Sheku Kanneh-Mason in a recent concert with the Philadelphia Orchestra led by Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Kanneh-Mason returns to the Philadelphia Orchestra next June. Photo by Jeff Fusco/The Philadelphia Orchestra.
In Thursday’s (1/18) WRTI (Pennsylvania), Nate Chinen writes, “The Philadelphia Orchestra has announced the details of its 2024-25 season, featuring a healthy dose of Mahler, a handful of premieres, and works by composers of color who were historically overlooked. Fittingly, for the Orchestra’s 125th season, there will also be programming that honors the history of the organization itself. Music and artistic director Yannick Nézet-Séguin, in his 13th season with the organization, has stamped its programming with a recognizable personality…. Opening Night, on Sept. 26, 2024 … will begin with the world premiere of Terence Blanchard’s Suite from Fire Shut Up in My Bones…. The suite is a Philadelphia Orchestra co-commission, and foregrounds Blanchard’s fluency in operatic as well as jazz expression, along with a range of other Black music.” The evening will also feature works by Bruch and Tchaikovsky. “Nézet-Séguin says …, ‘In addition to performing [works by Mahler, Beethoven], and more, we will bring a work by Margaret Bonds to Philadelphia and continue to express our musical admiration for Florence Price, William Grant Still, Louise Farrenc, and Joseph Bologne …’ ” Guest conductors include Riccardo Muti, Masaaki Suzuki, David Robertson, Roderick Cox, Stéphane Denève, Nathalie Stutzmann, and Marin Alsop, who will lead a world premiere by former composer in residence Gabriela Lena Frank.
