UBUNTU: MUSIC AND ARTS OF SOUTH AFRICA, Joyce DiDonato, Audra McDonald and More Set for Carnegie Hall's 2014-15 Classical Music Season

Summer is just around the corner, and we are looking ahead in anticipation to the start of Carnegie Hall's 2014-2015 season! Listed below are classical music highlights at Carnegie Hall, including details on UBUNTU: Music and Arts of South Africa, a three-week festival from October 10 to November 5, featuring an exciting array of events to be presented at Carnegie Hall and partner venues throughout New York City, inviting audiences to explore the incredibly dynamic and diverse culture of South Africa.

The Carnegie Hall season begins on October 1 with the Opening Night Gala concert featuring the Berliner Philharmoniker and Music Director Sir Simon Rattle with acclaimed violinist and season Perspectives artist Anne-Sophie Mutter. Ms. Mutter continues her Perspectives series appearing five more times as orchestra soloist, chamber musician, and recitalist.

Also a Perspectives artist for the 2014-2015 season is renowned mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato. Beginning with an October concert performance in Handel's Alcina with Harry Bicket and The English Concert, Ms. DiDonato's multi-event series showcases her vocal creativity with a variety of concerts, plus community programs and master classes presented by Carnegie Hall's Weill Music Institute.

Major season-long programming initiatives include composer Meredith Monk's residency as holder of the 2014-2015 Richard and Barbara Debs Composer's Chair, which features the premiere of a Carnegie Hall commission by Ms. Monk for Ensemble ACJW, plus the New York premiere of an orchestral piece by the St. Louis Symphony and David Robertson, and appearances with the Meredith Monk and Vocal Ensemble and American Composers Orchestra.

In the spring, Carnegie Hall launches Before Bach, a month-long early music series with thirteen concerts by some of the world's most exciting early-music performers, including L'Arpeggiata, Jordi Savall and Le Concert des Nations, the Tallis Scholars, Kristian Bezuidenhout, and the English Baroque Soloists with The Monteverdi Choir led by Sir John Eliot Gardner, who conclude the series with performances of Monteverdi's Vespro della Beata Vergine and L'Orfeo.

Single tickets for Carnegie Hall presentations go on sale Monday, August 25 at 8:00 a.m. (with an early on-sale date of Monday, August 18 at 8:00 a.m. for subscribers and donors). Tickets can be purchased at the Carnegie Hall Box Office, by phone at CarnegieCharge (212-247-7800), or online at carnegiehall.org. Subscription packages are currently available.

CARNEGIE HALL 2014-2015 CLASSICAL HIGHLIGHTS:
All performances take place in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage unless otherwise noted.
Click the date of a performance for complete program information.

• Carnegie Hall launches its 2014-2015 season on October 1 with an Opening Night Gala concert featuring the Berliner Philharmoniker and Music Director Sir Simon Rattle. The program includes Bruch's Violin Concerto with Perspectives artist Anne-Sophie Mutter as well as music by Rachmaninoff and Stravinsky. Mr. Rattle and the orchestra return for three additional concerts that week with programs to include music of Rachmaninoff and Stravinsky on October 2, a complete Schumann symphony cycle spanning performances on October 5 and October 6, with the latter date including the US premiere of Georg Friedrich Haas's dark dreams, co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall. The Berliner Philharmoniker's concerts at Carnegie Hall are part of an extended residency in New York City, which will also include a performance of Bach's St. Matthew Passion directed by Peter Sellars, which opens Lincoln Center's White Light Festival in a co-presentation with Park Avenue Armory.
• Carnegie Hall's UBUNTU: Music and Arts of South Africa festival kicks off with renowned trumpeter, vocalist, and composer Hugh Masakela joined by singer Vusi Mahlasela and other guest artists in the program Twenty Years of Freedom, celebrating the 20th anniversary of free elections in South Africa, on October 10. Other programs include the New York recital debuts of two South African sopranos: Pretty Yende on October 13 and Elza van den Heever on October 24. On October 28, violinist Daniel Hope curates a musical and theatrical event, joining forces with his father, writer Christopher Hope, and a number of musicians and actors for A Distant Drum, celebrating the life of Nat Nakasa, a brilliant, impassioned writer who left behind South Africa's apartheid of the 1960s for New York. Other artists appearing at Carnegie Hall during the three-week festival include acclaimed South African vocal ensemble Ladysmith Black Mambazo (October 18 and October 19); Grammy Award-winning vocalist Angélique Kidjo appearing in Mama Africa, a concert tribute to Miriam Makeba (November 5); and visual artist William Kentridge whose films are shown with live music by composer Philip Miller (October 27).

• Acclaimed pianist Maurizio Pollini returns to Carnegie Hall, playing Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major, K. 467 with The MET Orchestra led by Music Director James Levine on October 12. Mr. Pollini will also perform a solo recital on October 19 featuring the music of Schumann and Chopin.

• Ensemble ACJW, featuring an all-new group of musicians in the two-year program, kicks off its season with a concert in Weill Recital Hall on October 20 performing Beethoven's Septet in E-flat Major, Op. 20; Mozart's Quartet for Flute, Violin, Viola, and Cello in D Major, K.285; and David Lang's these broken wings. Later in the season, the group performs the premiere of a new work by the 2014-2015 holder of Carnegie Hall's Debs Composer's Chair Meredith Monk, alongside Ravel's Piano Trio in A Minor, on February 16, among other concert highlights.

• Mezzo-Soprano Joyce DiDonato begins her Perspectives series singing the title role in Handel's Alcina with The English Concert led by Artistic Director Harry Bicket on October 26. She also performs a Venice-inspired recital with pianist David Zobel with works by Fauré, Hahn, Head, Rossini, and Vivaldi on November 4. She joins the Brentano String Quartet in Zankel Hall on February 5 for a program including the New York premiere of Jake Heggie's Camille Claudel: Into the Fire and the world premiere of MotherSongs, which highlights the work of Carnegie Hall's Lullaby Project, in which expectant mothers write songs for their new babies. Ms. DiDonato concludes her Perspectives series with close colleagues soprano Nicole Cabell, tenor Lawrence Brownlee, and The Philadelphia Orchestra led by Maurizio Benini for an evening of bel canto arias and ensembles on March 18.
• Percussionists Colin Currie and Daniel Druckman, pianists Simon Crawford-Phillips and Philip Moore, and students from The Juilliard School are featured in an all-Steve Reich program in Zankel Hall on October 29 that includes Clapping Music, Drumming, and the US premiere of Quartet, a new work commissioned by Carnegie Hall.
• The Philadelphia Orchestra kicks off its season at Carnegie Hall with Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin on October 31 with a program of Mahler's Symphony No. 2 in C Minor, "Resurrection," with soprano Angela Meade, mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly, and the Westminster Symphonic Choir. This concert is followed by one featuring Haydn's Cello Concerto in C Major with cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras and works by Brahms and Strauss on December 5; and concludes with a program of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 with pianist Emanuel Ax along with the New York premiere of Nico Muhly's Mixed Messages and Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 3 on May 14.
• The Orchestra of St. Luke's performs three times next season as part of its annual series at Carnegie Hall. The first performance features Principal Conductor Pablo-Heras Casado leading Mendelssohn's secular cantata Die erste Walpurgisnacht featuring mezzo-soprano Elizabeth DeShong, tenor Joseph Kaiser, bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni, and the Musica Sacra choir on November 6. The second concert features Harry Bicket leading Wagner's Siegfried Idyll, Haydn's Symphony No. 104 in D Major, "London," and Dvo?ák's Piano Concerto in G Minor with Stephen Hough on January 15. Mr. Heras-Casado returns for the final concert of the season, a program of Stravinsky's Symphonies of Wind Instruments, Beethoven's Symphony No. 5, and Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No. 2 with Alisa Weilerstein on April 23.
• Following her October Opening Night Gala performance, violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter continues her Carnegie Hall Perspectives series with a recital of works by Franck, Beethoven, André Previn, and Sebastian Currier with pianist Lambert Orkis on November 11. She returns to play the US premiere of André Previn's Violin Concerto No. 2 with the Mutter Virtuosi string ensemble on November 18. Ms. Mutter's series continues on February 11 as she collaborates with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra in Sibelius's Violin Concerto. She offers a chamber music concert with pianist Yefim Bronfman and cellist Lynn Harrell on April 14, and concludes her Perspectives series performing Berg's Violin Concerto and the New York premiere of Norbert Moret's En rêve with the New World Symphony led by conductor Michael Tilson Thomas on April 28.
• Meredith Monk's residency as the holder of the Debs Composer's Chair begins with a birthday celebration on November 20 with pianists Bruce Brubaker and Ursula Oppens performing an all-Meredith Monk program at Le Poisson Rouge. The following evening, on November 21, the American Composers Orchestra gives a performance of Ms. Monk's Night featuring the Meredith Monk and Vocal Ensemble led by ACO Music Director George Manahan in Zankel Hall. On February 16, Ensemble ACJW performs the New York premiere of a new work by Ms. Monk in Weill Recital Hall, and on March 20 the St. Louis Symphony, led by David Robertson, gives the New York premiere of Ms. Monk's Weave featuring vocalists Katie Geissinger and Theo Bleckmann. Two Zankel Hall programs by the Meredith Monk and Vocal Ensemble round out her residency, the first featuring special guests including the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Jessye Norman, John Zorn, Don Byron, DJ Spooky, Todd Reynolds, and more on March 22; the final, a concert celebrating Ms. Monk's 50 years of music making in New York City on May 2, which includes selections from some of her most recent works: On Behalf of Nature, impermanence, and mercy.

• Violinist Leonidis Kavakos and pianist Yuja Wang perform a duo recital on November 22 that includes works by Brahms, Schumann, Stravinsky, and Respighi. Yuja Wang returns on December 11 for a solo recital of pieces by Albéniz, Chopin, Enrique Granados, Schubert, and Scriabin.
• On December 4, Carnegie Hall presents the New York premiere of The Classical Style: An Opera (of Sorts) by composer Steven Stucky and directed by Mary Bimbaum with a libretto by pianist Jeremy Denk in tribute to the late Charles Rosen, after his book of the same title. Chamber orchestra The Knights, conducted by Robert Spano, is featured, with additional singers to be announced. Also on this program, Mr. Denk performs Mozart's Fantasia and Sonata in C Minor.

• Teatro Regio Torino, led by Music Director Gianandrea Noseda, performs Rossini's opera Guillaume Tell (William Tell) in concert on December 7 with a cast including baritone Fabio Capitanucci in the title role and soprano Angela Meade as Matilde.

• Pianist Daniil Trifonov plays a solo recital on December 9 that features works by Bach, Beethoven, and Liszt, and he returns on January 23 with violinist Gidon Kremer for a duo recital that includes works by Mozart, Philip Glass, Schubert, and Mieczys?aw Weinberg.

• Tony and Grammy Award-winning singer and Musical America's 2014 Musician of the Year Audra McDonald returns to Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage with Musical Director Andy Einhorn on December 12.
• The Song Continues, founded by celebrated mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne, is a series of master classes and recitals for classical singers and pianists dedicated to the art of the vocal recital. The series begins on January 13 with a recital by baritone John Brancy and pianist Ken Noda in Weill Recital Hall and a master class with mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter in Zankel Hall. Pianist Warren Jones hosts a master class in Weill Recital Hall on January 14, and on January 15 soprano Dian Yodzis and pianist Kenneth Merrill give a recital in Weill Recital Hall followed by Ms. Horne's master class. The week culminates with the Marilyn Horne Song Celebration, hosted by Ms. Horne with songs performed by up-and-coming singers whom she has mentored, including soprano Alison King, mezzo-soprano Cecelia Hall, tenor Russell Thomas, and baritone Edward Parks, plus special guest, mezzo-soprano Susan Graham.
• The Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Riccardo Muti return to Carnegie Hall for three concerts, featuring Scriabin's Symphony No. 3, "The Divine Poem," along with works by Debussy and Mendelssohn on January 30; Brahms's Piano Concerto No. 2 with Yefim Bronfman and Schumann's Symphony No. 3 on January 31; and Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky with mezzo-soprano Alisa Kolosova, tenor Sergei Skorokhodov, and the Chicago Symphony Chorus, plus Scriabin's Symphony No. 1, on February 1.
• Adventurous vocal ensemble Theatre of Voices performs Stockhausen's iconic and massive work Stimmung in Zankel Hall on February 21.
• Pianist Richard Goode is featured in two chamber concerts, on February 22 and March 26, with young musicians whom he has mentored at the Marlboro Music Festival. Mr. Goode also leads a master class presented by Carnegie Hall's Weill Music Institute on March 27 exploring Debussy's Preludes in the new Judith and Burton Resnick Education Wing; performs Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 27 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Andris Nelsons on April 15; and performs a solo recital on April 24 featuring works by Beethoven, Brahms, Debussy, Mozart, and Schumann.
• Pianist Leif Ove Andsnes conducts the Mahler Chamber Orchestra from the keyboard in a complete cycle of Beethoven's piano concertos, presented over two nights on February 23 and February 25.

• In addition to the ensemble's performance on November 21, the American Composers Orchestra and Music Director George Manahan are joined by vocalist Shara Worden and her band My Brightest Diamond performing Ms. Worden's original works as well as Kurt Weill's The Seven Deadly Sins and premieres by Daniel Schnyder and Carman Moore on February 27.
• Carnegie Hall's Before Bach series begins in April and features thirteen concerts by some of the world's most acclaimed early music performers, beginning with L'Arpeggiata and Artistic Director Christina Pluhar who launch the series on April 7 and 8 in Zankel Hall. The series continues with Pomerium, led by Alexander Blachly, in Weill Recital Hall on April 9 performing a program entitled Music for the Tudor Queens; Les Violons du Roy and La Chapelle de Québec in an all-Purcell program led by Bernard Labadie with soprano Dorothea Röschmann, baritone Henk Neven, and soprano Hélène Guilmette on April 12; viola da gamba master Jordi Savall performing a solo recital on April 13 in Weill Recital Hall and leading Le Concert des Nations in Zankel Hall on April 16; the Tallis Scholars, led by Peter Phillips, in concert in Weill Recital Hall on April 18 plus leading a professional training workshop presented by Carnegie Hall's Weill Music Institute on Antoine Brumel's "Earthquake" Mass and Thomas Tallis's 40-part motet "Spem in alium," which concludes with a performance at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola on April 17; Fretwork, a consort of viols from the United Kingdom, in Weill Recital Hall on April 20; harpsichordist Kristian Bezuidenhout in a solo recital in Weill Recital Hall on April 23; vocal ensemble I Fagiolini under the direction of Robert Hollingworth in Weill Recital Hall on April 25; and the English Baroque Soloists and the Monteverdi Choir led by Sir John Eliot Gardner with performances of Monteverdi's Vespro della Beata Vergine on April 30 and L'Orfeo on May 1.

• The Boston Symphony Orchestra plays its first New York performances under the baton of new Music Director Andris Nelsons, with three concerts: on April 15 the New York premiere of Gunther Schuller's Dreamscape, Strauss's Ein Heldenleben, and Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 27 with Richard Goode; Beethoven's Violin Concerto with Christian Tetzlaff and Shostakovich's Symphony No. 10 on April 16; and Mahler's Symphony No. 6 on April 17.