Lincoln Center Announces 2019/20 Great Performers Season

Jane Moss, Lincoln Center's Ehrenkranz Artistic Director, has announced details of Lincoln Center's 54th Great Performers series. Since its inception, the series has showcased many of the world's most accomplished and inspirational musicians in the concert halls and performance spaces that span the Lincoln Center campus. The 2019/20 season features an array of the most prominent and beloved musicians of our time as well as up-and-coming artists bursting onto the scene: distinguished vocalists and illustrious instrumental soloists; acclaimed period-instrument orchestras, esteemed choral groups and renowned chamber ensembles; and virtuosic orchestras and their extraordinary conductors.

Highlights of the season include the very first opportunity in New York to hear dramatic soprano Christine Goerke singing Isolde in Act II of Tristan und Isolde; Gustavo Dudamel in back-to-back concerts featuring Bruckner's Fourth Symphony and the New York premiere of the new piano concerto John Adams wrote for Yuja Wang, Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes?; mezzo-soprano Susan Graham's return to Alice Tully Hall; Daniil Trifonov in an all-Bach recital; the complete Bart k quartets paired with Beethoven by the Emerson String Quartet; Simon Rattle conducting Bart k's Bluebeard's Castle and Mahler's Fourth Symphony with the London Symphony Orchestra; Simon Rattle as pianist in an evening of song with mezzo-soprano Magdalena Ko en and friends; and Jeremy Denk performing Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I.

Visits from two renowned chamber orchestras feature premieres that use centuries-old masterworks as their influence. The Britten Sinfonia and The Sixteen, with conductor Harry Christophers, present the North American premiere of James MacMillan's Stabat Mater, a new take on the timeless hymn text depicting Mary weeping at the cross. And The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and their artistic partner Pekka Kuusisto bring Anders Hillborg's Bach Materia, based on the Brandenburg Concerto No. 3.

Several artists have curated programs in 2019/20 that delve deeply into the hearts and minds of a sole composer, offering audiences a fascinating and intensive glimpse into the creative process. Two of Bach's most introspective and seminal piano works figure prominently in the season: at the outset, phenom Kit Armstrong takes a turn at the Goldberg Variations, and toward the end, the ever-inventive and introspective Jeremy Denk reflects upon The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I. Other single-composer-focused programs include:

• Christian Gerhaher and Gerold Huber open Great Performers with an all-Mahler program: Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, Lieder aus Des Knaben Wunderhorn, and Kindertotelnieder;

• Harry Christophers with the Britten Sinfonia and The Sixteen perform the North American premieres of the Stabat Mater and the Miserere of the profoundly devout James MacMillan, the preeminent Scottish composer;

• Three all-Beethoven programs: the first with Isabelle Faust, who explores the composer's early work with the first three violin sonatas; the second with Steven Osborne, who, in contrast, probes late Beethoven with the final three piano sonatas; and baritone Matthias Goerne and pianist Jan Lisiecki present an evening of song including An die ferne Geliebte, the cycle considered by many to be connected to the Immortal Beloved letters;

• Iv n Fischer and his Budapest Festival Orchestra present consecutive concerts from two Bohemian composers who were not only geographically aligned, but contemporaries. An all-Dvo k program features the violin concerto with soloist Renaud Capu on, paired with the Eighth Symphony; and an all-Mahler program with Kindertotenlieder and contralto Gerhild Romberger in her New York debut is followed by the monumental Symphony No. 5;

• Daniil Trifonov performs all-Bach: The Art of Fugue and Bach arrangements and transcriptions by Brahms, Rachmaninoff, and Liszt;

• Gianandrea Noseda, in his first Lincoln Center appearance as the National Symphony Orchestra's music director, welcomes an all-star cast for a concert performance of Act II of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, with Stephen Gould and Christine Goerke in the title roles;

• The London Symphony Orchestra and Simon Rattle present an all-Bart k program, with the Concerto for Orchestra setting the stage for the harrowing one-act opera Bluebeard's Castle;

• Bruckner's Symphony No. 4, Romantic, is the focus of the first of two concerts given by the Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic;

• The Attacca Quartet and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw join forces for a concert of her chamber music in which Shaw performs as vocalist and guest violist.

The esteemed Emerson String Quartet, known for offering thoughtful programs comparing and contrasting pairs of composers, offers a three-concert series at Alice Tully Hall, juxtaposing all six of Bart k's string quartets with Beethoven's three Razumovsky quartets. Additional highlights of the season include the series Mahler on Film, pre-concert lectures, and a wide range of recitals and concerts from established luminaries to rising stars presented in David Geffen Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the Walter Reade Theater, and the David Rubenstein Atrium.

Great Performers offers a diverse range of classical music programs, from the vast landscape of a Mahler symphony to the intimacy of the late Beethoven piano sonatas, says Jane Moss. We are especially pleased that wonderful artists such as Simon Rattle and the London Symphony Orchestra, singer Susan Graham, esteemed pianist Daniil Trifonov, and the up-and-coming young conductor Lahav Shani, among many others, will be performing on our stages this season. It is certain to be a season of memorable and meaningful musical experiences for all of us.

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