Boston Symphony Orchestra Returns to Carnegie Hall for Three Concerts this Season

The Boston Symphony Orchestra returns to Carnegie Hall's Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage this season, led by Music Director and Conductor Andris Nelsons, for two concerts featuring notable soloists.

For the first concert on Monday, November 19 at 8:00 p.m., Swedish trumpeter Håkan Hardenberger joins the orchestra for a performance of HK Gruber's eclectic showpiece Aerial. The work was written specifically for Mr. Hardenberger, who gave the world premiere performance in London in 1999. The program also includes Mahler's Symphony No. 5.

Mr. Nelsons returns to lead the orchestra in an all-Richard Strauss program on Tuesday, March 19 at 8:00 p.m. featuring soprano Renée Flemingsinging selections from R. Strauss's Capriccio, followed by R. Strauss's Also sprach Zarathustra.

The next evening, on Wednesday, March 20 at 8:00 p.m., the BSO performs its final concert of Carnegie Hall's 2018-2019 season, led by composer and conductor Thomas Adès. The program includes Liszt's Mephisto Waltz No. 1 and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4, as well as the New York premiere of Mr. Adès's Piano Concerto, performed by Kirill Gerstein. Mr. Gerstein, the 2010 winner of the Gilmore Artist Award, frequently collaborates with Mr. Adès. He was soloist for the premiere of Mr. Adès's first work for piano and orchestra, Seven Days, with the London Sinfonietta in 2008 and the two will appear in a duo piano recital together in Zankel Hall just prior to this concert on Wednesday, March 13 at 7:30 p.m.

The November 19 performance will be heard by listeners around the world, as part of the eighth annual Carnegie Hall Live broadcast and digital series with a live radio broadcast on WQXR 105.9 FM in New York and online at wqxr.org and carnegiehall.org/wqxr. Produced by WQXR and Carnegie Hall and co-hosted by WQXR's Jeff Spurgeon and Clemency Burton-Hill, select Carnegie Hall Livebroadcasts featured throughout the season include special digital access to the broadcast team from backstage and in the control room, connecting national and international fans to the music and to each other.

About the Artists
The 2018-2019 season is Andris Nelsons's fifth as the Boston Symphony Orchestra's Ray and Maria Stata Music Director. Named Musical America's 2018 Artist of the Year, Mr. Nelsons will lead fourteen of the BSO's twenty-six subscription programs in 2018-2019, ranging from orchestral works by Haydn, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, and Copland to concerto collaborations with acclaimed soloists, as well as world and American premieres of pieces newly commissioned by the BSO from Thomas Adès, Sebastian Currier, Andris Dzen?tis, and Mark-Anthony Turnage; the continuation of his complete Shostakovich symphony cycle with the orchestra, and concert performances of Puccini's one-act opera Suor Angelica. In summer 2015, following his first season as music director, Andris Nelsons's contract with the BSO was extended through the 2021-2022 season. In November 2017, he and the orchestra toured Japan together for the first time. In February 2018, he became Gewandhauskapellmeister of the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, in which capacity he brings both orchestras together for a unique multi-dimensional alliance. Immediately following the 2018 Tanglewood season, Maestro Nelsons and the BSO made their third European tour together, playing concerts in London, Hamburg, Berlin, Leipzig, Vienna, Lucerne, Paris, and Amsterdam. Their first European tour, following the 2015 Tanglewood season, took them to major European capitals and the Lucerne, Salzburg, and Grafenegg festivals; the second, in May 2016, took them to eight cities in Germany, Austria, and Luxembourg.

The fifteenth music director in the history of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Andris Nelsons made his BSO debut at Carnegie Hall in March 2011, his Tanglewood debut in July 2012, and his BSO subscription series debut in January 2013. His recordings with the BSO, all made live in concert at Symphony Hall, include the complete Brahms symphonies on BSO Classics; Grammy-winning recordings on Deutsche Grammophon of Shostakovich's symphonies 5, 8, 9, and 10, the initial releases in a complete Shostakovich symphony cycle for that label; and a new two-disc set pairing Shostakovich's symphonies 4 and 11, The Year 1905. Under an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon, Andris Nelsons is also recording the complete Bruckner symphonies with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and the complete Beethoven symphonies with the Vienna Philharmonic.

The 2018-2019 season is Maestro Nelsons's final season as artist-in-residence at the Konzerthaus Dortmund and marks his first season as artist-in-residence at Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie. In addition, he continues his regular collaborations with the Vienna Philharmonic and Berlin Philharmonic. Throughout his career, he has also established regular collaborations with Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Philharmonia Orchestra, and has been a regular guest at the Bayreuth Festival and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

Born in Riga in 1978 into a family of musicians, Andris Nelsons began his career as a trumpeter in the Latvian National Opera Orchestra before studying conducting. He was music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra from 2008 to 2015, principal conductor of the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie in Herford, Germany, from 2006 to 2009, and music director of Latvian National Opera from 2003 to 2007.

British composer Thomas Adès is one of the foremost musicians of his generation. His opera The Tempest has been produced at Royal Opera Covent Garden, Vienna Staatsoper, Metropolitan Opera, and many other theaters worldwide. His newest opera, The Exterminating Angel, debuted at the Salzburg Festival in 2016 with subsequent productions at Covent Garden and the Metropolitan Opera. Commissions for large-scale orchestral works such as In Seven Days, Polaris, Tevot, and Totentanz have come from the Berlin, Los Angeles, and New York Philharmonics as well as the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Barbican Centre, and other major presenting institutions. In March 2019 the Boston Symphony Orchestra will premiere a new Piano Concerto both in Boston and at Carnegie Hall; its European debut will follow shortly thereafter in Leipzig. In summer 2019 the Los Angeles Philharmonic, in collaboration with Royal Ballet Covent Garden, will premiere a new full-length ballet choreographed by Wayne McGregor. Mr. Adès has also composed numerous prize-winning works for chamber ensembles, solo piano, and chorus, which are performed regularly worldwide.

Thomas Adès also maintains international careers as both conductor and pianist. He has conducted many of the world's leading orchestras, including the London Symphony, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, and Vienna Philharmonic. He conducted the premiere of The Exterminating Angel at Salzburg, Covent Garden, and the Metropolitan Opera (following earlier successes leading The Tempest at the latter two companies). During 2017-2018 he led concerts with the London and Czech Philharmonics and the City of Birmingham and Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestras. He currently serves as the first-ever Artistic Partner to the Boston Symphony Orchestra; in addition to conducting he appears with the BSO Chamber Players, curates contemporary music programs, and teaches both in Boston and at Tanglewood. He frequently performs and records as pianist in solo recital or with colleagues such as tenor Ian Bostridge, cellist Steven Isserlis, and pianist Kirill Gerstein.

His many awards include the Grawemeyer Award for Asyla (1999); Royal Philharmonic Society large-scale composition awards for Asyla, The Tempest, and Tevot; the Ernst von Siemens Composers' Prize for Arcadiana; and the British Composer Award for The Four Quarters. His CD recording of The Tempest from the Royal Opera House (EMI) won the Contemporary category of the 2010 Gramophone Awards; and his DVD of the production from the Metropolitan Opera was awarded the Diapason d'Or de l'année (2013), a Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording (2014), and an ECHO Klassik Award for Music DVD Recording of the Year (2014). In 2015 he was awarded Denmark's prestigious Léonie Sonning Music Prize.

Today the Boston Symphony Orchestra reaches millions of listeners, not only through its concert performances in Boston and at Tanglewood, but also via the internet, radio, television, educational programs, recordings, and tours. It commissions works from today's most important composers; its summer season at Tanglewood is among the world's most important music festivals; it helps develop future audiences through BSO Youth Concerts and educational outreach programs involving the entire Boston community; and, during the Tanglewood season, it operates the Tanglewood Music Center, one of the world's most important training grounds for young professional-caliber musicians. The Boston Symphony Chamber Players, made up of BSO principals, are known worldwide, and the Boston Pops Orchestra sets an international standard for performances of lighter music.

In May 2013, a new chapter in the history of the Boston Symphony Orchestra was initiated when the internationally acclaimed young Latvian conductor Andris Nelsons was announced as the BSO's next music director, a position he took up in the 2014-2015 season, following a year as music director designate.

In the 2016-2017 season, Thomas Adès was appointed as the BSO's first-ever Artistic Partner, a position he will hold through the summer of 2019. He was holder of Carnegie Hall's Richard and Barbara Deb's Composer Chair throughout the 2007-2008 season with programs that highlighted Mr. Adès's work as composer, conductor, and pianist.

Tickets are available at the Carnegie Hall Box Office, 154 West 57th Street, or can be charged to major credit cards by calling CarnegieCharge at 212-247-7800 or by visiting the Carnegie Hall website, carnegiehall.org.

Photo by Jennifer Taylor.