Andris Nelsons conducts Bernstein, Ogonek, and Shostakovich with Jennifer Koh, violin, Linus Schafer-Goulthorpe, boy soprano, and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus with James Burton, conductor
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Symphony Hall, Boston, MA
Andris Nelsons leads two works new to the BSO repertoire: the BSO-commissioned Starling Variations by American composer Elizabeth Ogonek and Dmitri Shostakovich’s rarely heard 1930 Symphony No. 3 for chorus and orchestra, an early, jingoistic hymn to the Soviet experiment, continuing Nelsons’ and the BSO’s multi-season survey of the composer’s complete symphonies. The Tanglewood Festival Chorus also joins the BSO for Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, sung in Hebrew and featuring Linus Schafer-Goulthorpe, boy soprano, as soloist, and American violinist Jennifer Koh makes her Boston Symphony Orchestra debut as soloist in Bernstein’s Serenade.
This week’s performances by the Tanglewood Festival Chorus are supported by the Alan. J. and Suzanne W. Dworsky Fund for Voice and Chorus.
Please note that Janine Jansen has withdrawn from these performances due to illness. We are fortunate that Jennifer Koh was available to perform Bernstein's Serenade in her place.
Featuring
Program Notes & Works
Starling Variations
The key image for Ogonek’s BSO co-commissioned Starling Variations is the group flight of starlings, known as murmuration, in which hundreds of the birds swoop and dive, separate and recombine. The analogy is apt for Ogonek's dynamic treatment of the orchestra's groups.
Serenade (after Plato’s Symposium), for violin and orchestra
Bernstein says of Serenade (after Plato's Symposium), "The music, like Plato’s dialogue, is a series of related statements in praise of love."
Chichester Psalms
Setting Psalms and parts of Psalms in Hebrew, Bernstein relied on his theatrical instincts in creating these dramatic and immediately impactful settings.
Symphony No. 3, The First of May
“It would be interesting to write a symphony where not a single theme would be repeated.”
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