“Andris Nelsons’ first season as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra will include 10 Symphony Hall programs and a European tour with stops in Berlin, Cologne, London, Lucerne, and Paris. His first concert this fall will be a gala vocal program with soprano Kristine Opolais, his wife, and tenor Jonas Kaufmann,” writes Jeremy Eichler in Wednesday’s (3/5) Boston Globe. Programs “inspired and influenced” by Nelsons’ life as a musician will include “the Overture to Wagner’s ‘Tannhäuser,’ a piece he heard at age 5 and has credited with planting the seeds of his future career.… He will also lead symphonies by Shostakovich, Rachmaninoff, Sibelius, Bruckner, Beethoven and Mahler as well as Strauss tone poems, Bartok’s Suite from ‘The Miraculous Mandarin,’ and Stravinsky’s ‘Rite of Spring.’ Two world premieres are scheduled for next season: a work for chorus and orchestra by Latvian composer Eriks Esenvalds and a work for organ and orchestra by Michael Gandolfi. Nelsons will also get better acquainted with the music of Gunther Schuller and John Harbison, two composers closely associated with the BSO, as he leads one work by each of them. He will also collaborate with trumpeter Hakan Hardenberger in the American premiere of Brett Dean’s Trumpet Concerto.”
Posted March 6, 2014
Pictured: Andris Nelsons conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Photo by Marco Borggreve
