Alan Gilbert: Major Premieres, International Tours & More in Fifth Season with NDR Elbphilharmonie Orch; Elektra & Parsifal at Royal Swedish Opera; Returns to Berlin Phil, Leipzig Gewandhaus & Others; Plus World Premiere Recording with Boston Symphony

(August 2023) — Alan Gilbert returns for his fifth season as Chief Conductor of Hamburg’s NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, where his contract was recently extended through 2029. After a livestreamed, season-opening collaboration with Joshua Bell on the world premiere of The Elements by Jake Heggie, Jennifer Higdon, Edgar Meyer, Jessie Montgomery and Kevin Puts, Gilbert’s NDR highlights include a “War and Peace”-themed program to launch the 2024 Hamburg International Music Festival, as well as tours of both Europe and Japan. Over the coming season, the Grammy-winning conductor also leads productions of Elektra and Parsifal as Music Director of the Royal Swedish Opera, now celebrating its 250th anniversary; returns to guest conduct orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony; and expands his distinguished discography with Bridge Records’ world premiere recording of Justin Dello Joio’s Oceans Apart, made with Garrick Ohlsson and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Christoph Lieben-Seutter, General and Artistic Director of Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie and Laeiszhalle, notes:

“The artistic development of the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra under Alan Gilbert is very impressive. As the orchestra in residence at the Elbphilharmonie, the NDR plays a decisive role in shaping the artistic profile of the house. Alan and his orchestra provide numerous artistic highlights every season. We are very happy with this cooperative long-term partnership.”

Similarly, when extending the conductor’s tenure this past February, NDR director Joachim Knuth called Gilbert “an extraordinary musical ambassador and an outstanding source of inspiration,” who has “advanced the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra and inspired [its] audience with his artistic and programmatic ideas, his precise conducting professionalism and his leadership.”

Fifth NDR season: world premieres, Hamburg festival & three international tours

Gilbert launches his fifth NDR season with an Opening Night program showcasing the world premiere of The Elements. Featuring its dedicatee, violinist Joshua Bell, this new five-part suite was collaboratively composed by American composers Jake Heggie, Jennifer Higdon, Edgar Meyer, Jessie Montgomery and Kevin Puts, whose respective movements depict fire, space, water, air and space. Opening with Dutilleux’s Métaboles and closing with Stravinsky’s iconic The Rite of Spring, the NDR’s season-opening program will stream live to audiences worldwide (Sep 1 & 2), after which it will be available for streaming on-demand for 30 days.

Appointed as the NDR’s 2023-24 Artist-in-Residence, Bell rejoins Gilbert and the orchestra for Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, which they pair with Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, first in Hamburg (Nov 3 & 4) and then on a five-city European tour (Nov 6–12). A second international tour soon follows, when Gilbert and the NDR visit six Japanese cities with an all-Brahms program featuring pianist Kyohei Sorita (Nov 22–30). The conductor and orchestra complete their fall lineup at home in Hamburg, where violinists Stefan Wagner (Sep 8 & 10) and Frank Peter Zimmermann (Oct 26 & 29) join them for concertos and Gilbert himself plays violin in an intimate evening of chamber music (Oct 28).

Next spring, Gilbert and the NDR give concerts opening the annual Hamburg International Music Festival, which brings together some of the world’s leading artists and orchestras in one of its greatest musical cities. In keeping with the 2024 festival’s theme of “War and Peace,” their program features baritone Thomas Hampson in Four Walt Whitman Songs – Weill’s post-Pearl Harbor setting of four of Whitman’s Civil War poems – alongside Friede auf Erden (“Peace on Earth”), a choral work by Schoenberg, whose 150th anniversary falls next year, and Ives’s Fourth Symphony (April 26 & 27). Gilbert’s live recording of the symphony came fourth on Rhapsody’s list of the “Top 25 Classical Albums of 2013,” prompting Seth Colter Walls to write: “[It] still gives me chills. This is one of the finest Ives recordings in recent memory.”

The festival follows a collaboration with pianist Igor Levit on Bartók’s First Piano Concerto, first as the centerpiece of two livestreamed programs in Hamburg (Feb 2 & 4; Feb 9 & 10) and then on a four-stop tour of Spain and Germany (Feb 13–18). Later next spring, Gilbert and the NDR give a livestreamed pairing of Schoenberg’s A Survivor from Warsaw with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (May 2–5), before drawing their season to a close with livestreamed accounts of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony and Mozart’s 25th Piano Concerto, featuring Emanuel Ax (June 28–July 7).

Meanwhile, by way of an upbeat to the new season, the NDR releases two new episodes of “About Music,” the English-language webcast series hosted by Gilbert in collaboration with news anchor Michail Paweletz. Their discussion of travel airs on August 23, followed by reflections on contemporary music on August 30. Together with past episodes, which include conversations about Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony, racism in Porgy and Bess, and the meaning of music, the new episodes will be available at the orchestra’s website and YouTube channel.

Elektra, Parsifal & concerts at Royal Swedish Opera

The present year marks the 250th anniversary of the Royal Swedish Opera, where Gilbert has been Music Director since spring 2021. He opens the company’s new season with a special concert at Stockholm’s historic Drottningholm Slottsteater to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of the King of Sweden, who recently appointed the conductor as Royal Court Kapellmeister (Sep 14). Gilbert then helms a seven-performance run of Richard Strauss’s Elektra, starring Katarina Leoson, Ingela Brimberg and Jeremy Carpenter in Staffan Valdemar Holm’s acclaimed production (Sep 23–Oct 16), before returning to the Stockholm house next year for Wagner’s Parsifal (March 16–April 18) and a season-closing summer concert (June 14).

A major player on the opera scene, Gilbert has helmed productions at legendary houses worldwide, including Milan’s La Scala, where he led a new production of Porgy and Bess and the company premiere of Die tote Stadt, and New York’s Metropolitan Opera, where his account of Doctor Atomic was filmed, released on DVD and recognized with a Grammy Award.

Returns to Berlin Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony & more

A guest conductor in high-demand worldwide, Gilbert maintains a major international presence, enjoying a close rapport with the Berlin Philharmonic, whose “musicians have faith in him, letting him unleash his creativity to the fullest” (Berlin Morgenpost). Next June, he returns to lead the orchestra in three performances of Honegger’s dramatic oratorio Joan of Arc at the Stake (June 6–8), the last of which will be livestreamed. The work is one of those that Gilbert previously championed at the New York Philharmonic, during his transformative, eight-season tenure as its Music Director. After their staged production of the oratorio, starring Academy Award-winner Marion Cotillard in the (non-singing) title role, the New York Times praised Gilbert’s “clear artistic and intellectual mission,” observing:

“Under Mr. Gilbert, the Philharmonic played with glowing sound and rhythmic bite. The performance found a just balance between richness and restraint.”

Another of the venerable German ensembles where Gilbert is a favored guest is the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, to which he returns early next year for a two-program residency. This opens with Lera Auerbach’s Sixth Symphony, “Vessels of Light,” a work dedicated to Chiune Sugihara, the late Japanese vice-consul who helped six thousand Jews escape Nazi-occupied Lithuania. Timed to anticipate Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27, performances of the symphony will feature the Leipzig Gewandhaus Choir and cello soloist Kristina Reiko Cooper, whose in-laws are among the descendants of those same escapees.

To complete the program, Gilbert and the orchestra pair Auerbach’s work with Shostakovich’s searing Tenth Symphony, of which the conductor’s interpretation impressed the New York Times as “wrenching, blazing and vehement” (Jan 11 & 14). He and the Gewandhaus Orchestra also juxtapose Shostakovich’s symphony with Beethoven’s Eighth (Jan 12), before concluding the residency with a coupling of Bruckner’s Third with the world premiere of Bernd Franke’s piano concerto, Genesis, featuring Michael Wollny as soloist (Jan 18 & 19).

It was in a previous collaboration with the Gewandhaus Orchestra, at a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at London’s BBC Proms, that Gilbert “found Beethoven’s fire, with clear and controlled playing in the earlier movements giving way to an explosive choral finale” (The Guardian). Now, as Principal Guest Conductor of Japan’s Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony, he reprises the work in holiday concerts with the orchestra that also feature Tokyo’s New National Theatre Chorus and vocal soloists Christina Nilsson, Rinat Shaham, Michael Weinius and Morris Robinson (Dec 24–26).

To complete his guest lineup, Gilbert returns to the podiums of two great Stockholm orchestras, leading Nielsen’s Third Symphony with the Swedish Radio Symphony (Oct 6 & 7) and Brahms’s Third with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, where he is Conductor Laureate (Oct 11 & 12).

Sep 15: release of Oceans Apart with Boston Symphony

September 15 marks the physical and digital release by Bridge Records of Gilbert’s world premiere recording of Oceans Apart by former Classical Recording Foundation “Composer of the Year” Justin Dello Joio. Gilbert recorded the concerto with its dedicatee, Grammy-winning pianist Garrick Ohlsson, and the commissioning Boston Symphony Orchestra, with whom he gave the work’s world premiere performances last winter. The Boston Globe reported:

“Dello Joio’s writing for orchestra is fascinating and highly resourceful, with a vast palette of percussion, airy whispering string figurations, and ear-catching textures achieved through purposefully non-synchronized effects. … Ohlsson’s performance was a tour de force combining tensile strength and flexibility with a clear rhythmic profile. From the podium, Gilbert masterfully shaped the BSO’s rendering of this densely layered score.”

As Classical Review put it:

“Gilbert, a crackerjack purveyor of new music in his own right, presided over an orchestral accompaniment that was conspicuous for its blend of discretion, textural lucidity, and dancing energy.”

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Alan Gilbert: 2023-24 engagements
Sep 1 & 2
Hamburg, Germany (plus livestream at NDR’s website and YouTube channel on Sep 1)
NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra
DUTILLEUX: Métaboles
Jake HEGGIE, Jennifer HIGDON, Edgar MEYER, Jessie MONTGOMERY & Kevin PUTS: The Elements (world premiere; with
NDR Artist-in-Residence Joshua Bell, violin)
STRAVINSKY: The Rite of Spring

Sep 8 & 10
Hamburg, Germany
NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra
William BOLCOM: Violin Concerto (with Stefan Wagner, violin)
R. STRAUSS: Don Quixote (with Christopher Franzius, cello)

Sep 14
Stockholm, Sweden
Royal Swedish Opera
Golden Jubilee Concert for King of Sweden

Sep 23, 26, 30; Oct 4, 10, 13 & 16
Stockholm, Sweden
Royal Swedish Opera
R. STRAUSS: Elektra

Oct 6 & 7
Stockholm, Sweden
Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra
SIBELIUS: Nightride and Sunrise
Daniel BÖRTZ: Violin Concerto (with Malin Broman, violin)
NIELSEN: Symphony No. 3

Oct 11 & 12
Stockholm, Sweden
Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra
MOZART: Piano Concerto No. 22 (with Martin Helmchen, piano)
BRAHMS: Symphony No. 3

Oct 26 & 29
Hamburg, Germany (plus livestream on Oct 26)
NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra
STRAVINSKY: Violin Concerto (with Frank Peter Zimmermann, violin)
BRAHMS: Symphony No. 1

Oct 28
Hamburg, Germany
Chamber music (Alan Gilbert, violin; with members of NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra)

Nov 3 & 4
Hamburg, Germany
NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra
TCHAIKOVSKY: Violin Concerto (with NDR Artist-in-Residence Joshua Bell, violin)
MAHLER: Symphony No. 5

Nov 6–12
European tour with NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra

Nov 6: Basel, Switzerland

Nov 7: Erlangen, Germany

Nov 9: Budapest, Hungary

Nov 11: Zagreb, Croatia

Nov 12: Frankfurt, Germany
TCHAIKOVSKY: Violin Concerto (with NDR Artist-in-Residence Joshua Bell, violin)
MAHLER: Symphony No. 5

Nov 22–30
Japanese tour with NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra

Nov 22: Osaka, Japan

Nov 23: Matsumoto, Japan

Nov 24: Nagoya, Japan

Nov 26: Kyoto, Japan (education event)

Nov 28 & 29: Tokyo, Japan

Nov 30: Akita, Japan
BRAHMS: Piano Concerto No. 1 (with Kyohei Sorita, piano)
BRAHMS: Symphony No. 2

Dec 24–26
Tokyo, Japan
Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra

Dec 24: Sumida Triphony Hall

Dec 25: Tokyo Bunka Kaikan

Dec 26: Suntory Hall
BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 9, “Choral” (with Christina Nilsson, soprano; Rinat Shaham, mezzo-soprano; Michael Weinius, tenor; Morris Robinson, bass; New National Theatre Chorus)

Jan 11 & 14
Leipzig, Germany
Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra
Lera AUERBACH: Symphony No. 6, “Vessels of Light” (with Kristina Reiko Cooper, cello; Leipzig Gewandhaus Choir)
SHOSTAKOVICH: Symphony No. 10

Jan 12
Leipzig, Germany
Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra
BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 8
SHOSTAKOVICH: Symphony No. 10

Jan 18 & 19
Leipzig, Germany
Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra
Bernd FRANKE: Genesis: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (world premiere; with Michael Wollny, piano)
BRUCKNER: Symphony No. 3 (1889 version)

Feb 2 & 4
Hamburg, Germany (plus livestream on Feb 4)
NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra
BARTÓK: Divertimento
BARTÓK: Piano Concerto No. 1 (with Igor Levit, piano)
BARTÓK: Concerto for Orchestra

Feb 9 & 10
Hamburg, Germany (plus livestream on Feb 10)
NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra
BARTÓK: Piano Concerto No. 1 (with Igor Levit, piano)
BARTÓK: Bluebeard’s Castle

Feb 13–18
European tour with NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra

Feb 13: Madrid, Spain

Feb 15: Oviedo, Spain

Feb 17: Düsseldorf, Germany

Feb 18: Hanover, Germany
BARTÓK: Piano Concerto No. 1 (with Igor Levit, piano)
BRAHMS: Symphony No. 1

March 16, 23, 29; April 1, 13 & 18
Stockholm, Sweden
Royal Swedish Opera
WAGNER: Parsifal

April 26 & 27
Hamburg, Germany
NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra
2024 Hamburg International Music Festival, “War & Peace”: Opening Concert
SCHOENBERG: Friede auf Erden (“Peace on Earth”; with Prague Philharmonic Choir)
WEILL: Four Walt Whitman Songs (with Thomas Hampson, baritone)
IVES: Symphony No. 4

May 2, 3 & 5
Hamburg, Germany (plus livestream on May 3)
NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra
SCHOENBERG: A Survivor from Warsaw
BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 9, “Choral”

June 6, 7 & 8
Berlin, Germany
Berlin Philharmonic
HONEGGER: Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher (“Joan of Arc at the Stake”)

June 14
Stockholm, Sweden
Royal Swedish Opera Orchestra
Summer Concert (details TBD)

June 28–July 7
German concerts with NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra

June 28, 29 & 30: Hamburg, Germany (plus livestream on June 29)

July 6 & 7: Lübeck, Germany (plus livestream on July 7)
MOZART: Piano Concerto No. 25 (with Emanuel Ax, piano)
MAHLER: Symphony No. 5

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© 21C Media Group, August 2023