FCD - Boston Symphony Orchestra

GENERAL INFORMATION

Boston Symphony Orchestra
Boston Pops Orchestra
Tanglewood

Symphony Hall
301 Massachusetts Ave.
Boston, MA
02115

Phone:
617-266-1492

E-mail:info@bso.org

Web site:
www.bso.org

EVENTS

Events at, or related to Boston Symphony Orchestra are listed throughout the Cultural District website. Please explore one the website categories and the Calendar in the upper right hand corner of this screen.

This Boston Symphony Orchestra 2003-04 season, includes guest appearances by today's most celebrated conductors, concerts led by BSO Music Director Designate James Levine and BSO Principal Guest Conductor Bernard Haitink, two world premieres, and programs celebrating the music of Hector Berlioz in the bicentennial season of his birth. Mr. Haitink opens the BSO's 123rd season on October 2 with
an all-Beethoven program featuring celebrated Slovenian pianist Dubravka Tomsic and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, John Oliver, conductor, in the composer's Choral Fantasy, on a program with his Symphony No. 5.

Highlights of the Boston Symphony Orchestra's 2003-04 season include
James Levine leading the world premiere of a BSO commission from
esteemed American composer Elliott Carter; three programs (in addition
to Opening Night) under the baton of Bernard Haitink, including the
first complete BSO concert performances of Debussy's Pelléas et
Mélisande; the world premiere of a BSO commission from Scottish
composer Thea Musgrave; three programs featuring music of Hector
Berlioz, including the oratorio L'Enfance du Christ and the rarely
heard dramatic cantata La Mort de Cléopâtre; and appearances by such
renowned guest conductors as Paavo Berglund, Herbert Blomstedt, James
Conlon, Edo de Waart, Christoph von Dohnányi, Rafael Frühbeck de
Burgos, Ton Koopman, Sir Charles Mackerras, Kurt Masur, and Gennady
Rozhdestvensky, as well as the eagerly anticipated return to the
podium of former BSO Principal Guest Conductor Sir Colin Davis, who
makes his first Symphony Hall appearances with the orchestra in nearly
20 years. Overall, the BSO has expanded its total number of concert
performances to a 33-week season, as compared to 32 weeks in 2002-03.

Music Director Designate James Levine
In January 2004, for his final concerts as BSO Music Director
Designate before he becomes music director in the fall of 2004, James
Levine introduces a new work - Micomicón, by the American master
composer Elliott Carter. The first work to be commissioned by the BSO
for Mr. Levine, Micomicón will be heard on a program with Carter's
Partita, Mozart's Symphony No. 31, Paris, and Dvorák's Symphony No.
8.

BSO Conducting Debuts
The 2003-04 season features Boston Symphony debuts by two celebrated
conductors, and the BSO subscription debut of two others.

In October, Sir Charles Mackerras makes his BSO subscription debut
leading an all-Berlioz program. Sir Charles - whose only previous
appearance with the Boston Symphony was at Tanglewood in August 1970 - leads the orchestra with BSO Principal Viola Steven Ansell in Berlioz'
Harold in Italy, on a program with the composer's Symphonie
fantastique. Herbert Blomstedt, former music director of the San
Francisco Symphony and currently music director of the Gewandhaus in
Leipzig, makes his BSO subscription debut in February 2004, leading
the orchestra with pianist Peter Serkin in Mozart's Piano Concerto No.
17 in G, K.453. This program opens with Mendelssohn's overture The
Fair Melusine and closes with Danish composer Carl Nielsen's Symphony
No. 4, The Inextinguishable. Mr. Blomstedt's only previous performance
with the Boston Symphony was at Tanglewood in August 1980.

Finland's senior conductor, Paavo Berglund, makes his Boston Symphony
debut in March 2004, leading the orchestra with violinist Frank Peter
Zimmermann in Britten's Violin Concerto. This program opens with
Britten's arrangement of Mahler's What the Wild Flowers Tell Me, and
closes with two works by Finland's greatest composer: the Sixth and
Seventh symphonies of Sibelius.

Newly appointed Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra Music Director Mario
Venzago makes his Boston Symphony debut in April 2004, leading an
all-concerto program featuring violinist Gidon Kremer. Mr. Kremer will
be featured in all three works on this program: Michael Nyman's Violin
Concerto (receiving its American premiere with these performances),
Beethoven's Violin Concerto, and Britten's Double Concerto for Violin,
Viola, and Orchestra, also featuring Lithuanian violist Ula Ulijona in
her BSO debut.

Berlioz Bicentennial
From the Charles Munch years in the 1950s through Seiji Ozawa's
recent tenure as music director, the Boston Symphony more than any
other American orchestra has championed the music of Hector Berlioz.
To celebrate the Berlioz Bicentennial, the orchestra devotes two full
programs to Berlioz and features his music on a third, beginning in
October with the BSO subscription series debut of Sir Charles
Mackerras, one of the world's most esteemed senior conductors and a
famous Berlioz interpreter. Sir Charles's all-Berlioz program features
BSO Principal Viola Steven Ansell as soloist in Harold in Italy and
concludes with a BSO signature piece, the Symphonie fantastique

January 2004 brings the return of Spanish conductor Rafael Frühbeck
de Burgos to Symphony Hall, and with him another highlight of the
season: performances of Berlioz's oratorio L'Enfance du Christ, a
musical retelling of the nativity story. These Symphony Hall concerts
likewise feature an internationally renowned group of soloists,
including tenor Keith Lewis in his BSO subscription series debut as
the Narrator, mezzo-soprano Susanne Mentzer as Mary, baritone Gilles
Cachemailles as Joseph, baritone Laurent Naouri in his BSO debut as
Herod, and bass Robert Lloyd as the Head of a Family, along with two
alumni of the BSO's Tanglewood Music Center - tenor William Hite as the
Centurion and bass Alain Coulombe as Polydorus - and the Tanglewood
Festival Chorus, John Oliver, conductor.

In May, for the closing concerts of the orchestra's 2003-04 season,
Mr. Frühbeck de Burgos returns to the BSO podium for a program
featuring German mezzo-soprano Nadja Michael making her BSO debut in
Berlioz's dramatic cantata La Mort de Cléopâtre, on a program with
Ravel's complete Daphnis et Chloé featuring the Tanglewood Festival
Chorus, John Oliver, conductor.

Two World Premieres, Two American Premieres
In 2003-04 the Boston Symphony gives the world premieres of BSO
commissions from two of the world's foremost composers - the dean of
American composition, 94-year-old Elliott Carter, and Scottish
composer Thea Musgrave - as well as the American premieres of works by
Michael Nyman and Joseph Suk.

In January 2004, the BSO gives the world premiere of Elliott Carter's
Micomicón, the second new work by Mr. Carter to be premiered by the
orchestra in as many seasons, and the first work commissioned by the
Boston Symphony Orchestra for incoming BSO Music Director James
Levine.

Following the success of her Phoenix Rising - given its American
premiere by the Boston Symphony in November 1999 - Thea Musgrave was
commissioned by the BSO to write a new work. Turbulent Landscapes will
be given its world premiere by the orchestra in April 2004 under the
baton of Handel & Haydn Society Music Director and former BSO
assistant conductor Grant Llewellyn. This program of British music
opens with Vaughn Williams' Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis and
closes with Walton's Belshazzar's Feast, the latter featuring
bass-baritone John Relyea as soloist.

In February 2004, the first of Russian conductor Gennady
Rozhdestvensky's two BSO programs for 2003-04 features what is believed
to be the American premiere of a major turn-of-the-century (1907-09)
symphonic poem by Czech composer Joseph Suk, A Summer's Tale. The
second American premiere scheduled for next season, in April 2004, is
British composer Michael Nyman's Violin Concerto, here featuring Gidon
Kremer as soloist. Mr. Nyman, probably best-known for his scores to
such films as Jane Campion's The Piano and Neil Jordan's The End of
the Affair, wrote this work for Mr. Kremer, and it is scheduled to
receive its world premiere this summer in Switzerland.

BSO Expands Subscription Offering
This season, the Boston Symphony has expanded its subscription
offering to include 23 Thursday-evening concerts, 16 Friday-afternoon
concerts, and eight Friday-evening concerts (one concert in this
series will take place on a Wednesday evening), 25 Saturday-evening
concerts, 12 Tuesday-evening concerts, and a special Sunday-afternoon
matinee to benefit the BSO Pension Fund. The BSO Open Rehearsal series will offer 10 Thursday-morning rehearsals (expanded from eight) and
four Wednesday-evening rehearsals.

Chamber Music Teas, Prelude Concerts, and Pre-Concert Talks
The Boston Symphony will continue its series of chamber music
offerings in 2003-04, including Chamber Music Prelude Concerts and
Friday-afternoon Chamber Teas. The BSO will also continue its series
of Pre-Concert and Open Rehearsal Talks next season, offering a free,
informative talk prior to every Boston Symphony subscription concert
and Open Rehearsal throughout the 2003-04 season.