Cleveland Orchestra’s 2023-24: Starry Guest Artists, Conductor Debuts, Three World Premieres

“Full of ambitious plans, big names and artistic enterprise, the [Cleveland Orchestra’s] 2023-24 season signals an eagerness to close the book on the pandemic and get back to business,” writes Zachary Lewis in Sunday’s (3/19) Cleveland.com. “ ‘We are looking ahead with great excitement,’ said André Gremillet, the orchestra’s president and chief executive…. ‘More than ever, we need new people in the hall.’… In some cases, it’s as if the orchestra surveyed the field and plucked the brightest flowers to draw listeners … Slated for recital, concerto or chamber-music appearances are” Yo-Yo Ma, Matthias Goerne, Simon Keenlyside, Leila Josefowicz, “and pianists Evgeny Kissin, Yefim Bronfman, Daniil Trifonov, Yuja Wang, Igor Levit, Marc-Andre Hamelin and Emanuel Ax…. Music director Franz Welser-Möst has several intriguing programs … [guest conductors include] composers John Adams and George Benjamin as well as Herbert Blomstedt, Semyon Bychkov, Klaus Makela, and Philippe Herreweghe…. Next season is also packed with debuts, many of them by women. Among the 14 making their Cleveland, Severance or conducting debuts are soprano Aphrodite Patoulidou, pianists Isata Kanneh-Mason and Beatrice Rana, cellist Sol Gabetta, and conductors Dalia Stasevska and Barbara Hannigan … The orchestra has embraced new music with similar warmth…. The orchestra will present 13 works for the first time. Of those, three will be world premieres and nine will be the work of living composers.”