Noseda Extends With National Symphony Orchestra Through 2027

Today, the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) announced it has extended Gianandrea Noseda's contract as Music Director for an additional two seasons, through the 2026-2027 season, his tenth at the helm of the NSO.

Considered one of the world's most sought-after conductors, and equally recognized for his artistry in both the concert hall and opera house, Gianandrea Noseda has breathed new life into the NSO, reinvigorated its programming, and deepened its relevance and connection to audiences and the D.C.-area community. The contract extension acknowledges the exciting era of music-making and artistic momentum that began in September 2017 when Noseda conducted his inaugural gala concert as Music Director, featuring artists Yo-Yo Ma and Cynthia Erivo. According to the New York Times, "Since 2017, Noseda has been thriving as music director of the NSO."

The announcement comes as Noseda leads the NSO in his final subscription concerts this season (June 2-4), conducting a program of two evocative works by Alexander Borodin and the first NSO performances of Italian movie score composer Nino Rota's Suite from Fellini's La Strada. It also comes on the cusp of Noseda and the NSO's release on June 24, 2022, of Sinfonia No. 4 by American composer and D.C. native George Walker coinciding with the composer's 100th birthday. Subsequent recordings of the remaining four Sinfonias will be released through 2024.

Gary Ginstling, NSO Executive Director, says: "The National Symphony is overjoyed that Gianandrea has extended his tenure as Music Director through 2026-2027. Despite the pandemic interruption, Gianandrea and the NSO have made extraordinary artistic strides, and we look forward with tremendous anticipation and excitement to what the next five years will bring."

The public has also been responding enthusiastically to the Noseda era at the NSO. Ticket sales for the NSO's classical programs had increased by 20% going into the 2019-2020 season and subscription sales rose by 15%. The Orchestra's overall fundraising increased 23% pre-pandemic. In addition, the NSO has raised nearly $11.5 million as part of the Noseda Era Fund, a special campaign to support Noseda's core artistic initiatives. The Noseda Era Fund has supported NSO recording, touring, and major artistic projects.

Commenting on his partnership with the NSO and the Kennedy Center, Gianandrea Noseda says:

"Coming to work every day at the Kennedy Center feels like a warm embrace. I adore this performing arts institution and the people who make it what it is. I adore the artists of this incredible orchestra, and I believe so powerfully in our work and our future together. Everything seems musically and artistically possible. There is an energy-a vivacity-that emanates from the musicians in this orchestra and our audiences throughout the community. This is an orchestra ready to take risks, they are eager to explore new repertoire together, and they bring and sustain such goodwill to both me and the audiences, night after night. The last five years with the NSO have been the most rewarding partnership I could have imagined. We faced challenges together during the pandemic era and persevered. I feel very fortunate to be leading this outstanding orchestra with a great management team for five years more."

An orchestra builder
Over the course of his tenure with the NSO, Noseda has appointed 20 new musicians to the 98-member ensemble, building upon the orchestra's sound, versatility, and its international and national reputation as one of the world's preeminent orchestras. As only the NSO's seventh music director, Noseda's frequent presence and keen involvement with the Orchestra continues to provide institutional and artistic stability for the NSO and attracts top talent from across the country.

New Musician Appointments* Under Gianandrea Noseda
*Dates indicated denote when musicians won the position.

Marina Aikawa, Violin, June 2019
Kevin Carlson, Assistant Principal Trombone, January 2019
Angelia Cho, Violin, June 2019
Scott Christian, Percussion/Assistant Principal Timpani, January 2019
Rebecca Epperson, Viola, January 2022
Ying Fu, Associate Concertmaster, April 2018
Michael Harper, Assistant Principal Trumpet, February 2022
Dayna Hepler, Assistant Principal Second Violin, February 2020
Hanna Lee, Violin, March 2018
Loewi Lin, Cello, April 2019
Peiming Lin, Violin, June 2019
Harrison Linsey, Second Oboe, November 2017
Lin Ma, Principal Clarinet, May 2018
Michael Marks, Bass, October 2019
Derek Powell, Violin, June 2019
Jing Qiao, Violin, March 2018
Britton Riley, Cello, April 2019
Ben Scott, Violin, March 2018
Malorie Blake Shin, Violin, September 2018
David Young, Assistant Principal Bassoon, February 2022

Artistic highlights (2017-2022)
The NSO-Noseda era has been marked by programmatic range, his trademark curiosity, and increasingly meaningful engagement with the broader community.

During his first season, in March 2018, he conducted John Adams' 2012 composition The Gospel According to the Other Mary, a performance which the Washington Post called "an impressive, dramatic and passionate performance from the new music director of the NSO, who deserves a lot of respect: To agree to undertake an unfamiliar piece in a repertoire you're not associated with as one of the biggest projects of your maiden season shows a striking open-mindedness, and he clearly approached the work with sincerity and feeling."

Later that month, he conducted the NSO and two of D.C.'s leading choruses, The Washington Chorus and The Choral Arts Society of Washington, in one of his signature works, Verdi's Requiem, about which the Washington Post wrote: "The palm, though, went to Noseda, for making something memorable and vivid and sincere out of this oft-heard and deservedly beloved work. The evening confirmed that the NSO has selected a very fine music director."

Noseda launched his second season with a noteworthy Fall (2018-2019 season), conducting a starry opening gala in September featuring pianist Yuja Wang and blazing performances of Carmina Burana a month later. In May 2019, he presided over a concert with Liszt's Dante Symphony and Rossini's Stabat Mater at Carnegie Hall, the Orchestra's first performance in New York under Noseda's leadership. During his second season, he also conducted Mason Bates' Art of War, an NSO Hechinger commission and world premiere.
In the 2019-2020 season, Noseda conducted Britten's War Requiem (November 2019) and Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto featuring Daniil Trifonov, in addition to another NSO co-commission, Kevin Puts' Brightness of Light, featuring Renée Fleming and Rod Gilfry. He also brought opera into the Concert Hall with a performance of Act II of Richard Wagner's Tristan and Isolde, featuring Christine Goerke, in Washington, D.C. as well as in a rare appearance with the NSO at Lincoln Center, leading the New York Times to comment that "Mr. Noseda drew lucid, fleet and textured playing from the orchestra during urgent stretches of the score."

During the unexpected and prolonged shutdown caused by the global COVID-19 pandemic, Noseda remained connected with the Orchestra virtually, supporting their NSO@Home online performances, and traveling twice to D.C. in the 2020-2021 season-once in April 2021 to conduct chamber orchestra-sized concerts for online streaming available to NSO audiences and the general public, and again in June 2021, when he returned to lead the Orchestra in a program including Daniil Trifonov in Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 1, and concertante works performed by NSO principal players as soloists.

As travel restrictions eased and the Kennedy Center was able to mount a full reopening in the Fall of 2021 (with COVID protocols in place including vaccination checks and masking), Noseda returned to conduct the NSO in a Concert of Remembrance which paid moving tribute to the victims, survivors, and first responders on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of 9/11. A centerpiece of the program was the world premiere of James Lee III's An Engraved American Mourning. The first full NSO subscription season in 18 months began with a Noseda-led performance featuring Hilary Hahn in Brahms' Violin Concerto. Noseda returned in December to conduct two unforgettable series of concerts: an all-Mozart program of compositions written in Mozart's final year of life-his Clarinet Concerto, featuring NSO Principal Clarinet Lin Ma; Ave verum corpus, and his unfinished masterpiece, Requiem-and later Handel's Messiah (Part I) paired with J.S. Bach's Magnificat, with the Washington Post writing, "Noseda measured each piece's multiple revelations so that their ecstatic bursts landed as such."

In January 2022, Noseda embarked on the first part of a two-part festival, Beethoven & American Masters, featuring four of Beethoven's timeless symphonies (Nos. 1, 3, 4, and 5) performed alongside masterpieces by trailblazing 20th-century American composers George Walker and William Grant Still. Complementing the concerts was a new exhibit by the Kennedy Center's inaugural Education Artist-in-Residence, author and illustrator Mo Willems, titled Beethoven Symphonies Abstracted. The remaining Beethoven Symphonies and Walker Sinfonias, plus another Still Symphony, will be performed over a four-week period in the spring of 2023. All concerts are being recorded live in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall for future release on the NSO's record label, distributed in partnership with LSO Live.

Commitment to recording, streamed broadcasts, and international tours
The National Symphony Orchestra has a rich history of recording, dating back to award-winning projects from the early 1970s with past music directors Antal Doráti, Mstislav Rostropovich, and Leonard Slatkin. In 2019, the NSO announced it would be building on that legacy by launching a new self-produced label in collaboration with LSO Live-becoming the first American orchestra to join LSO Live's family of distributed labels. The first release, a pairing of Aaron Copland's Billy the Kid and Dvořák's Symphony No. 9, "From the New World" conducted by Noseda and recorded live in June 2019 in the Kennedy Center's Concert Hall, earned immediate critical acclaim upon its release in February 2020. "If all the future releases on this new label are as impressive as this first one, we're in for a good time." (Classical Music Sentinel)

In March of this year, the NSO announced plans to release recordings of American composer and D.C. native George Walker's five sinfonias on the NSO's label-coinciding with the composer's 100th birthday. The first release, slated for June 24, 2022, features Walker's Sinfonia No. 4, with subsequent releases scheduled through 2024.

In an effort to expand its digital audience under Noseda, the Orchestra also initiated live concert broadcasts through medici.tv. Since the launch of the medici.tv partnership in 2017, the NSO has offered nine livestreams (also available for later broadcast) on the platform. A separate 10th livestream in May 2019 featured a Facebook Live performance of the "Unexpected Italy" program featuring Casella's Second Symphony and Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.

The Orchestra's first international tour with Noseda, a highly anticipated two-week tour of Japan and China scheduled for March 2020, was cancelled in the early days of the global pandemic. The tour was to include concerts at Suntory Hall in Tokyo and the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing. Under Noseda's leadership, the Orchestra will return to Carnegie Hall in April 2023.

Uniting with the community
Gianandrea Noseda has remained devoted to the Orchestra's mission to serve the broader community beyond the Kennedy Center campus. Sharing live classical music is at the heart of this mission - aiming to create excitement and appreciation for live symphonic music, engage and inspire audiences of the future, and ensure that all Washington, D.C. residents have access to participation in the arts.

In his role, Noseda has steadily deepened the Orchestra's relationship with audiences and partners, old and new, across the metropolitan D.C. area through community concerts and activities. Noseda joined the NSO for two of its In Your Neighborhood series, conducting free performances before packed crowds in the Main Hall at Union Station in 2018 and at the Columbia Heights Education Campus in 2019. Other collaborations include a free concert with the NSO at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception before an audience of over 6000, and performances at The Anthem, a rock and pop music venue that is part of The Wharf, located in the D.C.'s Southwest Waterfront neighborhood.

In February of this year, Noseda led the NSO in another free program held at Howard University, featuring three works by the late George Walker, a D.C. native and the first Black composer to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music. The program included Walker's Sinfonia No. 1, Violin Sonata No. 1 (performed by Walker's son Gregory Walker), and Sinfonia No. 4, along with Beethoven's Symphony No. 4. Gianandrea Noseda participated in a post-concert panel with Howard University Associate Professor of Composition Anthony Randolph, violinist Gregory Walker, Howard University Adjunct Professor Mickey Thomas Terry, and Kennedy Center Composer-in-Residence Carlos Simon.

For more information on Gianandrea Noseda, click here. ABOUT GIANANDREA NOSEDA
Gianandrea Noseda is one of the world's most sought-after conductors, equally recognized for his artistry in both the concert hall and opera house. Noseda's artistic leadership has inspired the NSO and in 2019, he and the National Symphony Orchestra earned rave reviews for their first concerts together at New York's Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. The 2019-2020 season saw their artistic partnership continue to flourish with the launch of a new NSO recording label distributed by LSO Live for which Noseda also records as principal guest conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra.

This season, Noseda began his tenure as General Music Director of the Zurich Opera House where he led two new productions of Il trovatore and Das Rheingold, and will still lead revivals of Falstaff and Tristan und Isolde. The centerpiece of his tenure in Zurich is a new Ring Cycle.

Noseda has conducted the most important orchestras and at the leading opera houses and festivals including the Berlin Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Edinburgh Festival, La Scala, Munich Philharmonic, Met Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, NHK Symphony, Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre National de France, Philadelphia Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Royal Opera House (UK), Salzburg Festival, Verbier Festival, Vienna Philharmonic, Vienna State Opera, and Vienna Symphony.

From 2007 until 2018, Noseda served as Music Director of Italy's Teatro Regio Torino where he ushered in a transformative era for the company matched with international acclaim for its productions, tours, recordings, and film projects. His leadership resulted in a golden era for this opera house.

Other institutions where he has had significant roles include the BBC Philharmonic which he led from 2002-2011; Principal Guest Conductor of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra from 2011-2020; the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, where the Victor de Sabata Chair was created for him as principal guest conductor from 2010-2014; and the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, which appointed him its first-ever foreign principal guest conductor in 1997, a position he held for a decade. He served as Artistic Director of the Stresa Festival from 2000-2020. He was also Principal Guest Conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic from 1999 to 2003; Principal Guest Conductor of the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI from 2003 to 2006; and Principal Conductor of the Cadaqués Orchestra from 1994 to 2020.

Noseda's intense recording activity counts more than 70 CDs on Chandos, Deutsche Grammophon, and other labels, many of which have been celebrated by critics and received awards.

Gianandrea Noseda's cherished relationship with the Metropolitan Opera dates back to 2002. At the Met he has conducted 13 operas and nearly 100 performances mainly new productions. Many of his critically acclaimed performances have been broadcast on radio, Met Live in HD, and released as DVDs.

A native of Milan, Noseda is Commendatore al Merito della Repubblica Italiana, marking his contribution to the artistic life of Italy. He has been honored as Musical America's Conductor of the Year (2015) and International Opera Awards Conductor of the Year (2016). In December 2016, he was privileged to conduct the Nobel Prize Concert in Stockholm.