The Cleveland Orchestra Announces 98th Season

The Cleveland Orchestra and Franz Welser-Möst have announced details of the Orchestra's 2015-16 season. The year marks the Orchestra's 98th season and the 14th season with Franz Welser-Möst as Music Director. Highlights include Mr. Welser-Möst conducting Bruckner's Symphony No. 6 and the continuation of his ongoing tradition of presenting opera performances at Severance Hall with an all-Bartók program of the opera Bluebeard's Castle and The Miraculous Mandarin as well as performances of orchestral masterworks including Mahler's Symphony No. 3 and Shostakovich's Symphony No. 4.Three of Strauss's epic and expansive tone poems - An Alpine Symphony, Also sprach Zarathustra [Thus Spake Zarathustra] and Ein Heldenleben [A Hero's Life] are also a major highlight of the season. The 2015-16 season once again showcases the Orchestra in collaboration with world-renowned guest conductors and featured guest artists performing repertoire at the highest possible level, across a wide range of the orchestral music canon.

Additional highlights of performances led by Mr. Welser-Möst include Orchestral Excerpts from Wagner's Götterdämmerung, Bartók's Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta, as well as the first Cleveland Orchestra performances of Liszt's Orpheus, Symphonic Poem No 4; Janá?ek's Suite from From the House of the Dead, and Dvo?ák's The Wood Dove.

Subscriptions for the 2015-16 season are on sale now and start at just $87 for a three-concert package. Subscribers receive seating priority over individual-ticket buyers, ticket exchange privileges, and other benefits, including savings of up to 30% off individual ticket prices. Tickets to individual performances go on sale in late summer.

PRINCIPAL VIOLA ROBERT VERNON

After 40 seasons, Principal Viola Robert Vernon will retire from the ensemble in the summer of 2016. Mr. Vernon will have had the longest tenure of any string principal in the Orchestra's history. The title of Principal Emeritus will be bestowed upon him at the time of his retirement. In November 2015, Mr. Vernon will appear as soloist in the world premiere of a Cleveland Orchestra-commissioned work, Richard Sortomme's Concerto for Two Violas and Orchestra on Themes from Smetana's String Quartet No. 1, "From My Life," which he will perform with First Assistant Principal Viola Lynne Ramsey.

GUEST ARTISTS

Guest instrumentalists returning to Cleveland include violinists Leila Josefowicz, Leonidas Kavakos, and Frank Peter Zimmermann; pianists Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Yefim Bronfman, Rudolf Buchbinder, Kirill Gerstein, Stephen Hough, Maria João Pires, and Mitsuko Uchida; cellist Truls Mørk; and harpist Yolanda Kondonassis. Vocalists returning include sopranos Barbara Hannigan, Luba Orgonášová, and Yulia Van Doren; mezzo-sopranos Jennifer Johnson Cano and Kelley O'Connor; tenors Norbert Ernst and John Tessier; bass-baritone Eric Owens; and bass John Relyea. Artists making their Cleveland Orchestra debuts are soprano Katarina Dalayman, mezzo-sopranos Jennifer Johnston and Marie-Nicole Lemieux, and bass Mikhail Petrenko, as well as pianist Jan Lisiecki. Pianist Julien Brocal will make his Severance Hall debut in an all-Beethoven recital with Maria João Pires.

This season features four members of the Orchestra as soloists. In addition to the performances by Robert Vernon and Lynne Ramsey, Principal Keyboardist Joela Jones performs as piano soloist in Messiaen's Couleurs de la cité céleste [Colors of the Celestial City] and Principal Flute Joshua Smith performs in Mozart's Concerto for Flute, Harp, and Orchestra with harpist Yolanda Kondonassis.

GUEST CONDUCTORS

Distinguished conductors returning include Cleveland Orchestra Music Director Laureate Christoph von Dohnányi, Herbert Blomstedt, Lionel Bringuier, Alan Gilbert, Jane Glover, Gianandrea Noseda, Vladimir Jurowski, and Antonio Pappano. Andrés Orozco-Estrada and Antoni Wit make their Cleveland Orchestra debuts.

WORLD PREMIERES AND CONTEMPORARY WORKS

The Cleveland Orchestra continues its long tradition of commissioning new works and performing works of the 20th and 21st centuries. This season includes two world premieres and one United States premiere. In addition to the world premiere of the Sortomme Concerto for Two Violas, at Severance Hall the Orchestra will give the world premiere of Bernard Rands's Concerto for English Horn, commissioned by Oberlin Conservatory of Music for Cleveland Orchestra english horn player Robert Walters, and they will give the U.S. premiere of Hans Abrahamsen's let me tell you with soprano Barbara Hannigan. Twentieth- and 21st-century works by noted composers to be featured include Thomas Adès's Concentric Paths, Marc-André Dalbavie's La Source d'un Regard, Abrahamsen's let me tell you, György Kurtág's Grabstein für Stephan, and the first Cleveland Orchestra performances of Goffredo Petrassi's Partita.

DANIEL R. LEWIS YOUNG COMPOSER FELLOW

Anthony Cheung will begin his first year as The Cleveland Orchestra's ninth Daniel R. Lewis Young Composer Fellow; he has been commissioned to create a new work to be premiered by the Orchestra during the 2016-17 season. The Orchestra will give the first Cleveland performances of Cheung's Lyra during the 2015016 season, and he will participate in rehearsals and in educational activities serving the Northeast Ohio community as part of his fellowship. The Daniel R. Lewis Young Composer Fellow program began in 1998. Works by the composers are commissioned by The Cleveland Orchestra through the Young Composers Endowment Fund, which was established in 1997 by a generous endowment gift from Jan R. and Daniel R. Lewis, who reside in Florida.

American composer and pianist Anthony Cheung is a performer, advocate for new music, and artistic director of the Talea Ensemble, which he co-founded in 2007. His music has been commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Modern, Ensemble Intercontemporain, and Scharoun Ensemble Berlin, and performed by the Chicago Symphony's MusicNOW ensemble, the Minnesota Orchestra, the French National Orchestras of Lille and Lorraine, and Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, among others. In 2012 he received the Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome and he has also received first prize in the Sixth International Dutilleux Competition as well as awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and ASCAP.

GALA CONCERT OCTOBER 2015

The Cleveland Orchestra's Gala Concert for the 2015-16 season will feature distinguished soprano Renée Fleming. The gala evening, which takes place on October 3, includes a pre-concert cocktail reception, gala performance, and post-concert dinner. Proceeds benefit The Cleveland Orchestra's Education and Community Programs. Gala leadership includes Chair Norma Lerner, Co-Chair Nancy McCann, and Corporate Chair Beth Mooney. Additional gala details will be announced as the season approaches.

CONTINUING COLLABORATIONS WITH UCHIDA AND BRONFMAN

Pianist Mitsuko Uchida returns to perform and conduct an all-Mozart program being recorded as part of her ongoing collaboration with the Orchestra, which began when she gave her first performance with the Orchestra in Severance Hall in February 1990. In February 2016, Ms. Uchida travels with the Orchestra to perform the same program at New York City's Carnegie Hall. This season will mark the 30th anniversary of pianist Yefim Bronfman's Cleveland Orchestra debut and he returns, after performing and recording Brahms's Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 in the 2014-15 season, to perform Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3, plus the Choral Fantasy alongside the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus.

CHORAL MASTERWORKS

The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus will perform in major choral-orchestral works, including Handel's Messiah conducted by Cleveland Orchestra Director of Choruses Robert Porco during a weekend in December. Over the course of the season, the Chorus also performs in Beethoven's Choral Fantasy, Dvo?ák's Stabat Mater, Mahler's Symphony No. 3, and selections from Verdi's Four Sacred Pieces.

MUSICAL THREADS: FRENCH, GERMAN, CENTRAL- AND EASTERN-EUROPEAN

Music by renowned French composers includes Messiaen's Chronochromie, Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique, Debussy's Images, Ravel's Piano Concerto in G major, and the first Cleveland Orchestra performancesof Messiaen's Couleurs de la cité céleste [Colors of the Celestial City]. There is also a focus on works by Central- and Eastern-European composers, including Bartók's Violin Concerto No. 2 and his Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta plus the first Cleveland Orchestra performances of Janá?ek's Suite from From the House of the Dead and Dvo?ák's The Wood Dove.

EXTRAORDINARY STRING SECTION

The remarkable string section of The Cleveland Orchestra will be featured in Beethoven's String Quartet No. 15 (for string orchestra) and Mozart's Divertimento in D major led by William Preucil, the Orchestra's concertmaster. On separate occasions, The New York Times remarked: "Again the playing was brilliant, especially in the strings, with fluid cascades and incandescent tremolos." And "... the sound of the subdued strings still had body, russet coloring and character."

CONCERT PREVIEWS AT SEVERANCE HALL

Free Concert Previews are presented beginning one hour prior to most Cleveland Orchestra concerts at Severance Hall. Designed to enrich the concert-going experience, Previews feature a variety of speakers, interviews, and performance presentations. For details about topics and scheduled speakers or artists, visit clevelandorchestra.com throughout the season. The Concert Preview series is funded by a generous endowment gift from Dorothy Humel Hovorka.

ON TOUR IN EUROPE (2015) AND NEW YORK CITY (2016)

The Cleveland Orchestra returns to Europe in fall 2015 for a week-long residency in Vienna, Austria at the Musikverein. Additional tour stops include engagements in Belgium, France, Germany, and in Milan, Italy as part of Expo 2015. In early 2016, the Orchestra returns to Carnegie Hall for two performances, first on January 17 led by Franz Welser-Möst in a program featuring soprano Barbara Hannigan in the New York premiere of Abrahamsen's let me tell you and Shostakovich's Symphony No. 4. The second concert features two Mozart piano concertos with longtime Cleveland Orchestra collaborator Mitsuko Uchida as both soloist and conductor, on February 14.

SUBSCRIPTION AND TICKET INFORMATION

Subscriptions for the 2015-16 season are on sale now and start at just $87 for a three-concert package. Subscribers receive seating priority over individual-ticket buyers, ticket exchange privileges, and other benefits, including savings of up to 30% over individual ticket prices. Tickets to individual performances go on sale in late summer. For more information about the variety of subscription packages offered, or for other questions, call Cleveland Orchestra Ticket Services at 216-231-1111 or 800-686-1141 or visit us online at clevelandorchestra.com.