During the 2016-17 season, “The National Symphony Orchestra is bidding farewell to its current music director, welcoming its next one, and celebrating a bygone one with a four-week emphasis on Mstislav Rostropovich, ‘Slava at 90,’ including a tour to Russia,” writes Anne Midgette in Tuesday’s (3/8) Washington Post. “Christoph Eschenbach, in his eight weeks in DC, will lead the Mahler 2nd, the Shostakovich 8th, and the Beethoven 9th as a grand finale.” Incoming music director Gianandrea Noseda “will lead an all-American concert as part of a year-long focus on [President John F. Kennedy].… The Declassified series, the alternative Friday-night programming, will forge ahead…. [Composer in residence] Mason Bates’s … KC Jukebox series is expanding to five new-music events, ranging from an evening with the vocal ensemble Chanticleer and a new string quartet by John Adams to an evening with the [DC-based collective] Thievery Corporation…. Also on the program is one of his signature events, Mercury Soul, which mingles classical and techno in a concert-cum-club evening.” Guest conductors will include Edward Gardner, Ton Koopman, Donald Runnicles, and Jaap van Zweden. Cellist Yo-Yo Ma, soprano Renée Fleming, and rapper Q-Tip have been named the Kennedy Center’s artistic partners.
Posted March 9, 2016
Photo of National Symphony Orchestra and Christoph Eschenbach by Margot Ingoldsby Schulman
