Carnegie Hall to mix Latin music with cornerstone favorites in 2024-25
Carnegie Hall executive and artistic director Clive Gillinson introduced the 2024-2025 season by pointing to Carnegie’s desire to formulate series that “connect to the arts and culture of this country.” With that, he introduced the season-long festival “Nuestros sonidos,” a celebration of Latin musical culture—one of the essential pieces in American musical culture as a whole.
The festival launches the Carnegie season October 8, with a concert from the Los Angeles Philharmonic and future New York Philharmonic music director Gustavo Dudamel, playing Ginastera’s Estancia, and also Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2, with Lang Lang as soloist.
The upcoming 2024-2025 season will also feature the returns of mainstays the Vienna Philharmonic, pianist Mitsuko Uchida, Kronos Quartet, The Met Chamber Ensemble, The English Concert, soprano Lisette Oropesa, and many others.
“Nuestros sonidos” brings together numerous ensembles and performers, including Oropesa who will sing music by Cuban composers and other works with Spanish influence, accompanied by pianist Ken Noda, October 23. The night after the opening gala, the LA orchestra plays a new work for cello and orchestra by Gabriela Ortiz with Alisa Weilerstein, commissioned by Carnegie. Ortiz, who will hold the season’s Debs Composers Chair—five of her works will be heard during the season, including the world premiere of another commission from Carnegie, played by the Attacca Quartet for their May 1, 2025 concert. More new music in the festival will be presented by the American Composers Orchestra, March 6.
Lang Lang is one of three musicians to have Perspectives Series during the season, with Uchida and violinist Maxim Vengerov. Lang’s series is the first part of a two-year stint for him at the hall, and features a collaboration with soprano Angel Blue, making her Carnegie debut, March 8, with music from Strauss, Poulenc, Rachmaninoff, and others. Uchida will finish her three-year series with concerts that feature her collaboration with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra in Mozart’s Piano Concertos, Nos. 18 and 21, March 29, and she plays Beethoven and Schubert in a solo recital April 9. Vengerov begins his own three-year series November 6 with Mozart’s complete music for violin and orchestra, with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and he plays the Brahms Violin Concerto January 30 with the Met Orchestra and conductor Myung-Whun Chung.
The season’s visits from the VPO runs from February 28-March 2, this time with conductor Riccardo Muti. The orchestra opens with Schubert’s Symphony No. 4, “Tragic,” and Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7; the following concerts include Schubert’s “Great” Symphony No. 9 and Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, “From the New World.” Other visiting orchestras will include the Royal Concertgebouw and conductor Klaus Mäkelä, playing Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, Schoenberg, and Mahler (November 22-23); the Philadelphia Orchestra led by Yannick Nézet-Séguin in Mahler’s Symphonies Nos. 3, 9, and 6 (October 15, January 15, April 15); the Berliner Philharmoniker and conductor Kirill Petrenko playing Bruckner’s Symphony No. 5, Rachmaninoff, Korngold (the Violin Concerto with Hilary Hahn), and Dvořák (November 17-19); and April 27 the Gateways Orchestra with conductor Anthony Parnther plays William Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony.
The Czech Philharmonic and conductor Semyon Bychkov appear December 3-5 for a concise in-season festival that’s part of the 2024 worldwide Year of Czech Music. Soloists cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinist Gil Shaman, and pianist Daniil Trifonov will join the orchestra in concertos by Dvořák, and the orchestra will play Smetana’s Ma Vlast, Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass, and Mahler’s Symphony No. 5.
Kronos will be in Zankel Hall, March 28, for a concert that includes a tribute to composer Terry Riley for his 90th birthday. They will play Kiss Yo’ Ass Goodbye, a piece commissioned by Carnegie that has Riley and Sara Miyamoto “reimagining” music by Sun Ra from his Nuclear War album. April 4, the great Danish String Quartet will play Schubert and a new Carnegie commission from Bent Sørensen, while the Belcea and Ébéne Quartets combine November 14 to play string octets from Mendelssohn and Enescu.
The Met Chamber Ensemble has six performances slated, including parts in both a Carnegie focus on South African music and the Czech festival, October 28 and November 18. In April, Nézet-Séguin leads the ensemble, mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung and tenor Ben Bliss in Schoenberg’s chamber arrangement of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde. In more chamber music, Ensemble Connect will present another Carnegie focus, this one on the Pierre Boulez centenary, playing Luciano Berio’s Ricorrenze per quintetto a fiato – a Pierre Boulez per il suo sessantesimo compleanno, with Schubert, Beethoven, and a new Carnegie commission from Katherine Balch. The centenary goes deep with Pierre-Laurent Aimard playing Bartók, Schoenberg, and Boulez in a solo recital March 2, and the International Contemporary Ensemble playing Boulez, Kaija Saariaho, Philippe Manoury, and Tyshawn Sorey, January 30, in what promises to be the new music concert of the season.
Dynamic tenor Piotr Beczała, with pianist Helmut Deutsch, sings Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Schumann, Strauss, and Grieg, December 9; and soprano Nina Stemme makes her Carnegie debut May 2, accompanied by Roland Pöntinen, singing Elgar and the intriguing juxtaposition of Wagner and Weill. Harry Bicket brings in The English Concert May 4 for their annual concert performance of a Handel opera, Giulio Cesare in Egitto, with Christophe Dumaux, Louise Alder, and Paula Murrihy.
Along with his orchestra appearance, Trifonov will play Barber’s Piano Sonata, Tchaikovsky, and Chopin, solo, October 17; siblings cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason and pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason return December 15 with a program of Fauré, Poulenc, Mendelssohn, and a new work; New York Philharmonic principal clarinetist Anthony McGill and pianist Emanuel Ax play Bernstein’s Clarinet Sonata, Schubert’s “Arpeggione” Sonata, Hailstork’s The Blue Bag, and other pieces, February 6; violinist Ann-Sophie Mutter and pianist Lambert Orkis play Mozart, Respighi, Clara Schumann, and Schubert April 3, then Mutter, cellist Pablo Ferrández, and pianist Yefim Bronfman play Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio and Beethoven’s “Archduke” Trio, May 6; and pianist Evgeny Kissin makes three appearances in May, marking the 50th anniversary of the death of Shostakovich. May 17 he plays the composer’s Piano Sonata No. 2, several Preludes and Fugues, and Beethoven and Chopin; May 28 he, violinist Gidon Kremer, violist Maxim Rysanov, and cellist Gautier Capuçon play instrumental sonatas; and May 31, with Kremer, cellist Giedrė Dirvanauskaitė, the Kopelman Quartet, and other artists to be announced, he plays the Piano Quintet, Piano Trio No. 2, Four Verses of Captain Lebyadkin, and From Jewish Folk Poetry.
For more information, go to carnegiehall.org
Leave a Comment
