Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Marin Alsop Announce 2009-2010
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PRESS CONTACTS: Laura Farmer, 410.783.8024 [email protected] Alyssa Porambo, 410.783.8044 [email protected] MARIN ALSOP AND THE BALTIMORE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ANNOUNCE 2013-2014 SEASON BSO Explores Music as Source of Solace and Healing in Several Programs: Marin Alsop and the BSO celebrate Britten centennial with War Requiem (Nov. 14-16) Bernstein’s Second Symphony, “Age of Anxiety” (Sept. 26-28) John Adams’ 9/11 meditation On the Transmigration of Souls and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, “Ode to Joy” (June 5-8, 2014) Other Highlights: Pink Martini Makes BSO Debut at Gala Concert, September 7 Marin Alsop Leads Holst’s The Planets Paired with Images from Space, Nov. 7-10 BSO Presents Semi-Staged A Midsummer Night’s Dream (May 29-June 1, 2014) Focus on Film with Live Screenings of Chaplin movies (Jan. 30-Feb. 1, 2014) and Casablanca (June 12-14, 2014) U.S. Premiere of BSO Co-Commission of John Adams’ Saxophone Concerto (Sept. 20-22); World Premiere of BSO Co-commissioned Guitar Concerto by Jonathan Leshnoff, featuring Manuel Barrueco (Jan. 9 -12, 2014) BSO SuperPops with Principal Pops Conductor Jack Everly Features Chris Botti, Sci-Fi Spectacular! with George Takei and Tribute to Marvin Hamlisch Guest Artist Highlights Include Pianists André Watts, Yefim Bronfman and Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and Violinist/Conductor Itzhak Perlman Brand New Holiday Cirque Show, Dec. 11-15 Marin Alsop Makes Her Debut in Family Concert Series (March 8, 2014) New Subscribers Receive One Bonus Ticket to a Concert in the Current Season Music: Bringing Solace and Hope after Tragedy Music’s role as a balm for the afflicted is timeless. When tragedy strikes, music helps people mourn, honor the dead and find hope again. Three works during the season were specifically written in response to tragic events. The centerpiece of the 2013-2014 season is Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem on November 14-16, composed to mark the rebirth of Coventry Cathedral, whose ruin was a symbol of the physical and spiritual destruction wrought by the Second World War. These performances celebrate the 100th anniversary of the composer’s birth on November 22, 1913. On June 5-8, 2014, the BSO pairs John Adams’ deeply affecting tribute to the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks, On the Transmigration of Souls, with Beethoven’s uplifting Ninth Symphony, with its call for joy to unite all people in universal brotherhood. And on October 18-20, 2013, guest conductor Arild Remmereit introduces the music of Karen Tanaka with Water of Life, a musical response to the devastating 2011 tsumani in her native Japan. Britten’s War Requiem The 20th-century English composer Benjamin Britten knew music’s restorative power well. An outspoken pacifist, Britten’s harrowing, poignant War Requiem was commissioned to consecrate the Coventry Cathedral, which had been destroyed by a Nazi bomb in 1940 during World War II. Its text weaves the traditional Requiem liturgy with poetry by Wilfred Owen, a British soldier killed in battle in the First World War. Britten scored the music of this weighty work for a large orchestra plus an additional chamber orchestra and two choirs. Marin Alsop leads the BSO and soprano Tamara Wilson, tenor Nicolas Phan, baritone Ryan McKinny, the University of Maryland Concert Choir and the Peabody Children’s Chorus in this large-scale masterpiece November 14-16. “Music has the power to express the inexpressible. Some of my most memorable performing experiences have been in the wake of tragedy. When people are hurting and need comfort, music can be that refuge and can offer a glimmer of hope and solace,” said Music Director Marin Alsop. “Britten’s War Requiem premiered in the Coventry Cathedral in 1962 to christen a building that had to literally rise out of the ashes and be rebuilt. The World War II victims’ metaphorical ascent out of the ashes as they rebuilt their lives and remembered the many they lost is no less significant. This masterpiece is filled with inspiring moments, especially when the multitudes assembled onstage are playing and singing at full volume. But this complex work also has many tender and mournful moments that truly connect us, reminding us of what we share as members of the human race.” John Adams’ On the Transmigration of Souls and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony To close the 2013-2014 classical subscription season on June 5-8, Marin Alsop leads the BSO in John Adams’ Pulitzer Prize-winning On the Transmigration of Souls and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. John Adams’ On the Transmigration of Souls was premiered in September 2002 by the New York Philharmonic to an audience personally affected and still keenly grieving the lives lost in the 9/11 attacks just one year prior. The composer described the work as a “memory space,” where a listener can “go and be alone with your thoughts and emotions.” Its text is drawn not from notable poets or religious texts, but rather the simple phrases scrawled on the posters that adorned Ground Zero, written by those left behind. “Transmigration”—or movement from one place to another—is intended to describe the movement of souls to their final resting place, but also to describe and stimulate an inner transformation in all who would hear this work. The influence of Beethoven’s monumental Ninth Symphony is immeasurable. As the first symphony to include full chorus and orchestra, Beethoven’s Ninth brought the genre to a magnitude that had never been previou sly conceived, thereby radically changing the future of orchestral repertoire. With its uplifting text and call for universal brotherhood, the finale of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony has been used to mark historic events, including the fall of the Berlin Wall, and now serves as the European Union’s anthem. The symphony was 2013-2014 Season Announcement | Page 2 inspired by the writing of Friedrich Schiller, who, in his poem An die Freude or “Ode to Joy,” states that joy is found when “all men are made brothers.” Bernstein’s Symphony No. 2, “Age of Anxiety” Among the leading interpreters of Leonard Bernstein’s works, Marin Alsop has led the BSO in several critically acclaimed performances of the popular composer/conductor’s music during her tenure. Reported The Washington Post of the BSO’s 2012 performance of Bernstein’s Symphony No. 3, “Kaddish,” “Marin Alsop studied with Leonard Bernstein. This could be dismissed as a mere PR bullet point, a seal of approval, an item on the checklist of her distinctions. Or so at least you might think, until you hear her conduct Bernstein’s music. …[Alsop’s] got Bernstein under her skin.” The BSO’s 2008 performance of Bernstein’s large-scale Mass was no less riveting, prompting The New York Times to rave, “…how [Bernstein] would have loved seeing his ‘Mass’ touch so many people...” In the 2013-2014 season, Marin Alsop leads another work by Bernstein, his Symphony No. 2, “Age of Anxiety” (September 26-28), a major piano concerto in all but name. Commissioned by Bernstein’s longtime mentor Serge Koussevitzky, the wor k is based on W.H. Auden’s Pulitzer Prize-winning poem, “The Age of Anxiety,” published in 1947. Auden’s message of one man’s quest for faith in an increasingly faithless world was a theme that Bernstein felt deeply. The Symphony’s form mirrors that of Auden’s text: six subsections, divided into two parts performed without a break; Bernstein scored the work for solo piano and orchestra. Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony Orchestra premiered the work in 1949 with the composer himself at the piano. For the BSO’s performance, French pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet will return to the BSO as soloist. “Bernstein’s struggle to reconcile the tenants of his faith with the devastation of war is in full display in this dramatic work,” said Maestra Alsop. “Every composition for Bernstein was a personal search for answers. His second symphony, inspired by the epic poem by W .H. Auden, ‘Age of Anxiety,’ is Bernstein's musical quest for faith in the aftermath of the Second World War’s horrors. For Bernstein, hope was never lost and was always worth pursuing." Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream In the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s recent tradition of theatrical productions such as Mozart’s The Magic Flute and Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher, the BSO brings to the stage Mendelssohn’s sprightly A Midsummer Night’s Dream on May 29 through June 1, 2014, led by Maestra Alsop. This semi-staged adaptation of Shakespeare’s original text is by The Juilliard School’s Edward Berkeley, who also serves as the director. The classic tale chronicles the misadventures of four, young Athenian lovers, a group of bumbling amateur actors and the mischievous fairies that control them. The dialogue is interspersed with Mendelssohn’s well-loved incidental music, such as the famous “Wedding March” that has become a staple in modern weddings. A women’s chorus from the Baltimore Choral Arts Society joins the BSO for this program, along with a cast of talented actors to be announced at a later date. BSO at the Movies In the 2012-2013 season, the BSO brought audiences live screenings of some of the best films ever produced, including West Side Story, Alexander Nevsky and Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times. The concert hall becomes the movie theater once again with screenings of three more film classics: Casablanca and Charlie Chaplin’s The Idle Class and The Kid. Following the successes of the BSO’s presentations in previous seasons of The Gold Rush and City Lights, the BSO pays tribute to legendary actor, director and composer Charlie Chaplin with screenings of The Idle Class and The Kid (January 30 through February 1, 2014).