The MET Orchestra returns to Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage for a series of three concerts this May and June. For the first concert on Saturday, May 18 at 8:00 p.m., Valery Gergiev leads the orchestra in Schumann's Piano Concerto featuring pianist Daniil Trifonov and Schubert's Symphony No. 9, Great. On Monday, June 3 at 8:00 p.m. new Music Director Yannick N zet-S guin leads The MET Orchestra for the first time at Carnegie Hall in a program of French works with mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard singing Dutilleux's Le temps l'horloge and Ravel's Sh h razade, alongside Debussy's La mer and Ravel's Daphnis et Chlo Suite No. 2. Maestro N zet-S guin returns the following week on Friday, June 14 at 8:00 p.m. with the orchestra and mezzo-soprano El na Garan a singing Mahler's R ckert Lieder on a program that also includes Bruckner's Symphony No. 7.
About the Artists
Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov winner of Gramophone's 2016 Artist of the Year award has made a spectacular ascent in the world of classical music as a solo artist, a champion of the concerto repertoire, a collaborator at the keyboard in chamber music and song, and a composer. The Times (UK) calls Trifonov without question the most astounding pianist of our age.
He launched the
New York Philharmonic's 2018 2019 season, playing Ravel's Concerto in G for the opening-night gala under incoming Music Director
Jaap van Zweden before rejoining the orchestra the following night for Beethoven's mighty Emperor Concerto. He revisited the Ravel, both on tour with the London Symphony Orchestra and
Sir Simon Rattle, and during a residency at Vienna's Musikverein that also saw him give the Austrian premiere of his own piano concerto. Similarly, the Emperor is the vehicle for further collaborations with the London Symphony Orchestra and
Michael Tilson Thomas, the National Symphony Orchestra and Gianandrea Noseda, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Louis Langr e, and the Cleveland Orchestra and Franz Welser-M st, with whom the pianist embarks on a tour of Asia. Last season, Daniil Trifonov was the youngest artist ever to curate a Perspectives series at
Carnegie Hall.
Valery Gergiev made his debut at the Mariinsky (then Kirov) Theatre in 1978 with Prokofiev's War and Peace. In 1988 he was appointed Music Director of the Mariinsky Theatre, and in 1996 he became its Artistic and General Director. Under Mr. Gergiev's direction the Mariinsky Theatre has become a major theatre and concert complex. In 2009 the Mariinsky label was launched, which to date has released more than thirty discs that have received great acclaim from critics and the public throughout the world.
Valery Gergiev's international activities are no less intensive. He successfully collaborates with the world's great opera houses and has led world renowned orchestras, such as the World Orchestra for Peace (which he has directed since 1997), the philharmonic orchestras of Berlin, Paris, Vienna, New York and Los Angeles, the symphony orchestras of Chicago, Cleveland, Boston and San Francisco, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (Amsterdam) and many other ensembles. From 1995 to 2008 Valery Gergiev was Principal Conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic (of which he remains an honorary conductor to this day), and from 2007 to 2015 of the London Symphony Orchestra. Since autumn 2015 the maestro has headed the Munich Philharmonic.
Valery Gergiev is the founder and director of prestigious international festivals including the Stars of the White Nights (since 1993) and the Moscow Easter Festival (since 2002), among many others. Since 2011 he has directed the organizational committee of the International Tchaikovsky Competition.
Valery Gergiev's musical and public activities have brought him acclaimed awards such as the Hero of Labour (2013), the Order of Alexander Nevsky (2016), the Russian Federation Ministry of Defense Arts and Culture Award (2017) and prestigious state awards of Armenia, Bulgaria, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Poland, France and Japan.
Highly acclaimed for her passionate intensity and remarkable vocal beauty,
Isabel Leonard continues to thrill audiences both in the opera house and on the concert stage. In repertoire that spans from Vivaldi to Mozart to Thomas Ad s, she has graced the stages of the Metropolitan Opera, Vienna State Opera, Paris Opera, Salzburg Festival, Bavarian State Opera,
Carnegie Hall, Glyndebourne Festival, Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and San Francisco Opera as Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Angelina in La Cenerentola, Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro, Dorabella in Cos fan tutte, Charlotte in Werther, Blanche de la Force in Dialogues des Carm lites, Costanza in Griselda, the title roles in La P richole and Der Rosenkavalier, as well as Sesto in both Mozart's La clemenza di Tito and Handel's Giulio Cesare. She has appeared with some of the foremost conductors of her time:
James Levine, Valery Gergiev, Charles Dutoit,
Gustavo Dudamel, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Yannick N z t-Seguin, Franz Welser-M st, Pl cido Domingo,
Edward Gardner, Edo de Waart,
James Conlon, Michele Mariotti, Harry Bicket, Andris Nelsons, and
Michael Tilson Thomas with the Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra,
New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Philharmonic, and San Francisco Symphony, among others.
Ms. Leonard is in constant demand as a recitalist and is on the Board of Trustees at
Carnegie Hall. She is a multiple Grammy Award winner, most recently for Ravel's L'enfant et les sortil ges with Seiji Ozawa on Decca and The Tempest from the Metropolitan Opera on Deutsche Grammophon, both Best Opera Recording. Ms. Leonard is the recipient of the
Richard Tucker Award and joined the supporters of the Prostate Cancer Foundation to lend her voice in honor of her father who died from the disease when she was in college. This season, she appears at the Metropolitan Opera in three roles: in the title role for the MET premiere of
Nico Muhly's Marnie (HD broadcast), M lisande in Pell as et M lisande conducted by Yannick N zet-S guin, and Blanche de la Force in Dialogues des Carm lites (HD broadcast), also conducted by N zet-S guin. In concert, she will sing L'enfant et les sortil ges with the San Francisco Symphony and
Michael Tilson Thomas, an all-Bernstein recital with
Ted Sperling for Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and as starring soloist in a
Leonard Bernstein tour with
John Mauceri and the Czech National Orchestra throughout the United States.
El na Garan a was born into a musical family in Riga, Latvia, where her father was a choral conductor and her mother a singer who taught her at the Latvian Academy of Music. The mezzo- soprano continued her studies in Vienna and the United States. A finalist in the 2001 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, in 2006 she was honored with the European Culture Prize and in 2010 she won both Musical America's Vocalist of the Year and MIDEM Classical's Singer of the Year awards. Married to conductor Karel Mark Chichon, with whom she has two daughters, Garan a is the subject of the award-winning documentary Primadonna on Rollerskates (2002). Her own memoir, Wirklich wichtig sind die Schuhe (The Shoes Are Really Important), was published by Austria's Ecowin Verlag in 2013; she explains, My feet must feel free so that my soul and voice can soar.
From his appointment as artistic director and principal conductor of the Orchestre M tropolitain de Montr al in 2000 to being named music director of The Philadelphia Orchestra in 2010 (leading the orchestra since 2012), and onward to his most recent appointment starting in 2018 as the Met's Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer Music Director, Canadian-born conductor Yannick N zet-S guin's meteoric rise can be measured in his string of dazzling achievements. He is widely recognized for his musicianship, dedication, and charisma, establishing himself as a musical leader of the highest caliber and one of the most thrilling talents of his generation.
Mr. N zet-S guin made his
Carnegie Hall debut in 2012, leading The Philadelphia Orchestra in his inaugural season as music director. He is also honorary conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, where he was chief conductor from 2008 to 2018, and an honorary member of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe.
A native of Montreal, Mr. N zet-S guin studied piano, conducting, composition, and chamber music at the Conservatoire de musique du Qu bec and continued his studies with renowned conductor Carlo Maria Giulini; he also studied choral conducting with
Joseph Flummerfelt at Westminster Choir College. Among his honors are an appointment as Companion of the Order of Canada; Musical America's 2016 Artist of the Year; and honorary doctorates from the Universit du Qu bec, Curtis Institute of Music, Westminster Choir College, McGill University, and University of Pennsylvania. He returns to
Carnegie Hall for the 2019 2020 season curating a nine-concert Perspectives series, including performances with three orchestras with whom he has built his remarkable career The Philadelphia Orchestra, Orchestre M tropolitain de Montr al, and The MET Orchestra as well as a rare recital appearance with mezzo-soprano
Joyce DiDonato.
This season at the Met, Mr. N zet-S guin has conducted performances of Verdi's La Traviata and Debussy's P lleas et M lisande, and from May 3 11 will lead Poulenc's Dialogues des Carm lites. Next season he will conduct three Met productions (Puccini's Turandot, Berg's Wozzeck, and Massenet's Werther), two Met Orchestra concerts at
Carnegie Hall, and a New Year's Eve Gala.
The MET Orchestra is today regarded as one of the world's finest orchestras. From the time of the company's inception in 1883, the ensemble has worked with leading conductors in both opera and concert performances and has developed into an orchestra of enormous technical polish and style. The orchestra made its debut at
Carnegie Hall in 1894 and has since performed at the Hall more than 90 times. The MET Orchestra performs three times at
Carnegie Hall in spring 2020, including concerts conducted by Gianandrea Noseda and Music Director Yannick N zet-S guin with repertoire to include Shostakovich's Violin Concerto No. 1 with Christian Tetzlaff, Stravinsky's The Firebird, Beethoven's Romance for Violin and Orchestra in F Major and Violin Concerto with Anne-Sophie Mutter, J rg Widmann's Lied, and R. Strauss's Four Last Songs sung by soprano Elza van den Heever.
Program Information
Saturday, May 18 at 8:00 p.m.
Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
THE MET ORCHESTRA
Valery Gergiev, Conductor
Daniil Trifonov, Piano
Robert Schumann Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 54
Franz Schubert Symphony No. 9 in C Major, D. 944, "Great"
