The 2021-2022 BSO Season

BSO Artistic Advisor for Education and Community Engagement Thomas Wilkins leads composer and electric bass virtuoso Victor Wooten’s La Lección Tres for electric bass and orchestra, with the composer as soloist alongside works by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Duke Ellington. Assistant Conductor Anna Rakitina conducts music of Ellen Reid and Jean Sibelius in her first live-audience Symphony Hall program, also featuring the BSO debut of Tchaikovsky Piano Competition gold medalist Alexandre Kantorow. BSO Artistic Partner Thomas Adès and soloist Kirill Gerstein reprise Adès’ highly acclaimed Concerto for Piano and Orchestra on a program with works by Alban Berg and Maurice Ravel.

The Tanglewood Festival Chorus, led by James Burton, Alan J. and Suzanne W. Dworsky Choral Director and Conductor of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, makes a triumphant return to performing with the BSO in two major works: Leoš Janácek’s Glagolitic Mass in February and, along with the Boston Symphony Children’s Choir, Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem in March to celebrate the work’s 60th anniversary. Soprano Albina Shagimuratova, tenor Ian Bostridge, and baritone Matthias Goerne are soloists in this work that was given its American premiere by the BSO at Tanglewood in 1963. As was conceived for the work’s first performances, the soloists in this performance represent the warring powers of Russia, England, and Germany.