THE ORCHESTRA NOW to Present Gershwin and Jewish Émigré Composers

The Orchestra Now (TŌN), the orchestra and master's degree program founded by Bard College, welcomes back conductor JoAnn Falletta, Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra (BPO), for her fifth appearance with TŌN on Tuesday, November 17 at 7 pm at Carnegie Hall.

The program compares the musical styles of five Jewish composers—many of whom were Eastern European émigrés to the U.S.—writing during the explosive rise of the Jazz Age. In addition to Gershwin's An American in Paris and the NYC premiere of Saminsky's Vigiliae, the program also offers the first NYC performance since 1930 of Gruenberg's Jazz Suite, and the first NYC performance since 1928 of Toch's Comedy for Orchestra.

The soloist in the NYC premiere of Waghalter's concerto is Chinese-born violinist Mira Wang, a Sony Classical recording artist, director of Germany's Moritzburg Festival Academy, and a first-prize winner in the Geneva International Violin Competition.

TŌN will next perform a free concert with NYC's All-City High School Orchestra at the Julia Richman Educational Complex on the Upper East Side on Sunday, December 20 at 3 pm. The program includes popular works from film and television, and features Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto, performed by Spanish violinist Francisco Fullana.

Gershwin, Jazz, and the Music of Jewish Emigrés

Tuesday, November 17, 2026, at 7 pm

Carnegie Hall, Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage

JoAnn Falletta, conductor

Mira Wang, violin

Louis Gruenberg: Jazz Suite, Op. 28 (First NYC performance since 1930)

Ignatz Waghalter: Violin Concerto in A Major, Op. 15 (NYC premiere)

Lazare Saminsky: Vigiliae, Triad of Poems, Op. 4 (NYC premiere)

Ernst Toch: Comedy for Orchestra in One Movement, Op. 42 (First NYC performance since 1928)

George Gershwin: An American in Paris

Multiple Grammy Award-winning conductor JoAnn Falletta, recognized by Gramophone Magazine as among the 'Fifty Great Conductors' of all time, leads this program. She is the first woman music director of a major American orchestra.

Written pre-WWI, Ignatz Waghalter's Violin Concerto exemplifies the European style before jazz took hold, while Lazare Saminsky, who was critical of the new musical form, gave us the mystical triad Vigiliae. The soloist is internationally acclaimed violinist Mira Wang, who is an Artist in Residence at the Bard Conservatory of Music.

Composed at the height of the Roaring Twenties in Germany, Ernst Toch's Comedy for Orchestra in One Movement incorporates a rhythmic pulse representing the impact jazz had on the European avant-garde. Louis Gruenberg's 1925 Jazz Suite demonstrates the marriage of jazz with traditional classical form, which reached its pinnacle with George Gershwin's An American in Paris, an American who captured the energy of Europe through a jazz-colored lens.

Tickets, priced at $25-$50, are available at carnegiehall.org, by calling 212.247.7800, or at the Carnegie Hall box office at 57th & 7th Avenue.

The Orchestra Now

Founded in 2015 by Bard College, The Orchestra Now (TŌN) is a graduate program of Bard College that trains the next generation of music professionals to become creative ambassadors of classical music. TŌN offers accomplished young musicians a full-tuition fellowship toward a master's degree in curatorial, critical, and performance studies or an advanced certificate in orchestra studies. TŌN's innovative curriculum combines rehearsal, performance, recording, and touring with seminars, masterclasses, professional development workshops, teaching, and more.

The members of the Orchestra are graduates of the world's leading conservatories, and hail from countries across North and South America, Europe, and Asia. Many have gone on to careers in the Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boston, Vancouver, and National symphony orchestras; Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Colombia; the United States military bands; and many others. In the 2026-27 season, the Orchestra welcomes 24 new members, for a total of 64 musicians from 16 countries around the globe.

TŌN performs dozens of concerts a year at venues including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and the Fisher Center at Bard. Specializing in both familiar and rarely heard repertoire, the Orchestra has given numerous New York, U.S., and world premieres, and performed the work of living composers including Joan Tower and Tania León. In May 2025, TŌN performed two concerts in Koblenz and Nuremberg, Germany marking 80 years since the surrender of Nazi Germany. In 2023, TŌN appeared with Bradley Cooper in the Academy Award-nominated film Maestro, and was featured on the Grammy-winning Deutsche Grammophon soundtrack, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. The Orchestra has performed with many other distinguished guest conductors and soloists, including Leonard Slatkin, Gil Shaham, Neeme Järvi, Stephanie Blythe, Fabio Luisi, Vadim Repin, Peter Serkin, Tan Dun, and JoAnn Falletta.

TŌN has released several albums on the Hyperion, Sorel Classics, and AVIE labels. Fall 2025 releases include Premieres with violinist Gil Shaham and Transcription as Translation. Other highlights include 2024's The Lost Generation and Exodus, and rare recordings of Othmar Schoeck's Lebendig begraben and Bristow's Arcadian Symphony. Recordings of TŌN's live concerts from the Fisher Center can be heard regularly on Classical WMHT-FM and WWFM The Classical Network, and the Orchestra has appeared more than 100 times on Performance Today, broadcast nationwide. For detailed information about The Orchestra Now, visit ton.bard.edu.

JoAnn Falletta

Multiple Grammy Award-winning conductor JoAnn Falletta is music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic, music director laureate of the Virginia Symphony, principal guest conductor and artistic advisor of the Omaha Symphony, principal guest conductor of the Brevard Music Center, and conductor laureate of the Hawaii Symphony. She is recognized by Gramophone Magazine as one of the 'Fifty Great Conductors' of all time, and by ASCAP as 'a leading force for music of our time'.

As music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic, Falletta became the first woman to lead a major American orchestra. She has overseen one of the orchestra's most productive recording and touring eras, bringing the Philharmonic to an unprecedented level of national and international prominence. The BPO is ranked as one of the top five orchestras of CD releases on international labels. With a discography of over 135 titles, Falletta has won two individual Grammy Awards for Richard Danielpour's The Passion of Yeshua with the BPO and the music of Kenneth Fuchs with the London Symphony, and was the conductor on the BPO's double Grammy Award-winning album of John Corigliano's Mr. Tambourine Man. She was also nominated for four additional Grammys, including two for Best Orchestral Performance.

Falletta's guest conducting career has taken her to the world's leading orchestras, including over 100 orchestras in North America across 48 states, Canada, and Mexico. Internationally, she has conducted many of the most prominent orchestras in Europe, Asia, and South America. She has conducted over 1,700 orchestral works by 650 composers with 200 premieres, including over 135 works by more than 70 women composers.

Falletta is a member of the esteemed American Academy of Arts and Sciences, has served by presidential appointment as a member of the National Council on the Arts, and is the recipient of many of the most prestigious conducting awards. Falletta has held the positions of principal conductor of the Ulster Orchestra, principal guest conductor of the Phoenix Symphony, music director of the Long Beach Symphony Orchestra, associate conductor of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, and music director of the Denver Chamber Orchestra and The Women's Philharmonic. After earning her bachelor's degree at Mannes, she received master's and doctoral degrees from The Juilliard School. For more information, visit joannfalletta.com.

Photo Credit: Mira Wang by Felix Broede, JoAnn Falletta by Heather Bellini

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