Thomas Adès and Earl Lee to Lead Boston Symphony Orchestra Concerts This Spring

BSO Artistic Partner from 2018 to 2021, composer/conductor/pianist Thomas Adès returns to Symphony Hall to lead a program featuring the Inferno Suite and Paradiso from his recent composition The Dante Project, a three-part ballet score from 2021 based on Dante Alighieri's 14th-century Italian epic Commedia. The performances will take place on Thursday, March 23, 7:30 p.m.; Friday, March 24, 1:30 p.m.; Saturday, March 25, 8 p.m. The piece was written to mark the 700th anniversary of the poet's death. Adès called his Inferno "a grateful tribute to Franz Liszt, the composer of hell and demonic music." Igor Stravinsky's Classical mythology-based Perséphone also has a dance origin, having been written for the dancer/choreographer Ida Rubinstein, who staged the premiere in 1934, and her troupe. With a libretto by the French novelist André Gide, Stravinsky's mélodrame for narrator, tenor, chorus, and orchestra is a magically surreal neoclassical retelling of the goddess Persephone's abduction by Hades, God of the underworld. For this performance (performed in French with English supertitles), Danielle DeNiese, in her BSO debut, serves as narrator, alongside tenor Edgaras Montvidas, as well as the Tanglewood Festival Chorus and the Boys of St. Paul's Choir School, both under the direction of James Burton.

Earl Lee, who was appointed BSO Assistant Conductor in August 2021, takes the podium for his full-program Symphony Hall debut on Thursday, April 6, 7:30 p.m.; Friday, April 7, 1:30 p.m.; Saturday, April 8, 8 p.m. The program opens with Korean composer Unsuk Chin's subito con forza ("suddenly with power"), a short work she composed for the celebrations marking the 250th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven's birth in 2020; the composer characterized it as exploring "enormous contrasts, from volcanic eruptions to extreme serenity." Pianist Eric Lu, in his BSO debut, is the soloist in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's passionate and stormy Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, one of only two minor-key concertos by the composer. Closing the program is Robert Schumann's Symphony No. 2, a work that the composer struggled to complete during a period of chronic depression and which, in its contrapuntal aspects, reflects his interest in the music of J.S. Bach.
Please note that all Thursday-evening performances now start at 7:30pm, in response to patron feedback and preferences.

Further Details about Boston Symphony Chamber Players Concert at Jordan Hall, Sunday, April 16, 3 p.m.

One of the world's most distinguished chamber music ensembles sponsored by a major symphony orchestra and made up of principal players from that orchestra, the Boston Symphony Chamber Players include first-chair string and wind players from the Boston Symphony Orchestra. They present an annual four-concert series on Sunday afternoons at Jordan Hall at New England Conservatory. To close the current season, the Chamber Players perform Maurice Ravel's brilliant and ethereal Introduction and Allegro for harp, flute, clarinet, and strings, Sofia Gubaidulina's Sonata for double-bass and piano, composed in 1975 for this unconventional combination, and Ludwig van Beethoven's charming and graceful Septet in E-flat for clarinet, horn, bassoon, violin, viola, cello, and double bass, Op. 20.

Performance Details:

Boston Symphony Orchestra

Thursday, March 23, 7:30 p.m.
Friday, March 24, 1:30 p.m.

Saturday, March 25, 8 p.m.
Thomas Adès, conductor

Edgaras Montvidas, tenor

Danielle DeNiese, narrator

Tanglewood Festival Chorus

Boys of St. Paul's Choir School

James Burton, conductor

STRAVINSKY Perséphone

Thomas ADÈS Inferno Suite

Thomas ADÈS Paradiso

Boston Symphony Orchestra

Thursday, April 6, 7:30 p.m.

Friday, April 7, 1:30 p.m.

Saturday, April 8, 8 p.m.

Earl Lee, conductor

Eric Lu, piano

Unsuk Chin subito con forza

MOZART Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K.466

SCHUMANN Symphony No. 2

Boston Symphony Chamber Players

Sunday, April 16, 2023, Jordan Hall, 3 p.m.

Randall Hodgkinson, piano

RAVEL Introduction and Allegro for harp, flute, clarinet, and strings
Sofia GUBAIDULINA Sonata for double-bass and piano

BEETHOVEN Septet in E-flat for clarinet, horn, bassoon, violin, viola, cello and double bass, Op. 20

How to Purchase Tickets

Tickets to the 2022-23 BSO season may be purchased through bso.org, by calling 888-266-1200, or by visiting the Symphony Hall Box Office.

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