2020 SEA- This year. This season. This orchestra. This music director. Our This performance. This artist. World This moment. This breath. This breath. 2021 SON This breath. Don’t blink. ThePhiladelphiaOrchestra MUSIC DIRECTOR YANNICK NÉZET-SÉGUIN our world Ours is a world divided. And yet, night after night, live music brings audiences together, gifting them with a shared experience. This season, Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin and The Philadelphia Orchestra invite you to experience the transformative power of fellowship through a bold exploration of sound. 2 2020–21 Season 3 “For me, music is more than an art form. It’s an artistic force connecting us to each other and to the world around us. I love that our concerts create a space for people to gather as a community—to explore and experience an incredible spectrum of music. Sometimes, we spend an evening in the concert hall together, and it’s simply some hours of joy and beauty. Other times there may be an additional purpose, music in dialogue with an issue or an idea, maybe historic or current, or even a thought that is still not fully formed in our minds and hearts. What’s wonderful is that music gives voice to ideas and feelings that words alone do not; it touches all aspects of our being. Music inspires us to reflect deeply, and music brings us great joy, and so much more. In the end, music connects us more deeply to Our World NOW.” —Yannick Nézet-Séguin 4 2020–21 Season 5 philorch.org / 215.893.1955 6A Thursday Yannick Leads Return to Brahms and Ravel Favorites the Academy Garrick Ohlsson Thursday, October 1 / 7:30 PM Thursday, January 21 / 7:30 PM Thursday, March 25 / 7:30 PM Academy of Music, Philadelphia Yannick Nézet-Séguin Conductor Michael Tilson Thomas Conductor Lisa Batiashvili Violin Yannick Nézet-Séguin Conductor Garrick Ohlsson Piano Hai-Ye Ni Cello Westminster Symphonic Choir Ravel Le Tombeau de Couperin Joe Miller Director Szymanowski Violin Concerto No. 1 Prokofiev Symphony-Concerto Lang Lang Chausson Poème, for violin and orchestra Prokofiev Symphony No. 5 Ives A Symphony: New England Holidays Ravel Bolero Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2 A rare chance to hear a full night of Prokofiev We open our new season with two of Ravel’s in the grand Academy of Music. Prokofiev’s Brahms dedicated his Second Piano Concerto most revered works: Bolero and Le Tombeau de Fifth is described as the “yesterday, today, and to his piano teacher, which might explain Couperin, which will spotlight new Principal Oboe tomorrow” of symphonies. The Symphony- the virtuosic talent needed to perform this Philippe Tondre. Plus, you’ll hear the extraordinary Concerto is both cello concerto and full- dramatic and expansive tour de force. lyricism of Szymanowski’s Violin Concerto No. 1 throated symphony, a sublime match for the Enter the marvelous Garrick Ohlsson, who with virtuoso Lisa Batiashvili, who calls it, simply, Orchestra and Principal Cello Hai-Ye Ni. has been wowing Philadelphia audiences with “the most delicious thing in the world.” his playing for over 50 years. Charles Ives’s New England Holidays, a radical-for-its-time look at Americana, is led by the acclaimed Michael Tilson Thomas. Women / Nature / Identity / Digital / Women / Nature / Identity / Digital / Women / Nature / Identity / Digital / Women / Nature / Identity /Digital / Women / Nature / Identity / Digital / Women / Gustavo Dudamel Tchaikovsky Emanuel Ax Gil Shaham and the Ballet Trilogy Plays Mozart Korngold Violin Concerto Nature / Identity / Digital / Women / Nature / Identity / Digital / Thursday, November 5 / 7:30 PM Thursday, March 4 / 7:30 PM Thursday, April 29 / 7:30 PM Branford Marsalis Yannick Nézet-Séguin Conductor Louis Langrée Conductor Tugan Sokhiev Conductor Women / Nature / Identity / Digital / Women / Nature / Identity /Brian Sanders’ JUNK Emanuel Ax Piano Gil Shaham Violin Tchaikovsky Selections from The Nutcracker, Mozart Overture to La clemenza di Tito Prokofiev Symphony No. 1 (“Classical”) Digital / Women / Nature / Identity / Digital /Mirga Women Gražinytė-Tyla / Nature / Swan Lake, and The Sleeping Beauty Mozart Piano Concerto No. 9, K. 271 Korngold Violin Concerto Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 5 Dvořák Symphony No. 8 Nathalie Stutzmann Rethinking how we view even the most Identity /Digital / Women / Nature / Identity / Digital / Women / enduring of fairy tales is part of the wonder The talented Emanuel Ax is the ideal Erich Korngold is the rare composer of Our World NOW. In this production, Brian interpreter for Mozart’s joyful Ninth Piano renowned both for his golden age of Sanders’s provocative dance/physical theater Concerto, which will prepare you for music Hollywood movie scores (including the company returns to Verizon Hall for a modern on a large scale in the form of Tchaikovsky’s Oscar-winning The Adventures of Robin Hood) Nature / Identity / Digital / Women / Nature / Identity / Digital / mash-up of Tchaikovsky’s three famous ballets. great Romantic work. His Fifth Symphony and his classical works. Leading man A cast of 21st-century protagonists will bring begins with an ominous opening “fate” theme, Gil Shaham brings out all the singing unexpected surprises and gravity-defying which gradually evolves to a rousing triumphal beauty of this starring role for violin. Women / Nature / Identity / Digital / Women / Nature / Identity /choreography to these classic stories. march for a thrilling and unforgettable finale. Digital / Women / Nature / Identity / Digital / Women / Nature / Identity /Digital / Women / Nature / Identity / Digital / Women / Nature / Identity / Digital / Women / Nature / Identity / Digital / Enjoy flexibility and savings by purchasing a Create-Your-Own subscription today. 7 Women / Nature / Identity / Digital / Women / Nature / Identity / Digital / Women / Nature / Identity / Digital / Women / Nature / Our philorch.org / 215.893.1955 6B Thursday World NOW Chopin’s Piano Gustavo Dudamel Mirga Returns Concerto No. 2 Debuts Thursday, April 8 / 7:30 PM Thursday, October 22 / 7:30 PM Thursday, January 14 / 7:30 PM Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla Conductor Christoph Eschenbach Conductor Gustavo Dudamel Conductor Seong-Jin Cho Piano Sergio Tiempo Piano Šerkšnytė De Profundis Schubert Symphony No. 8 (“Unfinished”) Holcomb Paradise (world premiere— Benzecry (world premiere—Philadelphia Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 4 Philadelphia Orchestra commission) Orchestra commission) Chopin Piano Concerto No. 2 Ginastera Piano Concerto No. 1 The magnetic conductor Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, Schumann Symphony No. 2 Shostakovich Symphony No. 5 “whose concerts buzz with passion” (BBC), returns to our podium for the first time since “Unequivocally brilliant” is how the Telegraph Hailed as “fresh, insightful, and exciting” her acclaimed 2018 Verizon Hall debut. This (London) described Seong-Jin Cho’s performance (The New York Times), Gustavo Dudamel time she leads the Orchestra in Schubert’s as the 2015 winner of the prestigious International electrifies audiences around the globe with melodic but turbulent “Unfinished” Symphony Chopin Piano Competition, which might explain his passionate approach to everything he and Tchaikovsky’s deeply passionate why fans are standing in line just to buy his conducts. Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony is Symphony No. 4. recordings. Hear him live when the 25-year-old a perfect showcase for his highly anticipated rising star performs the evocative Romantic Philadelphia Orchestra debut. The piece repertoire that made him famous. stands as a stirring victory of human creativity in the face of oppression. Florence Price Symphony No. 1 When Marian Anderson sang her the Orchestra’s commitment to Joyce, Yannick, Love and Tragedy Mitsuko Meets landmark concert on the steps put female artists in what Yannick and Mahler Yannick of the Lincoln Memorial in 1939, calls “their rightful place at center Thursday, March 11 / 7:30 PM she concluded with a spiritual stage.” Look for more women on Thursday, November 12 / 7:30 PM Thursday, May 6 / 7:30 PM arranged by Florence Price, then the stage as guest soloists, on the Nathalie Stutzmann Conductor a practically unheard-of composer. podium conducting, and in the Yannick Nézet-Séguin Conductor Daniel Lozakovich Violin Yannick Nézet-Séguin Conductor Just a few years earlier, Price had repertoire as we envision a world Joyce DiDonato Mezzo-soprano Mitsuko Uchida Piano become the first African-American where gender, race, and ethnicity Brahms Tragic Overture woman to have a symphonic work are no longer barriers to artistic Mahler Rückert Lieder Wagner Prelude and “Liebestod,” Bates Suite from The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs Mahler Symphony No. 4 from (world premiere—Philadelphia Orchestra performed by a major American expression. Tristan and Isolde Prokofiev Violin Concerto No. 2 co-commission) orchestra. The hardships of Price’s The voice of the “out-of-this-world” Joyce Tchaikovsky Romeo and Juliet Ravel Piano Concerto in G major unlikely journey from a post-Civil “We have to understand that DiDonato (as Yannick describes her) is made Shostakovich Symphony No. 8 War South to the stage of the for Mahler’s ethereal Rückert Lieder, and the When the course of true love fails to run smooth … Chicago Symphony are summed women have been composing special connection these two stars share on cue the strings. And the harps. Tchaikovsky’s The divine Mitsuko Uchida, “one of the great up in one of her letters: “I have two for a very long time. This is stage only enhances the bliss of the music. Romeo and Juliet, a sumptuous telling of pianists of our, or any, time” (The New York handicaps—those of sex and race. Listen carefully to the last movement of Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers, will leave your Times), reveals all the spirit of Ravel’s jazzy I am a woman; and I have some just merely giving them the Mahler’s Symphony No. 4, with its timeless heart swelling with its famous love theme, one concerto, while Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 8 Negro blood in my veins.” platform that has been denied,” balance of beauty and perfection. of the most recognizable in all of classical music.