American Symphony Orchestra Announces 2017-18 Season
By: BWW News Desk May. 23, 2017
The American Symphony Orchestra today announced the 56th season of its Vanguard series, running from October 11, 2017 through March 1, 2018. Music director Leon Botstein will conduct all concerts in the series, which this year includes a performance at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall in addition to three concerts at Carnegie Hall.
The 2017-18 season will undertake a political focus by examining the music composers have created under various types of leadership. Programs include The Sounds of Democracy, an evening featuring works of American composers inspired by the legacy of presidents Roosevelt and Kennedy (October 11, 2017); Triumph of Art, which surveys the music of Russian, Polish, and Czech composers under fascist and communist regimes (December 7, 2017); Hollow Victory: Jews in Soviet Russia after the World War, exploring works by Jewish composers under Stalin (January 28, 2018); and Intolerance, offering the innovative music of Italian composer Luigi Nono in post-fascist Italy (March 1, 2018).
Music director Leon Botstein will provide the essential musical context for each of the four concert programs in lively, 30-minute Conductor's Notes Q&A sessions. These discussions, popular learning opportunities for both concert-goers and music connoisseurs alike, begin one hour before each concert and are free for all ticket holders.
The Sounds of Democracy
Wednesday, October 11, 2017
Conductor's Notes Q&A 7 PM
Concert 8 PM
Carnegie Hall (Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage)
American democracy was shaped by the ideals, vision, and principles of its leaders, particularly Roosevelt and Kennedy. These presidents protected our liberties, including freedom of expression, and stood by the common people against the interests of the rich and powerful. Their legacy inspired the music of Sessions, whose Second Symphony is dedicated to FDR; Bernstein's Kaddish, which is both a Jewish prayer for the dead and a celebration of life; and Copland, who wrote Canticle of Freedom in response to the assault on civil liberties during the McCarthy era.
Leon Botstein, conductor
Pamela Armstrong, soprano
Bard Festival Chorale
Manhattan Girls Chorus
Aaron Copland: Canticle of Freedom
Roger Sessions: Symphony No. 2
Leonard Bernstein: Symphony No. 3, Kaddish
Tickets, priced at $25 / $40 / $55, available at carnegiehall.org, CarnegieCharge at 212.247.7800 or the box office at 57th St & 7th Ave.
Triumph of Art
Thursday, December 7, 2017
Conductor's Notes Q&A 7 PM
Concert 8 PM
Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center
Each of these composers was influenced by conflict with authoritarian regimes, both fascist and communist. This concert reveals the compositional response to resistance, emigration, and exile by three leading 20th-century composers from Russia (Alfred Schnittke),Poland (the child prodigy violinist and composer Grazyna Bacewicz), and Czechoslovakia (Bohuslav Martinu, who fled Czechoslovakia in 1940 and was unable to return after the Communists seized power). The award-winning young Russian violinist and recording artist Alena Baeva is guest soloist.
Leon Botstein, conductor
Alena Baeva, violin
Grazyna Bacewicz: Music for Strings, Trumpets, and Percussion
Bohuslav Martinu: Symphony No. 6, Fantaisies symphoniques
Grazyna Bacewicz: Violin Concerto No. 7
Alfred Schnittke: Symphony No. 5
Tickets, priced at $25 / $40, available at lincolncenter.org, CenterCharge at 212.721.6500 or the Alice Tully Hall box office at Broadway and 65th St.
Hollow Victory: Jews in Soviet Russia after the World War
Sunday, January 28, 2018
Conductor's Notes Q&A 1 PM
Concert 2 PM
Carnegie Hall (Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage)
Despite the brutal suppression of Jewish culture in the late 1940s under Stalin, Jewish composers sustained a vibrant and active musical culture, as these beautiful works reveal. The evening features Rothschild's Violin, an unfinished one-act opera by Shostakovich's pupil, Veniamin Fleischmann, who was killed in active service during the siege of Leningrad. Shostakovich rescued and completed the score. Based on a story by Chekov, the plot follows a Russian coffin-maker and violinist, and his contentious relationship with the Jewish musicians of his village. This program explores the tenacity of Jewish culture through one of its most embattled phases.
Leon Botstein, conductor
Members of the Bard Festival Chorale
Mieczys?aw Weinberg: Rhapsody on Moldavian Themes
Mieczys?aw Weinberg: Symphony No. 5
Veniamin Fleischmann/Dmitri Shostakovich: Rothschild's Violin
Tickets, priced at $25 / $40 / $55, available at carnegiehall.org, CarnegieCharge at 212.247.7800 or the box office at 57th St & 7th Ave.
Intolerance
Thursday, March 1, 2018
Conductor's Notes Q&A 7 PM
Concert 8 PM
Carnegie Hall (Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage)
Italian composers in post-fascist Italy faced an existential question: what kind of music could be written after Mussolini? Luigi Nono, one of Italy's major avant-garde composers, attempted to reverse the darkness of Mussolini and rescue art from being the handmaiden of the state. His one-act opera Intolleranza speaks out against dictatorship. It follows a migrant worker travelling home, who gets caught up in a political protest, is tortured in prison, and escapes to fight for a world without war.
Leon Botstein, conductor
Bard Festival Chorale
Luigi Nono: Intolleranza
Tickets, priced at $25 / $40 / $55, available at carnegiehall.org, CarnegieCharge at 212.247.7800 or the box office at 57th St & 7th Ave.
American Symphony Orchestra
The American Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1962 by Leopold Stokowski with a mission of making orchestral music accessible and affordable for everyone. Music Director Leon Botstein expanded that mission when he joined the ASO in 1992, creating thematic concerts that explore music from the perspective of the visual arts, literature, religion, and history, and reviving rarely-performed works audiences would otherwise seldom hear performed live.
The Orchestra has made several tours of Asia and Europe, and performed in countless benefits for organizations including the Jerusalem Foundation and PBS. Many of the world's most accomplished soloists have performed with the ASO, including Yo-Yo Ma, Deborah Voigt, and Sarah Chang. The Orchestra has released several recordings on the Telarc, New World, Bridge, Koch, and Vanguard labels, and numerous live performances are also available for digital download. In many cases, these are the only recordings of some of the rare works that have been rediscovered in ASO performances.
The ASO's recent online-only issue of Weber's Euryanthe, recorded at the 2014 Bard Music Festival, was reviewed by the Wall Street Journal as "Musically rich, lyrical and expansive."
Leon Botstein has been music director and principal conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra since 1992. He is also music director of The Orchestra Now, an innovative training orchestra composed of top musicians from around the world. He is co-artistic director of Bard SummerScape and the Bard Music Festival, which take place at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College, where he has been president since 1975. He is also conductor laureate of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, where he served as music director from 2003-11. In 2018 he will assume artistic directorship at Grafenegg, Austria. Mr. Botstein also has an active career as a guest conductor with orchestras around the globe, and has made numerous recordings, as well as being a prolific author and music historian. He is the recipient of numerous honors for his contributions to the music industry.
For more information, please visit americansymphonyorchestra.org.
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