Young Star Soloists Take The Stage For Boston Symphony Orchestra Debuts This February 

This February, the Boston Symphony Orchestra welcomes two young superstar soloists who will make their BSO debuts: Randall Goosby playing Max Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1 with BSO Music Director Andris Nelsons (Feb. 2 & 3) and Yunchan Lim performing Sergei Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 with guest conductor Tugan Sokhiev (Feb. 15–18). Both soloists first made splashes by becoming the youngest ever to win prestigious music prizes at the time of their victories: Goosby won top prize at the Sphinx Concerto Competition in 2010 and Lim won the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2022. 

 

Another February highlight is the return of internationally acclaimed American conductor Karina Canellakis (Feb. 8–10), who will lead a concert performance of Béla Bartók's chilling one-act opera Bluebeard's Castle. German bass-baritone Johannes Martin Kränzle (a BSO debut) and Scottish mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill play the cruel duke Bluebeard and his inquisitive new wife Judith as they explore Bluebeard's secretive past through seven haunting castle rooms, brought to life by Bartók's thrilling orchestration. Canellakis will also conduct Joseph Haydn's playful Cello Concerto in C with 2011 MacArthur “Genius Grant” recipient Alisa Weilerstein, performing as a soloist with the BSO for the first time since 2017.  

 

 

The last Symphony Hall program led by BSO Music Director Andris Nelsons until early April spotlights American virtuoso violinist Randall Goosby, First Prize Winner in the 2018 Young Concert Artists International Auditions (see video) as well as winner of the 2010 Sphinx Concerto Competition. Known for both his sensitive musicianship and his education and outreach work, Goosby makes his BSO debut with Max Bruch's romantic Violin Concerto No. 1, a staple of solo violin repertoire. The program opens with the overture to the 1906 opera The Wreckers by English composer and suffragist Dame Ethel Smyth and closes with Felix Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 5, Reformation, which celebrates the Protestant reformation and quotes the familiar hymn “Ein feste Burg.”  

 

Feb. 8–10: Karina Canellakis Conducts Haydn's Cello Concerto in C and a Concert Performance of Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle 

 

A 2014 graduate of the Tanglewood Music Center and chief conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, acclaimed guest conductor Karina Canellakis made her Symphony Hall with the BSO debut last year, garnering praise for her “clarity, control, and balance” (Boston Globe). She returns to conduct a concert performance of Béla Bartók's only opera, the dark psychological drama Bluebeard's Castle. Inspired by a French folktale, the one-act opera features Scottish mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill, German bass-baritone Johannes Martin Kränzle (BSO debut), and narrator Jeremiah Kissel. It will be sung in Hungarian with English supertitles. Bartók's dramatic orchestration is paired with Joseph Haydn's playful Cello Concerto in C, performed by Alisa Weilerstein, one of the foremost cellists of our time. One of Weilerstein's latest projects, “FRAGMENTS,” is a multisensory reimagining of Bach's cello suites, which she performed last summer at Tanglewood's Ozawa Hall. 

 

19-year-old South Korean star pianist Yunchan Lim makes his BSO debut playing Sergei Rachmaninoff's Concerto No. 3. Lim's now world-famous performance of the virtuosic concerto at the 2022 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition earned him a gold medal, making him the youngest gold medalist in the competition's history, and has gone viral on YouTube with more than 13.5 million views. He is joined by internationally renowned conductor Tugan Sokhiev, who is music director at the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse. Sokhiev also conducts Ernest Chausson's passionate Symphony in B-flat, a favorite of former BSO Music Director Charles Munch, composed in 1890 and last performed by the BSO in 1993.  

 

COMPLETE PROGRAM DETAILS, FEB. 2–18 

*BSO debut 

 
Friday, February 2, 1:30 p.m.^
Saturday, February 3, 8 p.m.
Andris Nelsons, conductor
Randall Goosby, violin*
SMYTH Overture to The Wreckers
BRUCH Violin Concerto No. 1
MENDELSSOHN Symphony No. 5, Reformation

 

^Friday Preview talk by former longtime BSO Director of Program Publications Marc Mandel, 12:15 p.m.

 

Thursday, February 8, 7:30 p.m.^
Friday, February 9, 1:30 p.m.
Saturday, February 10, 8 p.m
Karina Canellakis, conductor
Alisa Weilerstein, cello
Karen Cargill, mezzo-soprano
Johannes Martin Kränzle, bass-baritone*
Jeremiah Kissel, narrator
HAYDN Cello Concerto in C
BARTÓK Bluebeard's Castle  
     Concert performance; sung in Hungarian with English supertitles 

 

^Friday preview talk by scholar and writer Lucy Caplan, 12:15 p.m.

 

Thursday, February 15, 7:30 p.m.  
Friday, February 16, 1:30 p.m.
Saturday, February 17, 8 p.m.
Sunday, February 18, 2 p.m.
Tugan Sokhiev, conductor
Yunchan Lim, piano*
RACHMANINOFF Piano Concerto No. 3
CHAUSSON Symphony in B-flat 

 

Tickets for the 2023–24 BSO season on sale through bso.org, or by calling 888-266-1200, or by visiting the Symphony Hall Box Office. Visit our website to learn more about the BSO, including special ticket opportunities and dining options.

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