21C Media Group’s 2023 Summer Highlights Preview

This summer brings a wealth of festivals and performances at some of the world’s leading cultural destinations, from the “American Riviera” to the Norwegian fjords, and from the Austrian alps to the mountains of Taiwan. See below for details of 21C’s artists and organizations’ upcoming summer highlights (all still subject to change).

Festivals (listed alphabetically)
Bard SummerScape
June 23 – Aug 13, 2023
Annandale-on-Hudson, NY

Bard SummerScape celebrates its 20th anniversary season with seven weeks of culture in New York’s Hudson Valley. Through two weekends of themed concerts and panels, the 33rd Bard Music Festival examines “Vaughan Williams and His World” alongside a new production of Saint-Saëns’s grand opera Henri VIII by French director Jean-Romain Vesperini and the world premiere of a new commission: a dance-theater adaptation of Sufjan Stevens’s album Illinois by choreographer Justin Peck. Bard’s perennially popular Spiegeltent returns for cabaret and more.

* * *

Caramoor
June 17 – Aug 18, 2023
Katonah, NY

Caramoor’s Venetian Theater (photo: Gabe Palacio)

Caramoor opens its summer season with a special concert featuring superstar vocalist Audra McDonald with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s – itself a long-time staple of Caramoor. Guests arriving early can explore the grounds which boast stunning gardens and new SoundArt installations. This summer, Caramoor builds on its long history of presenting thoughtful and adventurous programming, with highlights including Baroque opera (Francesca Caccini’s Alcina, the first known opera written by a female composer and featuring the Boston Early Music Festival, and Handel’s Acis and Galatea with the Philharmonia Baroque); cutting-edge ensembles such as Brooklyn Rider, who perform the NY premiere of Pinto-Correia’s Aere senza stelle as well as works by Shostakovich and Golijov; performances by the Ivalas Quartet, Caramoor’s quartet-in-residence; Sandbox Percussion performing Andy Akiho’s Seven Pillars; Baroque supergroup Ruckus; baritone Davóne Tines; pianist Conrad Tao with dancer Caleb Teicher performing classical favorites ranging from Bach to Ravel; the Orchestra of St. Luke’s joined by pianist Hélène Grimaud, and later closing the festival with cellist Alisa Weilerstein performing Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto; violinist Pekka Kuusisto with composer and pianist Nico Muhly; and much more.

* * *

Music Academy
June 12 – Aug 5, 2023
Santa Barbara, CA

Santa Barbara Bowl (photo: Chris Lee)

The Music Academy (formerly Music Academy of the West), now in its 76th season, celebrates the “Summer of the Artist” with eight weeks of live events at its picturesque Miraflores campus and throughout scenic Santa Barbara, California. Featured artists include Jeremy Denk, Anthony McGill, Ana María Martínez, Isabel Leonard, Augustin Hadelich, Elena Urioste, Sasha Cooke, the Takács Quartet, and Michelle Bradley headlining the annual festival gala along with the Sing! children’s chorus. The season will feature world or West Coast premieres from teaching artist-composers Jessie Montgomery, Samuel Carl Adams, Stewart Goodyear, Tom Cipullo and Chris Cerrone. This season’s Academy Festival Orchestra concerts are led by three-time Diapason d’Or-winner Stéphane Denève, Minnesota Orchestra Conductor Laureate Osmo Vänskä, Music Director of the San Bernardino Symphony and famed film score conductor Anthony Parnther, Buffalo Philharmonic Music Director JoAnn Falletta, and Finnish National Opera and Ballet Chief Conductor Hannu Lintu, who draws the entire summer season to a close. The Academy’s Principal Opera Conductor, Daniela Candillari, takes the podium for a fully staged production of Puccini’s La bohème, directed by Mo Zhou; and visionary Creative Producer of Special Projects James Darrah directs the world premiere presentation of Cabaret: 1979, an original new cabaret event. Special events include a Critics’ Roundtable hosted by New Yorker music critic Alex Ross and a presentation in partnership with the Santa Barbara Museum of Art of a free concert curated by Ethiopian American artist Awol Erizku.

* * *

Rosendal Chamber Music Festival
Aug 10-13, 2023
Norway

(photo: Liv Øvland)

Founded by Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes, the Rosendal Chamber Music Festival takes place in an idyllic setting within the grounds of a 17th-century manor house in west Norway. Set against a breathtaking panorama of mountains and fjords, the festival offers an in-depth, immersive program of music, talks and exhibitions. This season celebrates the music of Johannes Brahms, whose rich and varied chamber compositions resulted in some of the genre’s most pivotal works. Over the course of the four-day festival, Andsnes will collaborate with 25 guest artists to explore Brahms’s iconic works and the Romani music that inspired them. The 2023 festival also pays tribute to György Ligeti, born 100 years ago this year, with performances of works including the Trio for Violin, Horn and Piano, which was directly influenced by Brahms’s own trio for the same instruments.

Joining Andsnes on stage this summer are fellow pianists Bertrand Chamayou, Roland Pöntinen and Yeol Eum Son; violinists James Ehnes and Guro Kleven Hagen; violists Ida Bryhn and Tabea Zimmermann; cellists Julia Hagen and Sheku Kanneh-Mason; clarinetist Sharon Kam; horn player David Guerrier; trumpeter Håkan Hardenberger; baritone Matthias Goerne; actor Henrik Mestad; art historian Gunnar Danbolt; and lecturer Erling E. Guldbrandsen. Rosendal also welcomes back the Dover Quartet and introduces Zum Roten Igel (“Red Hedgehog”), the British ensemble named for the Viennese tavern where Brahms famously enjoyed both goulash and Romani music.

* * *

Taipei Music Academy & Festival (TMAF)
July 29 – Aug 13, 2023
Taipei, Taiwan

The Taipei Music Academy & Festival (TMAF), now in its fifth year, was founded by violinist, curator and educator Cho-Liang “Jimmy” Lin, “a beacon of musical charisma” (Philadelphia Inquirer), who currently serves on the faculties of Rice University and the Juilliard School, following an 18-year tenure as Music Director of La Jolla Music Society SummerFest. TMAF brings together outstanding young musicians and a stellar international faculty for two weeks of daily individual coaching sessions, public masterclasses, orchestral rehearsals, mock auditions, audition tutorials and more, in the idyllic mountainside setting of the Taipei National University of the Arts. The first week, focusing on chamber music, culminates in two public “Chamberfest” performances (Aug 3 & 4) as well as an “All-Star Concert” given by faculty (Aug 9), both at Taipei’s National Concert Hall. The second week turns to orchestral performance, with rehearsals and public performances in three Taiwanese cities of a program comprising Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber, Sibelius’s Symphony No. 2, and Rossini’s William Tell Overture, led by Music Director Laureate of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and Conductor Laureate of the St. Louis Symphony Leonard Slatkin.

* * *

Notable summer performances (listed alphabetically by artist)
Pierre-Laurent Aimard
June 19; July 28–30: Grammy-winning French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard pays tribute to the late György Ligeti, who would have celebrated his 100th birthday this year. Aimard gives a solo recital of the composer’s complete Études and joins jazz pianist Michael Wollny for a spontaneous night of Ligeti-inspired improvisations at England’s Aldeburgh Festival (June 19). He then heads to Austria’s Salzburg Festival for the Hungarian composer’s Musica ricercata (July 28) and a reprise of the complete Études (July 30). Aimard is the dedicatee of several of the Études, of which his complete Sony Masterworks recording was recognized with a Gramophone Award. [June 19: Snape Maltings, UK; July 28, 30: Salzburg]

* * *

Marin Alsop
July 14–Aug 6: As Chief Conductor of the Ravinia Festival, MacArthur Fellow Marin Alsop returns to lead the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) in six programs at its summer home. Expanding on the “Global Ode to Joy” she envisioned with Carnegie Hall for Beethoven’s 250th anniversary, she opens the CSO’s Ravinia season with an account of the composer’s Ninth Symphony that features African drumming and original text by former U.S. poet laureate Tracy K. Smith (July 14). After a program of Tchaikovsky, Shulamit Ran and Brahms with violinist Miriam Fried (July 15), Alsop and the orchestra join Grammy-winner Sasha Cooke for Mahler’s Fifth Symphony and songs by Alma Mahler (July 19). Next, during Ravinia’s second annual “Breaking Barriers” festival, “Celebrating Women Composers,” Alsop and former Taki Alsop Conducting Fellow Valentina Peleggi conduct CSO premieres from Gabriela Ortiz, Roxanna Panufnik and Gabriela Montero, who joins them as soloist in her own “Latin” Piano Concerto (July 21). Finally, bookended by concert performances of Mozart’s The Magic Flute starring Janai Brugger, Matthew Polenzani, Joshua Hopkins and Kathryn Lewek (Aug 4, 6), Alsop leads Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony and Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto, featuring Yunchan Lim, the youngest Van Cliburn gold medalist to date (Aug 5). [July 14, 15, 19, 21; Aug 4, 5, 6: Highland Park, IL]

July 26: As at Ravinia, Alsop performs Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto with Yunchan Lim, this time on an all-Russian program with the New York Philharmonic at Colorado’s Bravo! Vail festival. It was Alsop who led the Philharmonic in 2021’s “WE LOVE NYC: The Homecoming Concert,” an all-star Central Park event that aired live on CNN. [Vail, CO]

* * *

The Atlanta Opera
June 9–12: Designed specifically for composers and librettists from historically underrepresented communities, The Atlanta Opera’s 96-Hour Opera Project is a composition competition in which five composer-librettist teams write ten-minute operas. Bringing their completed works to Atlanta, the teams will workshop and rehearse their productions over four days. On the final day, the five operas are presented in a free public performance and a winner is selected by a distinguished group of judges. The Atlanta Opera awards the winning team a $10,000 prize and a commission for a new work to be produced and performed in an upcoming season. Composer-librettist teams competing this season are Jorge Sosa and Alejandra Martinez; Omar Najmi and Catherine Yu; Dave Ragland and Selda Sahin; Edward Shilts and Laura Barati; and Nathan Felix and Anita Gonzalez. [June 9-12: Atlanta]

* * *

Julia Bullock
June 29–July 1: American classical singer Julia Bullock, who “communicates intense, authentic feeling, as if she were singing right from her soul” (Opera News), is one of eight 2022-23 collaborative partners with the San Francisco Symphony. She joins the orchestra under the baton of Esa-Pekka Salonen for a program of Gershwin and Margaret Bonds songs, most of which are San Francisco Symphony premieres, plus the house premiere of Reena Esmail’s Black Iris, which takes its title from a Georgia O’Keeffe painting and grapples with the recent #MeToo movement. [June 29, 30; July 1: San Francisco]

July 9–13: Bullock joins Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) on Tanglewood’s opening weekend to perform Five Freedom Songs by Jessie Montgomery, a BSO co-commission. Conceived in collaboration with Bullock between 2017-2018, the song cycle honors the composer and singer’s shared African American heritage and the tradition of the Negro spiritual, while also experimenting with non-traditional stylistic contexts. Each of the five songs in the cycle are sourced from the historical anthology Slave Songs of the United States. A few days later, the soprano gives a recital at Tanglewood with pianist Bretton Brown, singing music of Schubert, Wolf, Weill, Billie Holiday, and Nina Simone. [July 9, 13: Lenox, MA]

July 21–22: The Grand Teton Music Festival, at the base of the Jackson Hole ski area in Wyoming, served as another of the co-commissioners of Montgomery’s Five Freedom Songs, and Bullock performed the cycle there in 2021. She returns this summer to perform Berlioz’s song cycle Les nuits d’été with the festival orchestra, conducted by her husband, Christian Reif. The cycle occupies a special place in the soprano’s history as one of the first pieces she heard (in Régine Crespin’s rendition) that captivated her imagination about the possibilities of a career in classical music. [July 21, 22: Jackson, WY]

* * *

Chicago Symphony Orchestra
June 23–25: In concerts that mark the final appearances of his 13-year tenure, Music Director Riccardo Muti leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) in performances of Beethoven’s Missa solemnis. They will be joined by vocal soloists Erin Morley, Alisa Kolosova, Giovanni Sala and Ildar Abdrazakov, with the Chicago Symphony Chorus. [June 23-25: Chicago]

* * *

Dallas Symphony Orchestra

 

June 30–July 5: The Dallas Symphony Orchestra (DSO), following the triumph of a recent performance in Carnegie Hall that the Dallas Morning News found “electrifying,” returns to the Bravo! Vail festival for its 22nd summer residency. Led by Music Director Fabio Luisi, the orchestra performs Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto along with Brahms’s Symphony No. 3, which they performed and recorded last month as part of their complete Brahms symphony cycle. Famed Israeli violinist Maxim Vengerov makes his Bravo! Vail debut as soloist for the concerto (June 30). Luisi also leads the DSO in the first Bravo! Vail Symphonic Commissioning Project premiere – Angélica Negrón’s Arquitecta featuring Colombian vocalist Lido Pimienta – in addition to Franck’s Symphony in D minor and the Bravo! Vail debut of cellist Jan Vogler in Haydn’s Cello Concerto in C (July 2). Three other concerts are led by DSO Principal Pops Conductor Jeff Tyzik: a tribute to Paul Simon (July 1), an Independence Day celebration on July 4 and a celebration of the film music of John Williams (July 5). [June 30; July 1, 2, 4, 5: Vail, CO]

* * *

Alan Gilbert
July 14–20: As Principal Guest Conductor of the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony, Grammy-winner Alan Gilbert leads two programs with the Japanese orchestra this summer. Long celebrated for his championship of Carl Nielsen’s music, Gilbert combines the Danish composer’s Fifth Symphony and Helios Overture with Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto, featuring Kirill Gerstein (July 14, 15). Next, he conducts the orchestra’s all-Viennese program of Mozart, Richard Strauss and Webern, with horn player Stefan Dohr as their concerto soloist (July 19, 20). [July 14, 15, 19, 20: Tokyo]

Aug 6–13: Eight years ago, as Artist-in-Residence of the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Gilbert led an account of Olivier Messiaen’s epic and otherworldly orchestral masterpiece, Des canyons aux étoiles… (“From the Canyons to the Stars…”), that was captured live for release by Entertainment One Music. Now, to celebrate the New Mexico festival’s 50th anniversary season, he reprises the twelve-movement, 90-minute work with pianist Kirill Gerstein, horn player Stefan Dohr, percussionists Daniel Druckman and Gregory Zuber, and a 40-piece orchestra (Aug 13). The performance crowns a weeklong residency at Santa Fe that also sees Gilbert play viola alongside Gerstein and others in the festival premiere of Ligeti’s Piano Concerto (Aug 6, 7) and in chamber works by Mozart (Aug 9). [Aug 6, 7, 9, 13: Santa Fe, NM]

* * *

Daniel Hope
June 10–25: As Music Director of San Francisco’s New Century Chamber Orchestra, Daniel Hope – the violinist known for his “inventive programming and a probing interpretive style” (New York Times) – leads the ensemble from the violin on a ten-city German tour. Their programs feature Tan Dun’s Double Concerto for Violin and Piano, with Ukrainian pianist Alexey Botvinov, and film music by Gershwin, Herrmann and Morricone. [June 10: Bremen; June 11: Braunschweig; June 14: Cologne; June 17: Dresden; June 18: Essen; June 20: Schleswig-Holstein; June 22: Wismar; June 23: Stolpe an der Peene; June 24: Fleesensee; June 25: Wiesbaden]

July 12–21: Together with an ensemble of bagpipes, harp and more, Hope celebrates four centuries of traditional Irish music at Germany’s Schleswig-Holstein and Rheingau music festivals. Exploring Ireland, Irish music and his own family roots, Celtic Dreams: Daniel Hope’s Hidden Irish History aired on PBS TV stations throughout the U.S. last year. [July 12: Nieblum; July 13: Rellingen; July 14: Marne; July 21: Wiesbaden]

July 17, 24: Hope returns to Switzerland’s Verbier Festival for a chamber program (July 17) and a festive gala concert. With a lineup that reads like a who’s who of classical music, including Joshua Bell, Yefim Bronfman, Thomas Hampson, Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Evgeny Kissin, Wynton Marsalis, Bryn Terfel, Daniil Trifonov and Yuja Wang, the event celebrates the festival’s landmark 30th anniversary (July 24). [July 17, 24: Verbier]

Aug 18–20: As Artist-in-Residence at this year’s Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Hope takes Britten’s Violin Concerto on a tour of Germany with Christoph Eschenbach and the festival orchestra. The concerto is one that Hope recorded 19 years ago with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. [Aug 18: Hamburg; Aug 19: Lübeck; Aug 20: Eltville]

* * *

Audra McDonald
June 17; Aug 10, 13: Emmy, Grammy, and six-time Tony Award-winning icon Audra McDonald performs her program “An Evening with Audra McDonald” with Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Caramoor’s Opening Night Gala, the Philadelphia Orchestra at its summer home in Saratoga, NY, and the Cleveland Orchestra at its Blossom Music Festival this summer. Comprising Broadway favorites by Rodgers and Hammerstein, George Gershwin, Stephen Sondheim, and others, and including songs from her latest album, Sing Happy, all three concerts will be led by McDonald’s longtime music director, Andy Einhorn. In addition to receiving a National Medal of the Arts from President Barack Obama, McDonald was also named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in 2015. She stars in CBS’s The Good Fight and HBO’s The Gilded Age. The Los Angeles Times declares: “Talent this manifold is too miraculous to deconstruct, but there is at the heart of McDonald’s art a moral radiance, a desire to align beauty with truth and justice.” [June 17: Katonah, NY; Aug 10: Saratoga, NY; Aug 13: Cuyahoga Falls, OH]

* * *

Orchestra of St. Luke’s
June 17: Orchestra of St. Luke’s (OSL) – “one of the most versatile and galvanic ensembles in the U.S.” (WQXR) – is joined for the Opening Night Gala of Caramoor’s 2023 summer season by Audra McDonald, performing her program “An Evening with Audra McDonald” (see above). [Katonah, NY]

June 22: Celebrating Pride Month and queer artistry, OSL presents the last concert in its “Visionary Sounds” series, featuring late composer Julius Eastman’s Gay Guerilla and Stay On It. Eastman, now experiencing a “dizzying posthumous renaissance” (New Yorker), had a take on minimalism that was “idiosyncratic and perhaps ahead of its time” (New York Times). [NYC/DiMenna]

July 16; Aug 6: OSL gives two more summer performances at Caramoor, first with passionate pianist Hélène Grimaud, whom Gerard Schwarz called simply “one of the greatest pianists in the world today,” and conductor Lina González-Granados – praised for her “rich, heartfelt orchestral sound” (Chicago Sun-Times) – for a program of Gabriela Lena Frank’s Elegía Andina, Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G and Brahms’s Second Symphony (July 16). In August, MacArthur “genius grant”-winning cellist Alisa Weilerstein, along with conductor Roderick Cox, joins OSL for Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1. Also on the program are Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 and George Walker’s Lyric for Strings. [July 16; Aug 6: Katonah, NY]

* * *

 

Anthony Parnther
June 24: San Bernardino Symphony Music Director Anthony Parnther, known for his “charismatic, captivating conducting” (Los Angeles Times), has helmed a host of blockbuster film scores, most recently including Avatar: The Way of Water and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. He was also the conductor for the scores of two series in the Star Wars franchise: The Mandalorian and Book of Boba Fett. He leads the Philadelphia Orchestra in Oscar-winning composer John Williams’s score for Star Wars: The Force Awakens live in concert as the film is projected on three giant screens. [Philadelphia]

July 1: In honor of the nation’s Independence Day, Parnther leads his San Bernardino Symphony in “America, the Beautiful,” featuring Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture and a fireworks display. [San Bernardino, CA]

July 8: Parnther joins a roster of eminent conductors this summer at the Music Academy (formerly Music Academy of the West), leading the Academy Festival Orchestra in Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 9 on a program that also includes Carl Maria von Weber’s Overture from Euryanthe, Carlos Simon’s An Elegy: A Cry from the Grave and Bernard Herrmann’s Suite from Psycho. [Santa Barbara, CA]

* * *

San Diego Symphony
June 30–Sep 1: The San Diego Symphony (SDS) returns to The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park – the open-air bayside venue “of such architectural and acoustical distinction that it would distinguish San Diego on any national cultural map” (New York Times) – for its Conrad Prebys 2023 Summer Season. Now nearing the end of his fourth year as Music Director of the SDS, Rafael Payare – always “electrifying in front of an orchestra” (LA Times) – helms the Opening Concert, which combines Rachmaninoff and Bernstein with the West Coast premiere of Salseando by Latin Grammy-nominee Roberto Sierra. Blending jazz improvisation with salsa rhythms and melodies, Sierra’s concerto showcases its dedicatee, award-winning Venezuelan trumpeter Pacho Flores, as soloist (June 30). The SDS’s annual “Beethoven by the Bay” program features Eric Lu, a pianist with “the magic touch of … Murray Perahia and Radu Lupu” (The Guardian), under the baton of emerging young conductor Johann Stuckenbruck (Aug 4). After a Rady Shell lineup that also includes artist tributes to Aretha Franklin and others, live screenings of Apollo 13 and other movies, a “Broadway Romance” and more, the orchestra concludes its summer season with a “Tchaikovsky Spectacular” led by Australian conductor Christopher Dragon and capped by the composer’s beloved 1812 Overture (Sep 1). [June 30, Aug 4, Sep 1: San Diego]

* * *

Inbal Segev
July 9: Cellist Inbal Segev – “a cellist with something to say” (Gramophone) – is especially well-known for her commitment to reinvigorating the cello repertoire and the host of new works she has commissioned from a long list of today’s most vital composers. Also a committed chamber performer, the cellist is a longtime collaborator with Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (CMS), with which she performed three programs this past season, including on tour in Colombia. This summer, she joins CMS in New York’s Alice Tully Hall for a “Summer Evenings” program comprising Boccherini’s String Quintet in E, Beethoven’s Trio in D for Violin, Viola, and Cello; and Glazunov’s Quintet in A for Two Violins, Viola, and Two Cellos. [NYC/ATH]

* * *

Daniil Trifonov
July 2, 7: “Without question the most astounding pianist of our age” (The Times of London), Grammy-winning pianist Daniil Trifonov performs Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto at two major American festivals this summer. After a performance under Robert Spano’s leadership at the Aspen Music Festival (July 2), Trifonov reprises the work with Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony in the Tanglewood Music Festival’s Opening Night concert (July 7). The pianist’s account of Prokofiev’s Second Concerto may be heard on his album Silver Age, winner of Opus Klassik’s 2021 Instrumentalist of the Year/Piano award. [July 2: Aspen, CO; July 7: Lenox, MA]

July 18–Aug 25: In Europe, Trifonov appears at four key festivals this summer. At Switzerland’s Verbier Festival, he plays Rachmaninoff with Kristóf Baráti and Mischa Maisky (July 18), gives a duo recital with bass-baritone Bryn Terfel (July 21) and, like Hope, appears alongside a host of other luminaries in the festival’s star-studded 30th anniversary gala concert (July 24). Next, Trifonov gives a solo recital that juxtaposes the simplicity and charm of Tchaikovsky’s Children’s Album with virtuosic works by Mozart, Schumann, Ravel and Scriabin in his sole appearance at Austria’s Salzburg Festival (July 27). He revisits this same recital program (Aug 20) at Switzerland’s Lucerne Festival, during a weeklong residency that also sees him perform Rachmaninoff’s Fourth Piano Concerto under Riccardo Chailly (Aug 16), quintets by Brahms and Schubert (Aug 18), and the Schumann concerto with Daniel Harding and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra (MCO) (Aug 23). Trifonov, Harding and the MCO reunite two days later to reprise the same concerto at Austria’s Grafenegg Music Festival (Aug 25). [July 18, 21, 24: Verbier; July 27: Salzburg; Aug 16, 18, 20, 23: Lucerne, Switzerland; Aug 25: Grafenegg, Austria]

* * *

Alisa Weilerstein
July 14–Aug 6: MacArthur Award-winning cellist Alisa Weilerstein, known for her “stylistic sensitivity, verve and spontaneous delight in discovery” (The Guardian), plays three different cello concertos with three orchestras this summer. At the Grand Teton Music Festival, she undertakes the Barber Concerto – which she has performed several times this past season, including with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra and Alan Gilbert – led by Detroit Symphony Music Director Jader Bignamini (July 14, 15). She performs Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel at the Hollywood Bowl (July 20) and joins Orchestra of St. Luke’s for Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1 at Caramoor, under the baton of conductor Roderick Cox (Aug 6). As the New York Times raved just this past February, Weilerstein is “an artist who adroitly channels fierce work with her penetrating, brilliant sound — her performances of works by Kodaly and Shostakovich provide ample proof.” [July 14, 15: Jackson, WY; July 20: Los Angeles; Aug 6: Katonah, NY]

Aug 9: Following the NY premiere of the first installment of her major new multisensory performance series, “FRAGMENTS,” in the co-commissioning Carnegie Hall, Weilerstein presents FRAGMENTS 2 at Tanglewood. Perhaps her most ambitious and personal project to date, the new solo cello series sees her weave together the 36 movements of Bach’s solo cello suites with 27 new commissions to make six programs, each an hour long, for solo cello. [Lenox, MA]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Abbreviations for New York City concert venues are as follows:
ATH = Alice Tully Hall
DiMenna = The DiMenna Center for Classical Music

# # #

© 21C Media Group, April 2023