2024-25 BSO Season

DJ Kurs, speaker 

Join us for an exclusive Q&A event with DJ Kurs, the Artistic Director behind Deaf West Theatre, which was a driving force behind last summer’s groundbreaking European tour of Beethoven’s Fidelio, adapted into sign language in collaboration with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Exploring Beethoven’s experience with hearing loss, this innovative production redefined opera through a fusion of music, sign language, and visual storytelling, bringing the timeless themes of freedom and justice to life in an inclusive and transformative way. Don’t miss this captivating discussion about the creative process, the impact of the tour, and the future of accessibility in the performing arts.
 

Andris Nelsons, conductor

ALL-BEETHOVEN program
Symphony No. 1
Symphony No. 2
-Intermission-
Symphony No. 3, Eroica

Our exploration of Beethoven starts with his beginnings as an acolyte of Joseph Haydn and W.A. Mozart in his Symphony No. 1 in 1800. Beethoven revolutionized the symphony – and the language of music – through the startlingly innovative Second and Third (Eroica) symphonies which incorporated the heroic journey into symphonic form

Thursday evening’s concert is generously supported by Albert A. Holman III and Susan P. Stickells.

Jan Swafford, speaker 
Clayton Stephenson, piano 

BEETHOVEN Piano Sonata No. 30 in E, Op. 109

Noted author and composer Jan Swafford and Van Cliburn International Piano Competition finalist Clayton Stephenson discuss and demonstrate Beethoven's extraordinary late piano music and the development of his piano writing over his lifetime. Parallel to the evolution of his pianistic voice was the evolution of the piano itself—from the smaller, delicate instruments of his youth (in Mozart’s era), through his acquisition of a more robust French Érard, to the far more powerful British and Austrian pianos that sparked his epochal final works including the Hammerklavier Sonata, Diabelli Variations, and the final sonatas opp. 109-111. A continuing theme will be the individuality of each major work for the keyboard. With each piece Beethoven in effect remade the piano, the sonority of each as significant as the notes on the page.

Andris Nelsons, conductor

ALL-BEETHOVEN program
Symphony No.4
Symphony No. 5

Beethoven composed his Fourth and Fifth symphonies almost concurrently, but they’re very different in their expressive impact. The Fourth is one of Beethoven’s warmest, most congenial works, sharing that mood with the Violin Concerto completed just after the symphony. The Fifth Symphony, by contrast, creates wonderful intensity through the famous four-note “fate” motif—perhaps the most famous musical fragment of all time—and resolves that tension in a triumphant finale.

Andris Nelsons, conductor

ALL-BEETHOVEN program
Symphony No.4
-Intermission-
Symphony No. 5

Beethoven composed his Fourth and Fifth symphonies almost concurrently, but they’re very different in their expressive impact. The Fourth is one of Beethoven’s warmest, most congenial works, sharing that mood with the Violin Concerto completed just after the symphony. The Fifth Symphony, by contrast, creates wonderful intensity through the famous four-note “fate” motif—perhaps the most famous musical fragment of all time—and resolves that tension in a triumphant finale.

Thursday evening’s concert is generously supported by Kristin and Roger Servison.

Matthew Guerrieri, speaker
Randy Scarlata, baritone 
Tanya Blaich, piano 

BEETHOVEN An die ferne Geliebte, Op. 98

Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte (“To the Distant Beloved”) remains a bit of a mystery. On its surface, it’s straightforward enough: a song cycle—one of the first of its kind—in which the composer seems to state his own thwarted hopes and longings, his memories of his “Immortal Beloved,” with poignant honesty. But Beethoven is a cagey witness. His famous letter to the Immortal Beloved was never sent and never seen by anyone but the composer until after his death. The style of An die ferne Geliebte, harmonically simple and plain-spoken in ways derived from folk song, conceals as much as it reveals both musically and poetically. The cycle’s apparent closed circle, its patterns of self-reference and reminiscence, are an illusion of looking back through an art that can only move forward. What did Beethoven want us to hear in An die ferne Geliebte?

Andris Nelsons, conductor

ALL-BEETHOVEN program
Symphony No. 6, Pastoral
-Intermission-
Symphony No. 7

Beethoven conceived his Pastoral Symphony, No. 6, as an illustration of a lovely day spent in the countryside, where we encounter babbling brooks, birds of various sorts, friendly country dwellers, and a brief, tumultuous storm. His Seventh Symphony has long been one of his most popular works—especially its solemn Allegretto, which had such an effect at its premiere that it was immediately encored.

Tuesday evening’s concert is generously supported by Tom Kuo and Alexandra DeLaite.

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Amanda Majeski, soprano
Tamara Mumford, mezzo-soprano
Pavel Černoch, tenor
Andrè Schuen, baritone
Tanglewood Festival Chorus,
 James Burton, conductor

ALL-BEETHOVEN program
Symphony No. 8
-Intermission-
Symphony No. 9

For all his reputation as a prickly artistic genius whose music crackles with heaven-storming power, Beethoven shared with his teacher Haydn a delightful musical wit, nowhere so clearly demonstrated as in his Eighth Symphony. The cycle concludes with his hugely ambitious and all-embracing Ninth, a revolution in and of itself; it was the first symphony to include chorus, transforming Friedrich Schiller’s “Ode to Joy” into a hymn for humanity.

This week's performances by the Tanglewood Festival Chorus are supported by the Alan J. and Suzanne W. Dworsky Fund for Voice and Chorus.

Pre-concert Talk
The January 24 performance will include a pre-concert talk starting at 12:15pm with BSO Director of Program Publications Robert Kirzinger.

A masterclass on the Symphony Hall stage with pianist Marc-André Hamelin featuring four students who will be coached on an individual movement of a Beethoven Sonata. Piano students are invited to submit a prescreening recording of a single movement of a Beethoven Sonata of their choice for consideration.

Submit Beethoven Piano Sonatas Masterclass Application

Jenny Ahn and Ala Jojatu, violins 
Cathy Basrak, viola 
Christine Lee, cello

KORNGOLD String Quartet No. 2 in E-flat, Op. 26
BEETHOVEN String Quartet No. 7 in F, Op. 59, No. 1, Razumovsky

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Christine Goerke, soprano (Marietta)
Elisa Sunshine, soprano (Juliette)
Amber Monroe, mezzo-soprano (Lucienne)
Karen Cargill, mezzo-soprano (Brigitte)
Brandon Jovanovich, tenor (Paul)
Joshua Sanders, tenor (Victorin)
Neal Ferreira, tenor (Gaston)
Terrence Chin-Loy, tenor (Graf Albert) 
Elliot Madore, baritone (Frank/Fritz)
Tanglewood Festival Chorus
 James Burton, conductor
Boston Lyric Opera Chorus
  Brett Hodgdon, conductor

KORNGOLD Die tote Stadt*

Erich Korngold’s Die tote Stadt (“The Dead City”) is an incredibly tender work, embodying the twilight of the Romantic era. Korngold, a remarkable prodigy who later became one of Hollywood’s most important composers, began the opera when he was only 19 and completed it at age 23. It opened simultaneously in December 1920 in Cologne and Hamburg and became one of the biggest operatic successes of the era. The opera’s theme of struggling with the memory of a lost loved one undoubtedly resonated with audiences still traumatized by the recent catastrophe of World War I.

*Sung in German with English supertitles.
Presented in collaboration with the Boston Lyric Opera.

Please note that ticket purchase information will be shared with the Boston Lyric Opera.

This week's performances by the Tanglewood Festival Chorus are supported by the Alan J. and Suzanne W. Dworsky Fund for Voice and Chorus.

Saturday evening’s concert is generously supported by the Gregory E. Bulger Foundation / Gregory Bulger and Richard Dix.

Jenny Ahn and Ala Jojatu, violins 
Cathy Basrak, viola 
Christine, cello

KORNGOLD String Quartet No. 2 in E-flat, Op. 26
BEETHOVEN String Quartet No. 7 in F, Op. 59, No. 1, Razumovsky

Nathalie Stutzmann, conductor
Veronika Eberle, violin

BEETHOVEN Violin Concerto
-Intermission-
RAVEL Alborada del gracioso
STRAVINSKY The Firebird (1919 suite)

French conductor Nathalie Stutzmann makes her BSO conducting debut with German violinist Veronika Eberle in her Symphony Hall debut in Beethoven’s towering Violin Concerto. Ravel's Alborada del gracioso and Stravinsky’s ballet score The Firebird are both marvels of orchestral brilliance from the 1910s: Ravel’s one of his many Spanish-influenced confections and Stravinsky’s a journey through a Russian folk tale of heroism, magic, and renewal that vaulted the composer to the forefront of modern music.

Saturday evening’s concert is generously supported by Cecilia O’Keefe in memory of Jane O’Keefe.

Saturday evening’s performance by Veronika Eberle is generously supported by the Rabb Family Foundation.

Herbert Blomstedt, conductor

SCHUBERT Symphony No. 6
-Intermission-
BRAHMS Symphony No. 1

Herbert Blomstedt, celebrating a seven-decade conducting career, returns to lead the BSO in Franz Schubert's light-hearted, cheerful Symphony No. 6, composed when he was 20 and notable as a satisfyingly classical work preceding his more searching later symphonies. Brahms was strongly influenced by Schubert but more so still by Beethoven, whose symphonic shadow apparently kept Brahms from completing his First Symphony until he was 43 years old. A prominent theme in its finale is a direct nod to Beethoven’s Ninth.

Friday afternoon’s concert is generously supported by the Gilbert family.

Saturday evening’s concert is generously supported by Roberta L. Cohn in memory of Dr. Lawrence H. Cohn.

Pre-concert Talk
The February 14 performance will include a pre-concert talk starting at 12:15pm with former BSO Director of Program Publications, Marc Mandel.

J’Nai Bridges, mezzo-soprano
Samy Rachid, conductor (Golijov)

SCHUBERT Notturno in E-flat for violin, cello, and piano, D.897
RAVEL Chansons madécasses, for mezzo-soprano, flute, cello, and piano
Osvaldo GOLIJOV Laika, for mezzo-soprano and ensemble
-Intermission-
BRAHMS String Sextet No. 1 in B-flat, Op. 18

Alan Gilbert, conductor
Isabelle Faust, violin

HAYDN Symphony No. 48, Marie Therese
STRAVINSKY Violin Concerto
-Intermission-
HAYDN Symphony No. 99

Isabelle Faust and Alan Gilbert return for Stravinsky’s bracing, wry Violin Concerto, a work at the core of his sparkling and witty neoclassical period. Bracketing Stravinsky’s concerto are two Joseph Haydn works from early and late in his symphonic career, during which he largely created the foundations for the 18th-century Viennese Classical era.

Friday afternoon’s concert is generously supported by the Grossman Family in memory of Jerome H. Grossman, MD.

Saturday evening’s concert is generously supported by Jim Aisner, in memory of his wife, Virginia Simpson Aisner.

Saturday evening’s performance by Isabelle Faust is generously supported by Lloyd Axelrod, M.D.

Giancarlo Guerrero, conductor
Alban Gerhardt, cello

Gabriela ORTIZ Revolución diamantina
TCHAIKOVSKY Variations on a Rococo Theme, for cello and orchestra
TCHAIKOVSKY Francesca da Rimini

Acclaimed Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz, known for her vibrant instrumental colors and skill with dramatic narrative, wrote her ballet score Revolución diamantina with Mexican writer Cristina Rivera Garza. The piece explores the powerful Mexican feminist “Glitter Revolution” campaign to highlight an epidemic of violence against women. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky wonderfully depicts love’s passion and an infernal whirlwind in his tone poem Francesca da Rimini, inspired by a historic injustice recounted in Dante’s Inferno. Murdered by her husband, Francesca suffers in the second level of hell for her lustfulness, buffeted by an eternal storm. As a contrast, Alban Gerhardt is soloist in the composer’s charming Variations on a Rococo Theme.

Giancarlo Guerrero, conductor 
Alban Gerhardt, cello 
The Crossing 
 Donald Nally, Artistic Director

Gabriela ORTIZ Revolución diamantina
-Intermission-
TCHAIKOVSKY Variations on a Rococo Theme, for cello and orchestra
TCHAIKOVSKY Francesca da Rimini

Acclaimed Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz, known for her vibrant instrumental colors and skill with dramatic narrative, wrote her ballet score Revolución diamantina with Mexican writer Cristina Rivera Garza. The piece explores the powerful Mexican feminist “Glitter Revolution” campaign to highlight an epidemic of violence against women. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky wonderfully depicts love’s passion and an infernal whirlwind in his tone poem Francesca da Rimini, inspired by a historic injustice recounted in Dante’s Inferno. Murdered by her husband, Francesca suffers in the second level of hell for her lustfulness, buffeted by an eternal storm. As a contrast, Alban Gerhardt is soloist in the composer’s charming Variations on a Rococo Theme.

Thursday evening's performance by Alban Gerhardt is generously supported by the Roberta M. Strang Memorial Fund.

Friday afternoon’s performance by Alban Gerhardt is generously supported by the May and Dan Pierce Guest Artist Fund.

Eun Sun Kim, conductor
Inon Barnatan, piano

LIADOV The Enchanted Lake
BARTÓK Piano Concerto No. 3
-Intermission-
RACHMANINOFF Symphony No. 3

South Korean conductor Eun Sun Kim makes her BSO debut with a trio of pieces exploring innovation within tradition. Star pianist Inon Barnatan returns to Symphony Hall to take on one of Bartók’s final works, the Third Piano Concerto, a love letter to his wife and his home country. While living in poverty in New York having fled the onslaught of the Nazis into Hungary, Bartók’s creativity had stalled out, and his body was failing from a long illness. The concerto — not quite finished when he passed — is a more gentle and accessibly poetic work than his previous concertos, a summation of where Bartók’s style left him at the end of his life.

Saturday evening’s concert is generously supported by Ronald G. Casty and Susan Mendik.

Teddy Abrams, conductor
Ray Chen, violin
Dashon Burton, baritone

TCHAIKOVSKY Violin Concerto
-Intermission-
Michael TILSON THOMAS Whitman Songs
BERNSTEIN Symphonic Dances from West Side Story

Ray Chen plays Tchaikovsky’s beloved Violin Concerto, the first work the composer completed after his separation from his disastrous marriage and a piece he almost dedicated to his student – and likely lover and inspiration, Iosif Kotek. 120 years later, Michael Tilson Thomas lovingly set three of Walt Whitman poems about longing and belonging for baritone and orchestra. Leonard Bernstein’s star-crossed lovers close the program in an iconic love letter to New York and love itself.

Friday afternoon's performance by the vocal soloist is generously supported by the Ethan Ayer Vocal Soloist Fund.

Saturday evening's concert is generously supported by Mr. C. Thomas Brown.

Saturday's performance of Whitman Songs is supported by John Lowell Thorndike, former BSO trustee, treasurer, vice president, and lifelong advocate for the performance of contemporary music.

Thomas Wilkins, conductor

Bracha Malkin and Bonnie Bewick, violins 
Danny Kim, viola 
Mickey Katz, cello

DOHNÁNYI Serenade in C, Op. 10
Oleg PONOMAREV (Arr. Bonnie BEWICK) Polonez, for string quartet
TCHAIKOVSKY String Quartet No. 1 in D, Op. 11 

Edwin Outwater, conductor

COLTRANE Legacy for Orchestra
Arranged and curated by Carlos Simon

This concert is performed without intermission.

Considered one of the most preeminent jazz artists of all time, and one of the most influential musical artists of any genre, John Coltrane has truly played a part in shaping the music of today. Coltrane: Legacy for Orchestra is a new live concert experience re-framing some of John Coltrane’s most popular and influential works with lush orchestrations, accompanied by exclusive and recently exhibited personal photographs of John Coltrane.

Thomas Wilkins, conductor

Dima Slobodeniouk, conductor 
Erin Morley, soprano
Avery Amereau, mezzo-soprano
Simon Bode, tenor
Morris Robinson, bass
Tanglewood Festival Chorus,
 James Burton, conductor

Arvo PÄRT Tabula Rasa
-Intermission-
MOZART Requiem

This concert probes the intersection of quiet contemplation and fervent prayers, beginning with Arvo Pärt's Tabula Rasa — an introspective piece exploring silence, space, and spirituality that quietly changed the shape of 20th century music.

Friday afternoon’s performance by Erin Morley is generously supported by a gift in loving memory of Alan J. Dworsky.

This week's performances by the Tanglewood Festival Chorus are supported by the Alan J. and Suzanne W. Dworsky Fund for Voice and Chorus.

Dima Slobodeniouk, conductor
Frank Peter Zimmermann, violin

Adolphus HAILSTORK Lachrymosa: 1919
STRAVINSKY Symphony in Three Movements
ELGAR Violin Concerto

Dima Slobodeniouk leads three works, all notable for their proximity to wartime. Edward Elgar’s Violin Concerto can be seen in retrospect as an idyllic calm before the storm of World War I. Adolphus Hailstork’s Lachrymosa: 1919 explores the Red Summer of 1919, a deadly backlash against Black American prosperity in the wake of the war. Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements was the composer’s dark reaction to the universal devastation of World War II.

Dima Slobodeniouk, conductor
Frank Peter Zimmermann, violin

Adolphus HAILSTORK Lachrymosa: 1919
STRAVINSKY Symphony in Three Movements
-Intermission-
ELGAR Violin Concerto

Dima Slobodeniouk leads three works, all notable for their proximity to wartime. Edward Elgar’s Violin Concerto can be seen in retrospect as an idyllic calm before the storm of World War I. Adolphus Hailstork’s Lachrymosa: 1919 explores the Red Summer of 1919, a deadly backlash against Black American prosperity in the wake of the war. Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements was the composer’s dark reaction to the universal devastation of World War II.

Saturday evening’s concert is generously supported by Alan and Lisa Dynner.

Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra (BYSO)
Marta Żurad, conductor
Matt Roberts, magician

Anna Handler, conductor (Langer)
Gilbert Kalish, piano

Elena LANGER Five Reflections on Water, for winds and strings
Sofia GUBAIDULINA Sonata for double bass and piano
-Intermission-
SHOSTAKOVICH Piano Quintet in G minor, Op. 57

Ala Jojatu and Sophie Wang, violins 
Mary Ferrillo, viola 
Will Chow, cello

MOZART Serenade in C for two violins and cello, KV 648, Ganz Kleine Nachtmusik
MOZART String Quartet No. 19 in C, K.465, Dissonance
WEINER String Trio in G minor, Op. 6

Andris Nelsons, conductor

ALL-SHOSTAKOVICH program
Symphony No. 6
Symphony No. 11, The Year 1905

The first in our series looking at the music and times of Dmitri Shostakovich and how the composer folded messages of revolution and resistance into his music during a politically turbulent time. Written more than 50 years after the Russian Revolution and during another point of political and historical upheaval, Shostakovich’s Eleventh Symphony is a revisitation of the events of Bloody Sunday, integrating Russian folk and revolutionary songs. The final movement is simultaneously a rallying cry and a warning to future tyrants.

Andris Nelsons, conductor

ALL-SHOSTAKOVICH program
Symphony No. 6
-Intermission-
Symphony No. 11, The Year 1905
 

The first in our series looking at the music and times of Dmitri Shostakovich and how the composer folded messages of revolution and resistance into his music during a politically turbulent time. Written more than 50 years after the Russian Revolution and during another point of political and historical upheaval, Shostakovich’s Eleventh Symphony is a revisitation of the events of Bloody Sunday, integrating Russian folk and revolutionary songs. The final movement is simultaneously a rallying cry and a warning to future tyrants.

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Yo-Yo Ma, cello

ALL-SHOSTAKOVICH program
Cello Concerto No. 1
Symphony No. 11, The Year 1905

A part of our series looking at the music and times of Dmitri Shostakovich and how the composer folded messages of revolution and resistance into his music during a politically turbulent time. Yo-Yo Ma brings the specter of resistance to the stage. Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto is a prime example of the composer using music to protest an authoritarian regime; the cello stands defiant against the orchestra, often playing out its own theme not reflected in the ensemble, until it disseminates into a wild cadenza and is whisked away into a sudden abrupt end.

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Mitsuko Uchida, piano

BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 4
-Intermission-
SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 15

Mitsuko Uchida has, from an early age, been considered a standout interpreter of Beethoven. The Fourth is considered the first of Beethoven’s piano concertos to depart from the format prescribed by Mozart (an orchestral introduction with a dramatic solo entrance). The concerto’s opening lets the instrument speak for itself — intimately and delicately so—to lead the way for the rest of the ensemble. Shostakovich’s Fifteenth Symphony is his last symphony and is full of quotations, codes, clues, and ambiguity. This is an experience defying description that invites the listener to create their own personal interpretation.

Corporate support for Thursday evening's concert is generously provided by Hemenway & Barnes.

Friday afternoon’s performance by Mitsuko Uchida is generously supported by the Nathan R. Miller Family Guest Artist Fund.

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Tanglewood Festival Chorus,
 James Burton, conductor

Aleksandra VREBALOV New work for chorus and orchestra (world premiere; BSO commission)
STRAVINSKY Symphony of Psalms
-Intermission-
SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 6

This program pairs Shostakovich’s introspective, classically elegant Sixth Symphony with Stravinsky’s austerely profound Symphony of Psalms, commissioned by Serge Koussevitzky for the BSO’s 50th anniversary. In fact, Shostakovich so revered Stravinsky’s piece that he made a two-piano arrangement of the score. The BSO commissioned Aleksandra Vrebalov to compose a psalm setting using the same musical forces as Stravinsky’s masterpiece. Originally from the former Yugoslavia and winner of the prestigious 2023 Grawemeyer Award, Vrebalov composes music of deeply spiritual humanism influenced in part by Byzantine chant.

This week's performances by the Tanglewood Festival Chorus are supported by the Alan J. and Suzanne W. Dworsky Fund for Voice and Chorus.

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Baiba Skride, violin

ALL-SHOSTAKOVICH program
Violin Concerto No. 1
-Intermission-
Symphony No. 8

Friday afternoon's performance by Baiba Skride is generously supported by the Plimpton Shattuck Fund.

A part of our series looking at the music and times of Dmitri Shostakovich and how the composer folded messages of revolution and resistance into his music during a politically turbulent time. Latvian violinist Baiba Skride brings her signature dulcet tones to Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1. This work is a deeply personal one, influenced by the composer’s fear of the Soviet censors and actual encounters with restrictive directives from the government. These bitter feelings toward the regime especially color the third and fourth movements. In this way and many others, we see the composer finding ways to stand up to prevailing political winds; for example, the whole piece is shot through with Jewish klezmer influence at a time when antisemitism was on the rise in the USSR.