Conductor Elim Chan Makes Her BSO Debut, January 20–22, With Piano Soloist Igor Levit And A Recent Work By Brian Raphael Nabors

In Her BSO Debut, Elim Chan Leads the Orchestra in Brian Raphael Nabors' Pulse and Tchaikovsky's Second Symphony; Making his BSO Subscription Series Debut, Igor Levit Performs Brahms' Second Piano Concerto

Thursday and Saturday, January 20 and 22, at 8 p.m.; Friday, January 21, at 1:30 p.m.

BSO Artistic Partner Thomas Adès is Joined by Pianist Kirill Gerstein in Repeat Performances of Adès’ own Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (2019) as well as Ravel's Piano Concerto for Left Hand; Works by Berg (Three Pieces for Orchestra) and Ravel (La Valse) Complete the Program

Thursday and Saturday, January 27 and 29, at 8 p.m.; Friday, January 28, at 1:30 p.m.

Second Boston Symphony Chamber Players concert of the season on January 23 to feature works by Bartók, Dvořák, and a world premiere piece by Michael Gandolfi; a listing with complete program and personnel information appears at the end of this press release

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To request interviews or press tickets, contact Grace Munns at gmunns@bso.org or call 617-638-9286

Program Details for BSO Concerts with Elim Chan and Igor Levit, January 20-28

Hong Kong-born conductor Elim Chan, chief conductor of the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, makes her BSO debut and acclaimed Russian-German pianist Igor Levit makes his BSO subscription series debut in these concerts. Mr. Levit performs Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2, a work of grand scope and widely varying character and requiring great virtuosity. The young Alabama-born composer (and 2021 Tanglewood Music Center Fellow) Brian Raphael Nabors’ orchestral work Pulse aims to suggest, in several contrasting episodes, the unifying energy of many different facets of life on earth. The nickname of Tchaikovsky’s colorful and dynamic Little Russian Symphony refers not to his homeland, but to a part of the Ukraine then known as “Little Russia”; the nickname comes from the Ukrainian folk melodies used in the piece.

On Thursday, January 20 at 10:30 a.m., there is an open rehearsal for this program.

Program Details for BSO Concerts with Thomas Adès and Kirill Gerstein, January 27-29

BSO Artistic Partner Thomas Adès is joined by pianist Kirill Gerstein in reprise performances of Adès’ own Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, a BSO-commissioned work written for Gerstein and premiered at Symphony Hall in 2019. Gerstein and Adès have since performed the concerto worldwide to great acclaim, and the BSO’s recording of it was nominated for a Grammy Award.

Gerstein also performs Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand, which Ravel completed in 1930 for the pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who lost his right arm due to an injury in World War I. Ravel’s fascination with jazz shows up in the concerto’s syncopated rhythms and energy. Exhibiting stark differences as well as fascinating similarities, both Ravel’s La Valse and Berg’s Three Pieces for Orchestra—written a few years apart during and after World War I—seem to be modern commentaries, both admiring and critical, of the music and society of a bygone 19th-century Europe.