is scheduled to return to the Metropolitan Opera for Don Giovanni and for Simon Boccanegra as Amelia, a role which will serve as her San Francisco Opera debut in autumn 2008.
The Boston Symphony Orchestra presents more than 250 concerts each year. Now in its 128th season, the BSO gave its inaugural concert on October 22, 1881. Since then, the orchestra has performed throughout the United States as well as in Europe, Japan, Hong Kong, South America, and China and also reaches audiences through its performances on radio and television, along with its many recordings. The BSO plays an active role in commissioning new works from today’s most important composers, and the orchestra’s summer season at Tanglewood is regarded as one of the world’s most important music festivals.
Program Information
Monday, October 20 at 8:00 p.m.
Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage
BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
James Levine, Music Director and Conductor
Maurizio Pollini, Piano
PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Op. 74, “Pathétique”
LEON KIRCHNER The Forbidden (New York Premiere)
ROBERT SCHUMANN Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 54
Sponsored by Deloitte LLP
____________________________________
Thursday, December 11 at 8:00 p.m.
Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage
BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
James Levine, Music Director, Conductor, and Piano
Daniel Barenboim, Piano
FRANZ SCHUBERT Fantasie in F Minor for Piano Four Hands, D. 940
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Minor
ELLIOTT CARTER Interventions for Piano and Orchestra (New York Premiere, co-commissioned by
Carnegie Hall, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the Staatskapelle Berlin)
IGOR STRAVINSKY Le sacre du printemps
Perspectives: Daniel Barenboim
____________________________________
Monday, February 9 at 8:00 p.m.
Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage
BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
James Levine, Music Director and Conductor
Barbara Frittoli, Soprano
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART “Bella mia fiamma … Resta, o cara,” K. 528
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART “O smania! O Furie! … D’Oreste, d’Ajace!” from Idomeneo
GUNTHER SCHULLER Where the World Ends (New York Premiere)
JOHANNES BRAHMS Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 73
Sponsored by Ernst & Young LLP
Bank of America is the Proud Season Sponsor of Carnegie Hall.
|
Ticket Information
Tickets, priced at $45, $54, $71, $99, $129, and $143, are available at the Carnegie Hall Box Office, 154 West 57th Street, or can be charged to major credit cards by calling CarnegieCharge at 212 247-7800 or by visiting the Carnegie Hall website, www.carnegiehall.org.
In addition, for all Carnegie Hall Corporation presentations taking place in Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage, a limited number of partial-view seats, priced at $10, will be available day-of-concert beginning at 11:00 a.m. Monday through Saturday and 12:00 noon on Sunday until one hour before the performance. The exceptions are Carnegie Hall Family Concerts and gala events. These $10 tickets are available to the general public on a first-come, first-served basis at the Carnegie Hall Box Office only. There is a two-ticket limit per customer.
A limited number of student/senior citizen discount tickets, priced at $10, may also be available for some Carnegie Hall events. They are on sale at the Box Office day-of-concert beginning at 11:00 a.m. Monday through Saturday and 12:00 noon on Sunday until one hour before the performance. Student/senior discount tickets for some Weill Recital Hall events are available at the Box Office one hour before the performance. Please call CarnegieCharge at 212-247-7800 for ticket availability.
|
| |