21C MEDIA GROUP’S CLASSICAL MUSIC PREVIEW 2022-23

CONCERTS, SPECIAL EVENTS & RECORDINGS

The 2022-23 season brings a full lineup of performances and recordings for 21C’s artists and organizations; below are highlights of their year ahead. Please note that all dates, artists and programs are still subject to change and to new or ongoing Covid restrictions.

SEPTEMBER 2022

From Sep 1
Long praised for visionary thinking about the role of an orchestra in its community, galvanizing Music Director Teddy Abrams and the LOUISVILLE ORCHESTRA launch their newest initiative, the Louisville Orchestra Creators Corps, completely transcending traditional commissioning and composer-in-residence paradigms with a radically new model for collaborating with symphony orchestras in the 21st century. Each year in the spring, the orchestra will select three creators to move to Louisville for the upcoming season, serving as staff members with an annual salary of $40,000, health insurance, housing, and a custom-built studio workspace. They will compose new works to be performed by the orchestra, participate in educational and community engagement activities, and be active, engaged citizens within the community. The program has been funded by a three-year, $750,000 grant from Mellon Foundation and individual donors. The inaugural residency begins September 1. The orchestra also resumes a statewide touring program this season, funded by a $4.3M appropriation from the Kentucky General Assembly. This unprecedented commitment from the state will allow the orchestra to visit every region of the Commonwealth of Kentucky over two years, beginning in 2023. Participation in all touring activities, including tickets to all performances, will be free. [From Sep 1: Louisville and Kentucky]

Sep 2, 3
Grammy-winning American conductor ALAN GILBERT launches his fourth season as Chief Conductor of Hamburg’s NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra with performances of Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony featuring vocal soloists Christina Nilsson and Sarah Connolly, the NDR Vocal Ensemble and the Berlin Radio Choir. The second performance will stream live at 8 pm CEST on September 3 at the orchestra’s website. Made with the New York Philharmonic, Gilbert’s live account of the same symphony was telecast on PBS’s Great Performances and issued on DVD, while his recording of Mahler’s Ninth was named an “Editor’s Choice” by Gramophone, which considers it “the finest recording the work has received.” [Sep 2, 3: Hamburg]

Sep 7–11
Tenor NICHOLAS PHAN – described by the Boston Globe as “one of the world’s most remarkable singers” – curates and performs in Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago (CAIC)’s eleventh annual Collaborative Works Festival. This year’s theme, The Song of Chicago, will explore the city’s rich musical history through songs by the many composers and poets who have lived, worked and studied in Chicago. The Chicago Tribune says of the festival: “With the Collaborative Works Festivals the ​Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago is presenting annually, ​Chicago is doing its bit to rescue ​art song performance ​from the endangered species list.”​ ​[Sep 7, 8, 9, 11: Chicago]

Sep 10–20
Cellist INBAL SEGEV released a “hugely impressive” (The Guardian) recording of Grammy-nominated composer Anna Clyne’s DANCE – written for her – on the Avie label in 2020. She performs the work—which has been played more than 7.5 million times on Spotify—throughout the 2022-23 season across two continents, including two September performances in the U.S.: with the California Symphony led by Donato Cabrera and Maine’s Portland Symphony Orchestra led by Eckart Preu. [Sep 10, 11: Walnut Creek, CA; Sep 20: Portland, ME]

Sep 13–May 8
Founded by MacArthur award-winning conductor MARIN ALSOP to promote gender diversity in music and help other women follow in her own pioneering footsteps, the Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship (TACF) celebrates its 20th-anniversary season with the TACF Global Concert Series. This sees Mei-Ann Chen, Jeri Lynne Johnson and seven more TACF award recipients conduct orchestral concerts in Chicago, Philadelphia, London, Madrid and six more cities around the world. Their program showcases INBAL SEGEV as soloist in Anna Clyne’s DANCE. Dedicated to reinvigorating the cello repertoire, it was Segev who commissioned, premiered and recorded Clyne’s acclaimed concerto after Alsop first introduced her to the composer. [Sep 13, 14; Madrid; Oct 13, 15: Halifax, NS; Nov 18: London; Nov 21: Graz, Austria; Jan 28, 29: Richmond, VA; March 3: Philadelphia; March 10, 11, 12: Hartford, CT; March 25, 26: Reno, NV; April 14: Katowice, Poland; May 6, 8: Chicago]

Sep 14–17
The only Canadian nominee in the history of Gramophone’s Orchestra of the Year award, the MONTREAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (OSM) launches its new multi-year Mahler cycle – and a season-long celebration of choral music and connectedness – with Opening Night accounts of the late-Romantic composer’s “Resurrection” Symphony and the world premiere of a new OSM commission from Austria’s Thomas Larcher. Mahler’s symphony features the OSM Chorus and vocal soloists Dorothea Röschmann and Karen Cargill under the leadership of incoming Music Director RAFAEL PAYARE, known for his “spectacular Mahler” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette), in concerts that inaugurate the Venezuelan conductor’s tenure as Music Director.  [Sep 14, 15, 16, 17: Montreal]

Sep 15–18
To conclude its year-long 50th-anniversary celebrations, the KENNEDY CENTER revisits Leonard Bernstein’s MASS. Featuring 2020 Marian Anderson Award-winner Will Liverman, the National Symphony Orchestra and conductor James Gaffigan under Alison Moritz’s direction, the monumental work returns 51 years after receiving its world premiere performance at the center’s 1971 opening gala. [Sep: 15, 17, 18: Washington, DC]

Sep 16; March 16–May 7
In his third season as Music Director of the DALLAS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (DSO), Grammy-winning conductor Fabio Luisi leads live accounts of Brahms’s First and Second Symphonies on a new recording released physically and digitally on the orchestra’s house label, DSO Live. Luisi and the DSO continue the cycle next spring, with live performances of Brahms’s Third and Fourth Symphonies that will be captured for future release in the same series. Both spring programs will also be available for video streaming on the orchestra’s Next Stage platform. When Luisi led the London Symphony Orchestra in Brahms’s Second Symphony, Bachtrack reported: “He was majestic and dynamic on the podium and his enthusiasm was infectious …, but it was his sensitive and thoughtful shaping of the piece that was most impressive. … Luisi controlled events masterfully, building up the tension and powering through to the thrilling climax with a triumphant flourish.” [Sep 16: album release; March 16, 17, 18; May 4, 5, 6, 7: Dallas]

Sep 16–18
In 2018, British violinist DANIEL HOPE was appointed Music Director of San Francisco’s New Century Chamber Orchestra (NCCO), one of the world’s few conductorless ensembles. Hope leads the NCCO as it opens its 30th anniversary season with Berlin 1938: Broadcasts from a Vanishing Society, a musical radio drama. The imminent war in Europe inspired the era’s songwriters to create works reflecting the rapid changes in German society and growing threats of violence. Performed in San Francisco’s historic Presidio Theatre, NCCO’s multimedia production is a musical tour of works by Kurt Weill, Bertolt Brecht, Hanns Eisler, and more, with vocalists Thomas Hampson and Horst Maria Merz in the dual roles of radio broadcasters and singers. [Sep 16, 17, 18: San Francisco]

Sep 16–18
CERISE JACOBS and her activist opera company, WHITE SNAKE PROJECTS (WSP), present their newest opera, Elena Ruehr’s Cosmic Cowboy, a work of poli sci-fi that blends ancient history and fantasy to explore the subject of colonization. Jacobs’s twin inspirations were the 400th anniversary of the landing of the Mayflower at Plymouth Rock and the 2014 historic landing of the space probe Philae on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, as both events, undeniably captivating to the human imagination, also lead to questions about the consequences of the colonizing impulse. Composed by Ruehr, an award-winning faculty member at MIT who has also been a Guggenheim Fellow, a fellow at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute, and composer-in-residence with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Cosmic Cowboy is an eclectic romp through the universe that ranges from the formation of the cosmos by the mating of the Sumerian gods Tiamat and Apsu to a touching pas de deux between the robotic probe Cooper and Tiamat’s daughter, Tia. The cast includes bass-baritone Tyler Putnam; soprano Carami Hilaire and countertenor Daniel Moody, who were featured in WSP’s digital opera Alice in the Pandemic as the title character and White Rabbit respectively; bass-baritone James Demler; and tenor Charles Calotta. [Sep 16, 17, 18: Boston]

Sep 17
The LOUISVILLE ORCHESTRA opens its ninth season with trailblazing Music Director Teddy Abrams at the helm in a program featuring Wynton Marsalis’s Americana-inflected Violin Concerto in D with Grammy-nominated violinist Tessa Lark, named as one of Lincoln Center’s eleven Emerging Artists for 2020 and the recipient of its prestigious Hunt Family Award. A native of Kentucky, Lark’s classical credentials are complemented by her ability as a fiddler in the Appalachian and bluegrass traditions, which she regularly draws on for performances. The concert also includes Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements, written from 1942-45 and said by the composer to be a direct response to events of World War II in Europe and Asia. [Louisville]

Sep 18–24
The celebrated San Francisco-based vocal ensemble CHANTICLEER opens its 45^th annual Bay Area Season with “Labyrinths,” a program spanning centuries from the Renaissance to current times and exploring the inevitable ups and downs of human existence. Featured composers include Josquin des Prez, Trevor Weston, Steven Sametz, Tania León, and George Walker. [Sep 18-24: San Francisco]

Sep 22–27
The CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA and conductor Riccardo Muti open the 2022-23 season with pianist Yefim Bronfman performing Brahms’s First Piano Concerto, on a program that also includes the U.S. premiere of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Solemn Prelude – a long-lost, recently rediscovered score; and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 2. In the midst of the three performances, Muti and Bronfman join forces for the orchestra’s Symphony Ball program, for which Coleridge-Taylor’s work is complemented by Bronfman’s performance of Mozart’s Concerto No. 22. [Sep 22, 23, 24 (Symphony Ball), 27: Chicago]

Sep 23–25
Known for its “acclaimed brand of world-class music, theater and dance” (Mercury News), CAL PERFORMANCES at UC Berkeley launches the season with the return of Miami City Ballet. A leading exponent of George Balanchine’s work, the company performs the choreographer’s seminal 1967 ballet Jewels, which was inspired by his visit to the Van Cleef & Arpels jewelers. Set to the music of Fauré, Stravinsky and Tchaikovsky, the resulting triptych contrasts the French (“Emeralds”), American (“Rubies”) and Russian (“Diamonds”) ballet traditions (Sep 23–25). Cal Performances’ opening weekend also features the in-person debut of the “sublime” Dover Quartet (New York Times) with a program of Haydn, Mendelssohn and Amy Beach, whose 1929 quartet draws on Alaskan Inuit melodies (Sep 25). [Sep 23, 24, 25: Berkeley, CA]

Sep 23, 25
An “exceptional cellist” known for her “stylistic sensitivity, verve and spontaneous delight in discovery” (The Guardian), ALISA WEILERSTEIN joins Osmo Vänskä and the Pittsburgh Symphony for the Pittsburgh premiere of A New Day (2021) by Joan Tower. “Tailor-made to Alisa Weilerstein’s many strengths as a soloist” (Cleveland Classical), Tower’s concerto was co-commissioned for the cellist by the National Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Detroit Symphony and Colorado Music Festival, where Weilerstein gave the work’s world premiere performance under Peter Oundjian, before giving its Cleveland and DC premieres under Franz Welser-Möst and Louis Langrée respectively. [Sep 23, 25: Pittsburgh]

Sep 24
Grammy-winning pianist DANIIL TRIFONOV, Musical America’s 2019 Artist of the Year, plays the National Symphony Orchestra’s season-opening gala at the KENNEDY CENTER, performing Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini under the baton of Gianandrea Noseda. When the pianist recorded the same piece on his Rachmaninov Variations album in 2015, the Washington Post praised his “sensually thrilling, flawless, piano playing.” [Washington, DC]

Sep 25; Dec 3
Award-winning actress and singer AUDRA McDONALD – called a “one-of-a-kind musical super-talent” with a “lustrous lyric soprano” (New York Times) – gives two performances of songs from Broadway, the Great American Songbook and more, first making her house debut at the London Palladium with longtime collaborator and Music Director Andy Einhorn conducting the London Musical Theatre Orchestra, and then returning for another performance with Einhorn at Carnegie Hall. The most decorated performer in American theater, McDonald has been recognized with a record six Tonys, two Grammys, an Emmy and a National Medal of Arts. [Sep 25: London; Dec 3: NYC/CH]

Sep 28–Oct 20
Conductor MANFRED HONECK makes his Metropolitan Opera debut conducting a revival of Mozart’s first mature opera, Idomeneo. Tenor Michael Spyres sings the title role of the ancient Cretan king, with mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey as the noble prince Idamante and soprano Ying Fang as his conflicted beloved, Ilia. Soprano Federica Lombardi is the jealous Elettra. [Sep 28; Oct 1, 6, 9, 14, 20: NYC/Met]

Sep 28–Nov 2
To open his second season as Music Director of the Royal Swedish Opera, ALAN GILBERT conducts eight performances of Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos, starring Christina Nilsson, Sofie Asplund and Michael Weinius in Katharina Jakhelln Semb’s staging. A major player on the opera scene, Gilbert has led productions at such legendary houses as Milan’s La Scala, Zurich Opera, Vienna State Opera, Los Angeles Opera and New York’s Metropolitan Opera, where his account of Doctor Atomic was captured and released on DVD, winning him his first Grammy Award. [Sep 28; Oct 1, 4, 6, 12, 15, 18, 22, 26; Nov 2: Stockholm]

Sep 29–Oct 2
When DANIIL TRIFONOV released Transcendental, an album of solo piano music by Liszt, in 2016, Gramophone raved: “Trifonov’s is the best kind of virtuoso playing, where one is hardly aware of the notes being played, allowing one to simply bask in the genius of Liszt’s musical narrative and the transcendent execution of an awesomely gifted pianist.” Now the pianist performs Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat with the Philadelphia Orchestra led by music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin – his partners for three acclaimed recordings on Deutsche Grammophon. The first of their four performances is for Carnegie Hall’s Opening Night Gala, followed by a three-night run in Philadelphia. [Sep 29: NYC/CH; Sep 30, Oct 1, 2: Philadelphia]

Sep 30; Nov 11
INBAL SEGEV releases the fourth and final volume in her “20 for 2020” long-term commissioning project on Avie Records. The digital release, set for September 30, will be followed November 11 by the physical release of a 2CD boxed set of all four volumes. Composers featured in Volume IV are Camille El Bacha, Stewart Goodyear, Molly Joyce, Immanuel Wilkins, and Segev herself. The cellist launched this major new project in fall of 2020, galvanized by the unprecedented worldwide crises that characterized that year, to capture something of that collective experience and to encourage creative recovery from it.

OCTOBER 2022

Oct 1
Music Director Fabio Luisi takes the podium for the DALLAS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (DSO)’s annual gala. A once-a-season benefit to raise funds for the DSO’s education and outreach programs, this stars mezzo-soprano Susan Graham – “an artist to treasure” (New York Times) – and baritone Thomas Hampson – “one of the world’s greatest opera singers” (Good Morning America) – in selections from Lehár’s popular operetta The Merry Widow. The gala will also be available for subsequent streaming in the DSO’s Next Stage Digital Concert Series. [Dallas]

Oct 1, 2
“One of America’s best-kept secrets” (Fanfare), over the coming season the SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY gives eight weeks of concerts under the baton of conductor RAFAEL PAYARE. Marking his fourth as Music Director, the season kicks off with performances of Verdi’s Requiem, featuring vocal soloists Leah Crocetto, Jennifer Johnson Cano, Limmie Pulliam and Aleksey Bogdanov with the San Diego Master Chorale. These season-opening concerts take place at the Rady Shell at Jacobs Park, the orchestra’s stunning new bayside open-air venue, hailed as “a project of such architectural and acoustical distinction that it would distinguish San Diego on any national cultural map” (New York Times). [Oct 1, 2: San Diego]

Oct 1; Jan 13–21
Cellist INBAL SEGEV, an established driving force in the creation of new cello repertoire for the 21st century, gives the world premiere of Vijay Iyer’s Human Archipelago with the London Philharmonic led by Edward Gardner, before performances with the Oregon Symphony – marking the work’s U.S. premiere – and the Boise Philharmonic Orchestra. [Oct 1: London; Jan 13: Salem, OR; 14, 15, 16: Portland, OR; Jan 21: Boise, ID]

Oct 3; Feb 26
“A brilliant musician and an extraordinary visionary” (Wall Street Journal), Grammy-winning French pianist PIERRE-LAURENT AIMARD performs fantasias by Sweelinck, C.P.E. Bach, Mozart, Volkonsky and George Benjamin in recitals at the Paris Philharmonie and California’s La Jolla Music Society. Spanning more than 350 years of music, Aimard’s thoughtfully curated program explores the fantasia, a genre whose improvisatory roots let its composers’ imaginations run free. [Oct 3: Paris; Feb 26: La Jolla, CA]

Oct 6–8
Riccardo Muti and the CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA perform Franck’s Le chasseur maudit, Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition with Ravel’s orchestration, and Mozart’s last piano concerto, No. 27, with Grammy Award-winning Italian pianist Maurizio Pollini, a member of the Gramophone Hall of Fame since 2012. [Oct 6, 7, 8: Chicago]

Oct 6–9
THE ATLANTA OPERA, whose honors include an International Opera Award nomination, launches the season with the U.S. premiere of a groundbreaking take on Bluebeard’s Castle from England’s Theatre of Sound. Hailed as “a devastating piece of theatre” (The Guardian), the production sees longtime collaborators conductor Stephen Higgins and director Daisy Evans reimagine Bartók’s one-act opera as the story of a husband and wife facing the implications of her dementia. Atlanta favorite Michael Mayes and Susan Bullock reprise their starring roles from the London premiere, singing a new English translation commissioned for that occasion. Presented at Kennesaw State University in The Atlanta Opera’s award-winning Discoveries series, Bluebeard’s Castle will be filmed for future release on the company’s Spotlight Media platform. As BBC Music put it, “Whoever said opera is a museum culture hasn’t told Atlanta Opera.” [Oct 6, 7, 9: Atlanta]

Oct 7
PIERRE-LAURENT AIMARD will be honored at Copenhagen’s 2022 Sonning Music Prize Concert, not only receiving the Léonie Sonning Music Prize, Denmark’s highest musical distinction, but also joining the Royal Danish Orchestra under Sylvain Cambreling for performances of Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto, Messiaen’s Oiseaux exotiques and George Benjamin’s Duet. Previous laureates of the prestigious award include Stravinsky, Bernstein, Britten, Miles Davis, Sofia Gubaidulina and Yo-Yo Ma. [Copenhagen]

Oct 7; Feb 22–24
Prokofiev’s Sinfonia concertante is the vehicle for two of ALISA WEILERSTEIN’s key orchestral collaborations this season. First she performs it in fall performances with the SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY and Music Director RAFAEL PAYARE, her husband, at the Rady Shell at Jacobs Park. Then next spring she reprises the work for three appearances with the New York Philharmonic under the baton of Nathalie Stutzmann. [Oct 7: San Diego, CA; Feb 22, 23, 24: NYC/DGH]

Oct 7, 8
INBAL SEGEV performs Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E minor with the Charlotte Symphony led by Andrew Grams in the orchestra’s season-opening concert. [Oct 7, 8: Charlotte, NC]

Oct 10–15
To celebrate the 200th anniversary of Brazil’s independence, MARIN ALSOP conducts the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra (OSESP) at its Carnegie Hall debut, as the high point of their three-city U.S. tour. Their program showcases collaborations with preeminent harmonica player José Staneck in Villa-Lobos’s Harmonica Concerto and with the São Paulo Symphony Choir in the Brazilian composer’s Chôros No. 10. During Alsop’s seven-season tenure as OSESP’s Music Director, she and the orchestra performed Villa-Lobos’s music at London’s BBC Proms, impressing Bachtrack with their “passion and Brazilian flair.” [Oct 10: Kansas City, MO; Oct 12: North Bethesda, MD: Oct 14, 15: NYC/CH]

Oct 16
Already recognized as one of the leading exponents of Bach’s six suites for unaccompanied cello, ALISA WEILERSTEIN performs the complete set at London’s Wigmore Hall, in recitals reflecting the close rapport she has developed with Wigmore audiences over the past twelve years. Released in 2020, her Pentatone recording of the complete Bach suites was a Billboard bestseller that was nominated for a 2021 Gramophone Award. [London]

Oct 21–28
The MONTREAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA and new Music Director RAFAEL PAYARE embark on their first European tour together. Performing works by Liszt, Brahms, Ravel, Mahler, Rachmaninov, Shostakovich, Prokofiev and R. Murray Schafer, in collaboration with violinist Augustin Hadelich, pianists Vikingur Ólafsson and Bruce Liu, and the choristers of the Wiener Singakademie, the tour takes them to five great musical capitals: Zagreb, Budapest, Vienna, Brussels and London. [Oct 21: Zagreb; Oct 22: Budapest; Oct 23, 24: Vienna; Oct 27: Brussels; Oct 28: London]

Oct 30–May 6
“Human and Machine” – the third season of CAL PERFORMANCES’ “Illuminations” series – explores the influence of technology on human expression through six mainstage programs and more. Keyboard virtuoso Kristian Bezuidenhout gives a recital tracing the evolution of the harpsichord and fortepiano (Oct 30); Colin Currie and his percussion ensemble, Synergy Vocals, interpret the works of Steve Reich (Nov 3); and Sō Percussion draws on new sounds and electronics to realize works about complex human emotions (Nov 12). Legendary South African artist William Kentridge ponders the role of algorithms in contemporary life, and the relationship between ancient wisdom and modern data-tracking, in his new chamber opera, Sibyl, which receives its U.S. premiere (March 17–19). Composer and producer Michel van der Aa uses video and electronic techniques in his genre-defying chamber opera Blank Out to invoke the textured, fragmented experience of processing personal tragedy and loss (April 28, 29). Finally, the daughter-mother musical team of Toshi Reagon and Bernice Johnson Reagon investigate humanity’s attempts to recover and heal after its dependence on technology goes too far, in Parable of the Sower, their operatic adaptation of Octavia E. Butler’s dystopian novel (May 5, 6). The “Illuminations” series connects UC Berkeley’s scholarship to the performing arts, and provides a platform for civic engagement, public discourse and social and cultural transformation in its wider community. [Oct 30; Nov 3, 12; March 17, 18, 19; April 28, 29; May 5, 6: Berkeley, CA]

NOVEMBER 2022

Winter TBD
One of Musical America’s 2021 “Artists of the Year,” American classical singer JULIA BULLOCK makes her solo recording debut this fall on Nonesuch. Of the album’s repertoire, Bullock says, “This music and poetry have contributed to my development as a classical singer. Over the years, I’ve returned to this material with reconsideration, revision, and review, and that makes me undoubtedly call these songs ‘classics’ – classics, which are inclusive of traditions across cultures, and celebrate a diversity of thought, expression and experience.” Bullock is joined on the album by London’s Philharmonia Orchestra led by Christian Reif for Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 and a song from John Adams’s El Niño. With Reif on piano she also performs a traditional spiritual and songs by Oscar Brown, Jr., Billy Taylor, Sandy Denny, and Connie Converse.

Nov 2, 3; Dec 11; April 6
INBAL SEGEV joins Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center for three different events this season: a tour to Colombia in November for an all-Russian program in Bogotá, where she also plays a program of Strauss, Beethoven and Brahms; a December program of Bach Sonatas at Alice Tully Hall in New York with pianist Juho Pohjonen and violinist Cho-Liang Lin; and an April chamber concert that includes Ekah for cello and piano by James Lee III and Ned Rorem’s Winter Pages for clarinet, bassoon, violin, cello and piano, a CMS commission from 1981. [Nov 2, 3: Bogotá; Dec 11: NYC/ATH; April 6: NYC/RS]

Nov 3
At Tokyo Opera City, PIERRE-LAURENT AIMARD plays Catalogue d’oiseaux, Messiaen’s tribute to the birds and landscapes of France. As a former student of Yvonne Loriod, wife of the composer and dedicatee of his Catalogue, Aimard has a special feeling for the 13-part solo piano piece. His Pentatone recording of the work was recognized with the German Music Critics’ Award, while his live interpretation has been called “masterful, with an incisive brilliance and relentless focus” (New York Times). [Tokyo]

Nov 3
In “Human and Machine” – the third season of CAL PERFORMANCES’s “Illuminations” series – Colin Currie and his percussion ensemble, Synergy Vocals, interpret the works of Steve Reich (see Oct 30). [Berkeley, CA]

Nov 3–9
Tenor NICHOLAS PHAN joins the historically informed ensemble il Pomo d’Oro on a European tour, singing the role of Lurcanio in Handel’s Ariodante. Led by Greek conductor George Petrou, the production also features countertenor Franco Fagioli in the title role, soprano Melissa Petit as Ginevra, soprano Sarah Gilford as Dalinda, mezzo-soprano Luciana Mancini as Polinesso, and bass Alex Rosen as the King of Scotland. [Nov 3: Barcelona; Nov 5: Essen, Germany; Nov 7: Paris; Nov 9: La Coruña, Spain]

Nov 6–9
The DALLAS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (DSO) presents its fourth annual Women in Classical Music Symposium. Through panel discussions, roundtable conversations, workshops, networking events and opportunities for peer engagement, the symposium aims to help women reach their full potential professionally, while also advancing the next generation of leaders and bringing about broad-scale change within the industry. DSO Composer-in-Residence Angélica Negrón hosts and curates one of the symposium’s two chamber concerts, and JULIA BULLOCK has been chosen to receive the DSO’s annual Award of Excellence. [Nov 6, 7, 8, 9: Dallas]

Nov 10, 11
As Music Director Laureate of the Baltimore Symphony, MARIN ALSOP leads a program of Still’s In Memoriam: The Colored Soldiers Who Died for Democracy, a tribute to the Black Americans who lost their lives in World War II; Shostakovich’s First Violin Concerto, featuring Augustin Hadelich; and Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Alsop celebrated the German composer’s 250th anniversary in 2020 with the “Global Ode to Joy,” a crowd-sourced video project created in collaboration with YouTube and Google Arts & Culture. This was inspired by Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, of which her recent interpretation with the Chicago Symphony “got to the core of the music” (Chicago Tribune). [Nov 10, 11: Baltimore]

Nov 11–Dec 7
DANIIL TRIFONOV performs his latest recital program, juxtaposing the charming simplicity of Tchaikovsky’s Children’s Album with virtuosic works by Schumann, Mozart, Ravel and Scriabin, in California, in Canada and at Carnegie Hall, where the pianist performs four programs this season. [Nov 11: Costa Mesa, CA; Nov 13: San Francisco; Dec 2: Toronto; Dec 7: NYC/CH]

Nov 12
In “Human and Machine” – the third season of CAL PERFORMANCES’s “Illuminations” series – Sō Percussion draws on new sounds and electronics to realize works about complex human emotions (see Oct 30). [Berkeley, CA]

Nov 12, 13
At the Rady Shell, RAFAEL PAYARE leads the SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY (SDSO) in the U.S. premiere of a new SDSO co-commission from Austrian composer Thomas Larcher. This shares the program with Beethoven’s Second Piano Concerto, featuring Emanuel Ax as soloist, and Shostakovich’s Twelfth Symphony, “The Year 1917.” Payare and the SDSO’s recent recording of the Russian composer’s Eleventh Symphony, “The Year 1905,” was heralded as “a mandatory purchase” that’s “guaranteed to put both conductor and orchestra on the map in a big way” (Fanfare). [Nov 12, 13: San Diego] 

Nov 16–19
DANIIL TRIFONOV and his former teacher, Sergei Babayan, join the New York Philharmonic under the direction of Finnish conductor Hannu Lintu to play Bartók’s rarely heard Concerto for Two Pianos and Percussion. [Nov 16, 17, 18, 19: NYC/DGH]

Nov 17
“One of the most versatile and galvanic ensembles in the U.S.” (WQXR), New York’s ORCHESTRA OF ST. LUKE’S and Principal Conductor Bernard Labadie kick off their 2022–23 Carnegie Hall season with the continuation of a multi-year focus on Mendelssohn. Their program pairs the composer’s First Piano Concerto, for which they will be joined by Benjamin Grosvenor, with Mendelssohn’s complete incidental music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, featuring vocal soloists Lauren Snouffer and Cecelia Hall, with narration by Tony- and Emmy-winner David Hyde Pierce. [NYC/CH]

Nov 17–19
Music Director Fabio Luisi leads the DALLAS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (DSO) in the U.S. premiere of Sir James MacMillan’s Second Violin Concerto (2021). A DSO co-commission, this will feature Grammy-winning violinist Nicola Benedetti, for whom it was written, as soloist. Marking the first Bruckner performance of his DSO tenure, Luisi completes the program with the German composer’s Fourth Symphony, the “Romantic.” Praising his recording of Bruckner’s Ninth as “a fiery performance, … majestic yet sensual,” The Guardian calls it “essential listening.” The upcoming concert will subsequently be available for streaming in the DSO’s Next Stage Digital Concert Series. [Nov 17, 18, 19: Dallas]

Nov 17–20
MANFRED HONECK returns to the CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (CSO) to conduct a performance of Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony, along with the U.S. premiere of the CSO co-commissioned Diary of a Madman by Lera Auerbach, composed for the soloist, cellist Gautier Capuçon. Glinka’s Overture to Ruslan and Ludmila opens the program. [Nov 17, 19, 20: Chicago; Nov 18: Wheaton, IL]

Nov 20, 21; Jan 19–31; Feb 18
Celebrated Norwegian pianist LEIF OVE ANDSNES – “one of the most gifted musicians of his generation” (Wall Street Journal) – tours a characteristically thoughtful recital program this season, starting at London’s Wigmore Hall, touring the U.S. and Canada, playing Carnegie Hall, and ending at Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie. Andsnes calls the program “an exploration of the shadows and light in human experience.” The first half is a journey that begins with Janáček’s sole (and unfinished) piano sonata, written in response to the death of a young carpenter killed while demonstrating for a Czech university in Brno. It is followed by a work titled “Lamento” by Soviet composer Alexander Vustin, who died of COVID complications in 2020 at the age of 76, and Beethoven’s penultimate piano sonata, Op. 110, No. 31 in A flat major, itself a work of darkness and light. The contrasting second half of the program is dedicated to Dvořák’s seldom-heard Poetic Tone Pictures, an extended cycle of 13 movements, all with a descriptive title, composed in 1889. “It’s a diary of life-affirming offerings,” says Andsnes. The Beethoven Sonata will be played at all locations except Toronto, where the program includes only the Czech pieces and the Vustin, and Carnegie Hall, where Andsnes will substitute Schubert’s A-major piano sonata, D. 664. [Nov 20, 21: London; Jan 19: La Jolla, CA; Jan 20: Irvine, CA; Jan 22: San Francisco; Jan 23: Denver; Jan 24: Washington, DC; Jan 26: Toronto; Jan 29: Chicago; Jan 31: NYC/CH; Feb 18: Hamburg]

DECEMBER 2022

Dec 1, 2
Pianist LEIF OVE ANDSNES, lauded by the New York Times as “a pianist of magisterial elegance, power, and insight,” performs Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor in Hamburg with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra led by Finnish conductor Mikko Franck. [Dec 1, 2: Hamburg]

Dec 1–3
RAFAEL PAYARE, the “electrifying Venezuelan conductor” (Los Angeles Times) who serves as Music Director of both the Montreal and San Diego Symphonies, makes his New York Philharmonic debut with a program of Still’s Darker America, Beethoven’s Second Piano Concerto, featuring Emanuel Ax as soloist, and – marking the work’s New York Philharmonic premiere – Shostakovich’s Twelfth Symphony, “The Year 1917.” Payare’s interpretation of the Russian composer’s Eleventh Symphony, “The Year 1905,” prompted Fanfare to call him “a top-tier conductor.” [Dec 1, 2, 3: NYC/DGH]

Dec 2, 4
Music Director MANFRED HONECK leads the Pittsburg Symphony and the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh in a performance of Mozart’s “Great” Mass in C minor. Soloists for the performance are sopranos Ying Fang and Lauren Snouffer, tenor Timothy Fallon in his Pittsburgh Symphony debut, and baritone Alexander Birch Elliott. Schumann’s Piano Concerto rounds out the program, with “spectacular” (Washington Post) pianist Martin Helmchen making his Pittsburgh Symphony debut. [Dec 2, 4: Pittsburgh]

Dec 2–13
Multiple Grammy Award-winning vocal ensemble CHANTICLEER tours “A Chanticleer Christmas,” which has reached national audiences through a PBS special and multiple appearances on NBC’s Today show, to New York (at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola, from which the performances will be livestreamed), Chicago and Disney Hall in Los Angeles. From its opening candlelit chant procession to its triumphant gospel conclusion, the beloved holiday program hearkens back to some of the group’s most cherished traditions and the original vision of its founder, Louis Botto. [Dec 2, 4: NYC/CSL; Dec 6, 7: Chicago; Dec 13: Los Angeles]

Dec 4, 8
MARIN ALSOP conducts Austria’s ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra in two December programs of 20th- and 21st-century music at the Vienna Musikverein: first an all-American evening of Barber, John Adams, Joan Tower and Christopher Rouse, and then a concert combining “Jeremiah,” the First Symphony by her former mentor Bernstein, with works by Bacewicz and Prokofiev. As the Wiener Zeitung reports, “the chemistry seems right” between Alsop and the Vienna RSO, where she is now in her fourth season as Chief Conductor. [Dec 4, 8: Vienna]

Dec 8–10; Dec 30, 31; Jan 1
To conclude his fall lineup as Chief Conductor of the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, ALAN GILBERT leads two December programs. The first is an evening of Mozart and Samuel Barber, whose music remains underrepresented in Germany, with ALISA WEILERSTEIN as soloist in the latter composer’s Cello Concerto. Next, American classical singer, curator, activist and former Musical America “Artist of the Year” JULIA BULLOCK joins Gilbert and the orchestra to make her NDR debut in songs by Gershwin and Margaret Bonds. Her performance highlights a festive New Year’s Eve program that also sees Gilbert lead works by Ravel, Lili Boulanger, Richard Strauss, Gershwin and Bernstein. [Dec 8, 9, 10 (Weilerstein); Dec 30, 31, Jan 1 (Bullock): Hamburg]

Dec 10, 11
CERISE JACOBS and her activist opera company, WHITE SNAKE PROJECTS recently launched Let’s Celebrate!, an annual series presented in December to supplement traditional holiday programming with music drawing from diverse traditions like Eid al-Adha, Havdalah, the Spring Festival, Day of the Dead, Durga Puja, Eid al-Fitr and others. This season, Let’s Celebrate! features music by Jorge Sosa, who composed the company’s opera I Am a Dreamer Who No Longer Dreams and the digital opera Alice in the Pandemic; Paul Richards; Guang Yang; and Marina Lopez. Performers are soprano Helen Huang, mezzo-soprano Kelly Guerra, tenor Elliott Paige, and baritone Evan Bravos. [Dec 10, 11: online]

Dec 22–26
DANIEL HOPE presents the “Ein Wintermärchen” concerts at Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie that have become a popular Advent tradition since the venue opened. Hope is joined by soprano Fatma Said, trumpeter Lucienne Renaud Vary, German actress Katharina Thalbach and conductor Daniel Geiss. [Dec 22, 25, 26: Hamburg]

Dec 31; Jan 1
To ring in the New Year, MARIN ALSOP leads the Minnesota Orchestra in performances of a new Piano Concerto (2022) by Sphinx Medal of Excellence-winner and CSO composer-in-residence Jessie Montgomery, who considers the conductor “an incredible supporter” of her work (Financial Times). Alsop’s program also features the overture to Candide – the opera she recently recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus – by Bernstein. [Dec 31, Jan 1: Minneapolis]

JANUARY 2023

Jan 5, 7; Jan 12–14
Native New Yorker ALAN GILBERT returns to the States to conduct two of the “Big Five” orchestras. Having shared a special rapport with the Cleveland Orchestra since serving as its Assistant Conductor in the mid-1990s, he recently joined the ensemble for “four resplendent performances, each more brilliant in its way than the last” (Cleveland Plain-Dealer). Now they reunite for the world premiere of James Oliverio’s new Timpani Concerto, a Cleveland Orchestra commission, and Nielsen’s Third Symphony, of which Gilbert’s recording was chosen as Gramophone’s favorite version of the work. Next he returns to the Boston Symphony for a program of Lili Boulanger, Stenhammar, Dvořák and Justin Dello Joio, whose piano concerto Oceans Apart receives its world premiere, with Gilbert and the orchestra joined by the work’s dedicatee, pianist Garrick Ohlsson. [Jan 5, 7: Cleveland; Jan 12, 13, 14: Boston]

Jan 6, 7
As Chief Conductor and Curator of the Ravinia Festival, MARIN ALSOP has developed a close rapport with the CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (CSO) at its summer home. Now she returns to Chicago’s Symphony Center to lead the orchestra in a program of music by contemporary women composers. This combines This Midnight Hour by Anna Clyne and Rounds by CSO Mead Composer-in-Residence Jessie Montgomery with the Chicago premiere of Her Story (2022), a major new CSO co-commission from Pulitzer Prize-winner and MacArthur Fellow Julia Wolfe. [Jan 6, 7: Chicago]

Jan 14
Teddy Abrams and the LOUISVILLE ORCHESTRA present two of Beethoven’s best-known works in a program titled “Fifths of Beethoven.” The composer’s Fifth Symphony is paired with his Fifth “Emperor” Piano Concerto, performed by Abrams himself conducting from the keyboard. Along with these works, the orchestra will present a world premiere by a member of its groundbreaking “Creators Corps” initiative (see Sep 1 listing for more details). [Louisville]

Jan 19–22
For their second set of concerts in the season, DANIEL HOPE and the New Century Chamber Orchestra present a selection of music from iconic films. Repertoire includes Bernard Herrmann’s music from Hitchcock’s Vertigo and selected film music by Ennio Morricone, both arranged by Paul Bateman; Gershwin’s American in Paris arranged by Clarice Assad; and the Double Concerto for Violin, Piano, and String Orchestra with Percussion by Tan Dun, who won an Oscar for his score to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Hope and Ukrainian pianist Alexey Botvinov are the soloists. After performances of the program in San Rafael, Berkeley and San Francisco, there is an additional performance at Bing Concert Hall on the Stanford University campus, with Botvinov featured in Philip Glass’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in place of the Tan Dun double concerto. [Jan 19: San Rafael, CA; Jan 20: Berkeley, CA; Jan 21: San Francisco; Jan 22: Stanford]

Jan 21–23
Vocal ensemble CHANTICLEER tours its “Labyrinths” program to Vienna’s Konzerthaus and the Liszt Academy in Budapest. Repertoire includes music by Josquin, Trevor Weston, the group’s frequent collaborator Ayanna Woods, Antônio Carlos Jobim, Steven Sametz, and more. [Jan 21: Vienna; Jan 23: Budapest]

Jan 27, 29
American classical singer JULIA BULLOCK reprises her turn as Dame Shirley, the role she created at the premiere of John Adams’s 2017 opera, Girls of the Golden West, with direction and libretto by Peter Sellars. This concert performance of the opera with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, led by the composer, features most of the original cast members, including bass-baritone Davóne Tines, tenor Paul Appleby, soprano Hye Jung Lee, baritone Elliot Madore, and bass-baritone Ryan McKinny. A rejection of the whitewashed romantic view of California in the early days of the Gold Rush, Sellars’s libretto draws from historical texts, particularly from the memoirs of the woman who called herself Dame Shirley. As Sellars has said, “These true stories of the Forty-Niners are overwhelming in their heroism, passion, and cruelty, telling tales of racial conflicts, colorful and humorous exploits, political strife and struggles to build new life.” [Jan 27, 29: Los Angeles]

Jan 28; March 10–14; April 1
ALISA WEILERSTEIN performs the first two chapters of her new solo cello project, “FRAGMENTS,” on a U.S. tour bookended by their world and New York premieres, at Toronto’s Koerner Hall and Carnegie Hall respectively. Co-commissioned by the venues, the project sees Weilerstein weave together the movements of Bach’s first cello suite with new commissions from a diverse array of composers to trace a powerful and wholly original emotional arc. Performed in a multisensory production featuring responsive lighting and scenic elements, without the distraction of pauses, applause or program details, the evening offers its audience an unmediated, immersive and visceral listening experience. [Jan 28: Toronto; March 10: Santa Barbara; March 12: Irvine, CA; March 14: La Jolla, CA; April 1: NYC/CH]

FEBRUARY 2023

Feb 2–22
RAFAEL PAYARE makes his company debut at London’s Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, where he takes the podium for Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia, starring Aigul Akhmetshina, Andrzej Filończyk, Lawrence Brownlee and Bryn Terfel in Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier’s classic production. When Payare helmed the same opera at Glyndebourne, the Financial Times reported: “Payare’s conducting is just the right blend of precision and panache, prompting a performance full of character from the London Philharmonic Orchestra.” [Feb 2, 5, 9, 13, 15, 22: London]

Feb 9
ORCHESTRA OF ST. LUKE’S and Principal Conductor Bernard Labadie – “a Canadian maestro known for his detailed, nuanced accounts of the Baroque and Classical repertoire” (New York Times) – return to Carnegie Hall for Schubert’s posthumously premiered final symphony, the “Great,” and Mozart’s 18th Piano Concerto with Grammy-winner Emanuel Ax as soloist. [NYC/CH]

Feb 10–12
For their third set of concerts in the season, DANIEL HOPE and the New Century Chamber Orchestra present a program titled “Sparkling Connections” along with the San Francisco Girls Chorus under the leadership of Artistic Director Valérie Sainte-Agathe. The chorus performs a trio of songs by Lili Boulanger, Debussy and Schubert, and the spring-themed program also includes Haydn’s Symphony No. 49, “La Passione,” and Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in B-flat major with Hope as soloist. [Feb 10: Berkeley, CA; Feb 11: Penngrove, CA; Feb 12: San Francisco]

Feb 17–19
PIERRE-LAURENT AIMARD performs and records Bartók’s Second Piano Concerto with the San Francisco Symphony and Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen. Aimard enjoys a close and longstanding artistic partnership with the Finnish conductor, highlighted by “Salonen/Aimard: Inspirations,” their celebrated 2017 series at London’s Royal Festival Hall. The upcoming concerts complete their Bartók concerto cycle, which is being captured for future release by Pentatone. [Feb 17, 18, 19: San Francisco]

Feb 22–24
ALISA WEILERSTEIN performs Prokofiev’s Sinfonia concertante with the New York Philharmonic and Nathalie Stutzmann (see Oct 7). [Feb 22, 23, 24: NYC/DGH]

Feb 23–25
MARIN ALSOP leads the DALLAS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA in concerts featuring Antropolis (2019) by Mexican composer and Guggenheim Fellow Gabriela Ortiz and the First Piano Concerto (“Latin”) by Latin Grammy-winning Venezuelan pianist-composer Gabriela Montero. A leading “ambassador for classical music in the 21st century” (Financial Times), Alsop consistently uses her platform to amplify the voices of women and people of color. [Feb 23, 24, 25: Dallas]

Feb 23–25
ALAN GILBERT returns to the podium of the Berlin Philharmonic, whose “musicians have faith in him, letting him unleash his creativity to the fullest” (Berlin Morgenpost). In the orchestra’s 2023 Biennial (an exploration of the mid-20th-century), he leads three works that engage with music of the past. Boris Blacher takes one of the violin literature’s most famous themes as the point of departure for his jazzy, virtuosic Paganini Variations; Dutilleux reimagines the Baroque concerto grosso in his Second Symphony; and Barber puts an American spin on the Romantic violin concerto in his own contribution to the genre, for which Gilbert and the orchestra will be joined by Joshua Bell. Also an accomplished violinist, Gilbert completes his Biennial residency with a late-night performance of Ligeti’s Horn Trio, with Stefan Dohn on French horn and Kirill Gerstein at the piano. [Feb 23, 24, 25 eve. & late: Berlin]

Feb 26
PIERRE-LAURENT AIMARD performs fantasias by Sweelinck, C.P.E. Bach, Mozart, Volkonsky and George Benjamin at California’s La Jolla Music Society (see Oct 3). [La Jolla, CA]

Feb 26
Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award- and Avery Fisher Career Grant-recipient Alexi Kenney makes his CAL PERFORMANCES debut with “Shifting Ground,” a solo recital program for violin. Putting selections from Bach’s six Sonatas and Partitas in conversation with the California premieres of new works by Salina Fisher, Angélica Negrón and Paul Wiancko, as well as contemporary music by Samuel Adams, Matthew Burtner, Giuseppe Colombi, Reena Esmail, Nicola Matteis and Du Yun, the program and its title celebrate the ground bass composition technique on which so much Baroque music is founded. [Berkeley, CA]

Feb 28; March 2
Superstar duo DANIIL TRIFONOV and Joshua Bell team up for recitals in Carnegie Hall and at the Chicago Symphony Center. Their repertoire comprises three violin sonatas: Beethoven’s Op. 12, No. 1, Prokofiev’s brooding Sonata No. 1 in F minor, and Franck’s Sonata in A major. [Feb 28: NYC/CH; March 2: Chicago]

MARCH 2023

March 4, 11
After celebrating Latin America in last season’s Festival of American Music, Teddy Abrams and the LOUISVILLE ORCHESTRA take on two subjects that transcend national boundaries altogether in “Journeys of Faith” and “The Literary Influence.” Both performances in the 2023 festival feature world premiere commissions from members of the new “Creators Corps” initiative (see Sep 1 listing for more details), and both include symphonies by Leonard Bernstein. For the “Journeys of Faith” program, Bernstein’s Third Symphony, “Kaddish,” a tribute to John F. Kennedy, is performed along with Austrian composer Olga Neuwirth’s Masaot/Clocks Without Hands, a tribute to her multi-ethnic grandfather and exploration of her own faith and identity. For the second concert, “The Literary Influence,” Bernstein’s Second Symphony, “The Age of Anxiety,” titled after a book-length poem by W. H. Auden and featuring piano soloist Sebastian Chang, is complemented by Emmy Award-winning composer Joel Thompson’s To Awaken the Sleeper, a cry for justice based on the words of essayist, novelist and civil rights activist James Baldwin. [March 4, 11: Louisville]

March 5; May 17
PIERRE-LAURENT AIMARD returns to the Paris Philharmonie for a complete traversal of Ligeti’s Études at the venue’s “LIGETI 100 WEEKEND,” before joining the Berlin Philharmonic and conductor Michael Wollny for the same composer’s Piano Concerto. Ligeti considered Aimard “today’s leading interpreter of contemporary piano music,” and the two shared an intimate working relationship until the Hungarian composer’s death. Aimard is the dedicatee of several Études, of which his complete Sony Masterworks recording was recognized with a Gramophone Award. [March 5: Paris; May 17: Berlin]

March 6–9
The MONTREAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (OSM) returns to Carnegie Hall, crowning a U.S. tour that also takes in the KENNEDY CENTER and Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center. Led by Music Director RAFAEL PAYARE, the OSM performs Mahler’s monumental Fifth Symphony, Dorothy Chang’s Precipice and Bartók’s Second Piano Concerto with Yefim Bronfman, who also joins the conductor and orchestra to reprise the same program back in Montreal. [March 6: Washington, DC; March 8: NYC/CH; March 9: Montreal]

March 9–13
American classical singer JULIA BULLOCK returns to Dutch National Opera for a performance of the staged song cycle Perle Noire, which she created in collaboration with composer Tyshawn Sorey and director Peter Sellars. The cycle shines a light on the complex life behind the mask of international superstar Josephine Baker. Sorey and Sellars chose to set Perle Noire as a layered interplay of song, poetry, instrumental interludes, improvisation, and elements of music from Baker’s native country, such as the Charleston. [March 9, 11, 12, 13: Amsterdam]

March 10–14
ALISA WEILERSTEIN performs the first two chapters of her new solo cello project, “FRAGMENTS,” in California (see Jan 28). [March 10: Santa Barbara; March 12: Irvine; March 14: La Jolla]

March 16–18
Music Director Fabio Luisi conducts the DALLAS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (DSO) in live accounts of Brahms’s Third Symphony that will be recorded for future release on DSO’s house label, DSO Live, as part of their upcoming Brahms cycle (see Sep 16). [March 16, 17, 18: Dallas]

March 17–19
In “Human and Machine” – the third season of CAL PERFORMANCES’s “Illuminations” series – William Kentridge’s Sibyl receives its U.S. premiere. The new chamber opera ponders the role of algorithms in contemporary life, and the relationship between ancient wisdom and modern data-tracking (see Oct 30). [March 17, 18, 19: Berkeley, CA]

March 17–19
Music Director MANFRED HONECK leads the PITTSBURGH SYMPHONY in a unique performance of Mozart’s Requiem that will also be recorded for a future CD release. A dramatic 21st-century conception created by the conductor, the performance is titled “Requiem: Mozart’s Death in Words and Music,” and features an all-star cast including the Pittsburgh debuts of soprano Jeanine De Bique, mezzo-soprano Catriona Morison and bass Tareq Nazmi, as well as the return of tenor Timothy Fallon and the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh. [March 17, 18, 19: Pittsburgh]

March 17–21
Celebrating the depth and diversity of its hometown’s remarkable choral ensembles, CHANTICLEER joins forces with the San Francisco Girls Chorus for “Neighbor Tones,” a concert of new works that will feature the world premiere of a new, extended commission by Chanticleer’s 2022-23 composer in residence Ayanna Woods [March 17-21: San Francisco]

March 22–24
RAFAEL PAYARE returns to the Munich Philharmonic for a program of Sofia Gubaidulina’s Fairytale Poem, Richard Strauss’s Don Quixote and Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto, featuring Japanese pianist Kyohei Sorita, a top prize-winner at the 2021 Chopin Competition. [March 22-24: Munich]

March 23–25
NICHOLAS PHAN performs Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with the New York Philharmonic led by Music Director Jaap van Zweden. Singing the role of the Evangelist, Phan leads an all-star lineup including bass-baritone Davóne Tines as Christ, soprano Amanda Forsythe, mezzo-soprano Tamara Mumford, tenor Paul Appleby, and bass-baritone Philippe Sly. [March 23, 24, 25: NYC/DGH]

March 30; April 1, 3
CERISE JACOBS and her activist opera company, WHITE SNAKE PROJECTS, present Fractured Mosaics, an operatic response to the surge in anti-Asian racism. The term “Asian American” is a social and political construct that groups together 20 different ethnic groups originating from more than half the earth’s land mass, loosely bound by skin color but offering a kaleidoscope of divergent cultural and political history. This online presentation features music by Benjamin Kono, Randall Eng, Nilo Alcala, Liliya Ugay, and Shirish Korde, who, along with five librettists, create operatic scenes of Asian Americans making a home in America. [March 30; April 1, 3: online]

March 31; April 1, 2
THE ATLANTA OPERA presents Joel Thompson’s family-friendly new opera, The Snowy Day, as part of the award-winning Discovery series. Set to a libretto by best-selling children’s author Andrea Davis Pinkney, and based on Ezra Jack Keats’s beloved children’s classic, the work premiered this past winter at Houston Grand Opera, prompting the Houston Chronicle to declare: “Rich with durable themes of family, friendship, and the joys of childhood, … it deserves to be performed regularly.” Staged at the School of Music at Morehouse College, a historically Black men’s liberal arts college, the production will be filmed for future release on The Atlanta Opera’s Spotlight Media platform. [March 31; April 1, 2: Atlanta]

APRIL 2023

April 1
ALISA WEILERSTEIN gives the New York premiere of the first two chapters of her new solo cello project, “FRAGMENTS,” at New York’s Carnegie Hall (see Jan 28). [NYC/CH]

April 6–8
RAFAEL PAYARE returns to the Cleveland Orchestra to lead Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony, composed at the height of the Stalinist purges, and Bernstein’s Symphony No. 2, “The Age of Anxiety,” dating from the early days of the Cold War, with Jean-Yves Thibaudet as the piano soloist. Payare debuted with the orchestra at the 2021 Blossom Music Festival, when his account of Dvořák’s “New World” Symphony was “ablaze with color” (Cleveland Classical). [April 6, 7, 8: Cleveland]

April 7, 8
Highlighting the MONTREAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (OSM)’s season-long celebration of choral music and connectedness, Canadian maestro and 18th-century specialist Bernard Labadie conducts the orchestra, the OSM Chorus and vocal soloists Miah Persson, Andrew Haji and Matthew Brook in performances of Haydn’s oratorio The Creation, widely considered the composer’s crowning masterpiece. [April 7, 8: Montreal]

April 13
ORCHESTRA OF ST. LUKE’S and Principal Conductor Bernard Labadie conclude their Carnegie Hall season with an evening of music for royal occasions by Handel. Combining the composer’s Coronation Anthems and Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne with his beloved Music for the Royal Fireworks, this features three of today’s foremost Handel interpreters – vocal soloists Joélle Harvey, Iestyn Davies and Matthew Brook – with the Baroque specialists of the conductor’s own choir, La Chapelle de Québec. [NYC/CH]

April 13–16
Pianist LEIF OVE ANDSNES joins the Cleveland Orchestra led by Michael Tilson Thomas to perform Debussy’s Fantaisie for piano and orchestra. [April 13, 15, 16: Cleveland]

April 13–18
DANIIL TRIFONOV returns to Washington, DC to join the National Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Gianandrea Noseda for performances of Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in alternation with Scriabin’s sole Piano Concerto at the KENNEDY CENTER. A few days later Trifonov travels with the orchestra to New York, performing the Prokofiev with them in Carnegie Hall. [April 13, 14, 15: Washington, DC; April 18: NYC/CH]

April 16
The MONTREAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (OSM) gives the world premiere performance of Ainsi chantait Simorgh by Quebec composer Katia Makdissi-Warren, highlighting “A Journey to the Middle East: Scheherazade to Simurgh.” Led by Solti Prize-winning New Zealand conductor Tianyi Lu in her OSM debut, this evocative celebration of Persian culture also includes Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade and the Persian Trilogy by Behzad Ranjbaran. [Montreal]

April 26, 27
The MONTREAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (OSM) gives the world premiere of Melita, a new OSM commission from two-time Juno Award-winning Composer-in-Residence Ana Sokolović. Led by Music Director RAFAEL PAYARE, this shares the program with Richard Strauss’s Don Quixote, featuring cello soloist ALISA WEILERSTEIN, and Cantata criolla by the conductor’s Venezuelan compatriot Antonio Estévez, for which OSM will be joined by tenor Aquiles Machado, baritone Gustavo Castillo and the OSM Chorus. [April 26, 27: Montreal]

April 28, 29
In “Human and Machine” – the third season of CAL PERFORMANCES’s “Illuminations” series – Michel van der Aa’s chamber opera Blank Out uses video and electronics to invoke the experience of processing personal tragedy and loss (see Oct 30). [April 28, 29: Berkeley, CA]

April 29; May 2–7
THE ATLANTA OPERA crowns the coming season with the first presentation of a new production of Das Rheingold, the opening chapter of Wagner’s monumental Ring cycle, by Tomer Zvulun, the “innovative risk-taker … bringing change to The Atlanta Opera” (Opera News). Marking the visionary director’s 50th production for the company, Das Rheingold opens exactly ten years after he inaugurated his tenure as its General and Artistic Director in 2013. The production features bass-baritone Greer Grimsley, making his house debut as Wotan after triumphing in the role at venues from the Metropolitan Opera to Bayreuth, with Richard Cox as Loge, Kristinn Sigmundsson as Fasolt and Zachary Nelson as Alberich. Sets, projections and lighting are by trusted Zvulun collaborators Erhard Rom and Robert Wierzel, with costumes by European Opera Prize-winner Mattie Ullrich. Company Music Director Arthur Fagen, who “conducts each score with incisive authority” (Gramophone), leads from the pit. The production will be filmed for future release on The Atlanta Opera’s Spotlight Media platform. [April 29; May 2, 5, 7: Atlanta]

MAY 2023

May [dates TBD] CERISE JACOBS and her activist opera company, WHITE SNAKE PROJECTS, present “Opera Through the Looking Glass: Così Men Are Like That.” A new series focusing on the often problematic, bizarre and murderous depictions of women and other marginalized people in canonical works, “Opera Through the Looking Glass” turns these stories on their heads to ask if beautiful music is enough to justify their continued status. Commissioned and designed to be performed in non-traditional spaces, the reconceived pieces are each 60 minutes long, filled with opera’s greatest hits and sung in English. [May TBD: Boston]

May 4, 6
ALISA WEILERSTEIN plays Barber’s Cello Concerto under Franz Welser-Möst with the Cleveland Orchestra, with which she made her professional concert debut at 13 in 1995. [May 4, 6: Cleveland]

May 4–7
Music Director Fabio Luisi leads the DALLAS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (DSO) in performances of Brahms’s Fourth and final Symphony that will be recorded for future release as part of their upcoming Brahms cycle on DSO Live. They also welcome Swiss pianist Francesco Piemontesi as soloist in Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto, and Colombian singer Lido Pimienta, a winner of Canada’s Polaris Music Prize, for the world premiere of Arquitecta, a new commission from DSO Composer-in-Residence Angélica Negrón, whose honors include the 2022 Hermitage Greenfield Prize. [May 4, 5, 6, 7: Dallas]

May 5, 6
In “Human and Machine” – the third season of CAL PERFORMANCES’s “Illuminations” series – Toshi Reagon and Bernice Johnson Reagon’s Parable of the Sower offers an operatic adaptation of Octavia E. Butler’s dystopian novel (see Oct 30). [May 5, 6: Berkeley, CA]

May 11–13
RAFAEL PAYARE makes his previously postponed San Francisco Symphony debut with a program of Still’s Darker America, Richard Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben and Brahms’s Violin Concerto, for which he and the orchestra will be joined by Grammy-winning violinist Hilary Hahn. [May 11, 12, 13: San Francisco]

May 11–14
PIERRE-LAURENT AIMARD plays Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto with the LA Philharmonic and Eva Ollikainen, Chief Conductor of the Iceland Symphony. A leading exponent of the core piano repertoire, Aimard won a Gramophone Award for his recording of Beethoven’s complete piano concertos. [May 11, 13, 14: Los Angeles]

May 11–14
DANIEL HOPE and the New Century Chamber Orchestra (NCCO) present their fourth and final set of concerts for the season before setting off on their second European tour, with a program titled “Points of Origin.” Two works explore America’s identity as a melting pot: Jessie Montgomery’s Banner, a reimagining of the U.S. national anthem; and the world premiere of the orchestral version of Nico Muhly’s Stranger (co-commissioned by NCCO and Palaver Strings), a song cycle performed by tenor NICHOLAS PHAN that reflects on the American immigrant experience. The world premiere of a new work by British composer Hannah Kendall is also on the program, as well as tributes to their predecessors by two 20th-century British composers: Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis and Benjamin Britten’s Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge. For the La Jolla performance, the Vaughan Williams, Kendall and Muhly works will be replaced by Max Richter’s Vivaldi Recomposed. [May 11: Berkeley, CA; May 12: La Jolla, CA; May 13: San Francisco; May 14: San Rafael, CA]

May 11–16
The CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (CSO) conducted by Riccardo Muti celebrates Rachmaninov’s sesquicentennial with a performance of his Second Symphony, along with the world premiere of a CSO-commissioned work by Mead Composer-in-Residence Jessie Montgomery, who writes with “a Technicolor brilliance and harmonic plushness perfect for the CSO’s own heart-on-its-sleeve proclivities (Chicago Tribune).” Wagner’s Overture to Tannhäuser opens the concert. [May 11, 12, 13, 16: Chicago]

May 13
Music Director Teddy Abrams and the LOUISVILLE ORCHESTRA perform Bruckner’s monumental Symphony No. 7, bringing the work back to Louisville for the first time in decades. Inspired by the epic scale of Wagner’s operas, Bruckner created a style of symphonic composition all his own, recognizably in a 19th-century idiom but unique in what the New Grove Dictionary calls the “absolute originality of its formal processes.” Opening the program is the world premiere of a Louisville Orchestra co-commission from Rome Prize-winner Christopher Cerrone reflecting on the COVID lockdown, titled A Year of Silence, featuring two-time Grammy-winning bass-baritone Dashon Burton. [Louisville]

May 17
PIERRE-LAURENT AIMARD joins the Berlin Philharmonic and conductor Michael Wollny for Ligeti’s Piano Concerto (see March 5). [Berlin]

May 20–27
The SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY (SDSO) and Music Director RAFAEL PAYARE conclude their season with a pair of programs at the Rady Shell. As one of the first six participants in the League of American Orchestras’ Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation Orchestral Commissions Program for female composers, SDSO gives the world premiere of a new commission from award-winning composer Gity Razaz. Led by Payare, this shares the program with Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto with Inon Barnatan, “one of the most admired pianists of his generation” (New York Times), and Dvořák’s Seventh Symphony (May 20, 21). Finally, the conductor and orchestra join the San Diego Master Chorale for accounts of Antonio Estévez’s vividly cinematic Cantata criolla (May 26, 27). [May 20, 21, 26, 27: San Diego]

May 25–27
MARIN ALSOP returns to the New York Philharmonic for a program combining the Suite from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, Chick Corea’s Trombone Concerto and Barber’s First Symphony. Made 21 years ago, Alsop’s recording of the single-movement symphony may be heard on her first Naxos album, described just this year as “a must-have” (San Francisco Classical Voice). [May 25, 26, 27: NYC/DGH]

May 31; June 2, 3
For their season-closing concerts, the MONTREAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA and RAFAEL PAYARE perform Mahler’s longest and most life-affirming symphony – his Third – with American mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung as soloist. [May 31; June 2, 3: Montreal]

JUNE 2023

June 1–3
Conductor MANFRED HONECK returns to the San Francisco Symphony for a program that includes pianist Beatrice Rana performing Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, the San Francisco Symphony premiere of Gloria Isabel Ramos Triano’s amazon, and Schubert’s Symphony in C major, “The Great.” [June 1, 2, 3: San Francisco]

June 7–11
With candlelight and incense, CHANTICLEER marks the 400th anniversary of the death of William Byrd, one of the finest composers of the Renaissance, with a program titled “Music for a Hidden Chapel.”  As a Catholic composer writing for a Protestant Queen, Byrd’s music tiptoes the line between submission and defiance, offering listeners a mix of meditative chant and soaring polyphony sure to transport and enthrall. [June 7-11: San Francisco]

June 9–11
Music Director MANFRED HONECK leads the Pittsburg Symphony in a special performance that includes a collaboration with Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre and two world premieres. Ravel’s Boléro, choreographed by Pittsburgh Ballet Artistic Director Susan Jaffe – recently announced as the next Artistic Director of American Ballet Theatre – is just one of the highlights of the ambitious program. Also included is the return of pianist Igor Levit in Gershwin’s jazz-inflected Piano Concerto and two world premieres of Pittsburgh Symphony commissions: a new work by Stacy Garrop and a new arrangement of music from Richard Strauss’s opera Salome by Honeck and Tomáš Ille. [June 9, 10, 11: Pittsburgh]

June 15, 17
To conclude her season, MARIN ALSOP returns to the Seattle Symphony, where she pairs the Suite from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet with SongFest: A Cycle of American Poems for Six Singers and Orchestra by her former mentor Bernstein. Alsop is one of the foremost exponents of the American composer’s music, and her recordings of his orchestral works feature a number of “definitive performances” (New York Times), “some of which seem better than the composer’s own” (San Francisco Classical Voice). [June 15, 17: Seattle]

June 23–25
Riccardo Muti leads the CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA and soloists soprano Erin Morley, mezzo-soprano Alisa Kolosova, tenor Giovanni Sala and bass Ildar Abdrazakov, along with the Chicago Symphony Chorus, in a performance of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis. [June 23, 24, 25: Chicago]

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Abbreviations for New York City concert venues are as follows:

ATH = Alice Tully Hall
CH = Carnegie Hall
CSL: Church of St. Ignatius Loyola
DGH = David Geffen Hall
Met = Metropolitan Opera
RS = Rose Studio, Lincoln Center

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