Music Director Gianandrea Noseda Opens The NSO's 2018-2019 Season

NSO Music Director Gianandrea Noseda leads the Orchestra on a journey exploring the link between image and sound. Three performances-Thursday, September 27, at 7 p.m.; Friday, September 28, at 8 p.m.; and Saturday, September 29, at 8 p.m.-at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall include Sergei Rachmaninoff's The Isle of the Dead; Ottorino Respighi's Trittico Botticelliano; and Maurice Ravel's orchestration of Modest Musorgsky's Pictures from an Exhibition, originally composed for piano.

The program opens with Sergei Rachmaninoff's haunting tone poem The Isle of the Dead, inspired by Swiss symbolist Arnold Böcklin's painting of the same name. After seeing a black and white reproduction of the painting in Paris in 1907, Rachmaninoff was moved to capture the mysterious image of death in symphonic form.

Ottorino Respighi pays homage to his native Italy and the incomparable art of Sandro Botticelli in his Trittico Botticelliano. The three-movement suite includes orchestral representations of three of Botticelli's paintings: La Primavera, Adoration of the Magi, and most famously, Birth of Venus.

Closing the program is perhaps the most iconic of symphonic works representing visual art: Modest Musorgsky's Pictures from an Exhibition, composed as a memorial to his friend, artist Viktor Hartmann. The work, orchestrated by Maurice Ravel, has musical depictions of 10 drawings and paintings by Hartmann, with the recurring "Promenade" theme representing the composer himself strolling through the gallery.

PROGRAM DETAILS

Thursday, September 27, at 7 p.m.

Friday, September 28, at 11:30 a.m.

Saturday, September 29, at 8 p.m.

National Symphony Orchestra

Gianandrea Noseda, conductor

RACHMANINOFF The Isle of the Dead

RESPIGHI Trittico Botticelliano

MUSORGSKY/RAVEL Pictures from an Exhibition

Tickets: $15-$89. Free to all ticketholders, an Afterwords conversation with the artists takes place immediately following the September 27 performance. A free Forewords preconcert talk takes place 75 minutes prior to the performances on September 28 and 29.

The 2018-2019 season marks the National Symphony Orchestra's 88th, and Gianandrea Noseda's second as its music director. The Italian conductor serves as the Orchestra's seventh music director, joining the NSO's legacy of such distinguished leaders. Its artistic leadership also includes Principal Pops Conductor Steven Reineke and Artistic Advisor Ben Folds.

Founded in 1931, the Orchestra has always been committed to artistic excellence and music education. In 1986, the National Symphony became an artistic affiliate of The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, where it performs year-round. The NSO's community engagement projects are nationally recognized, including NSO In Your Neighborhood, an annual week of approximately 50 performances in schools, churches, community centers, and other unexpected venues; Notes of Honor, which offers free performances for active, veteran, prior service, and retired members of the military and their families; and Sound Health, a collaboration with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and its affiliated organizations. Career development opportunities for young musicians include the NSO Youth Fellowship Program and its tuition-free Summer Music Institute. For more information, visit nationalsymphony.org.

Gianandrea Noseda is one of the world's most sought-after conductors, equally recognized for his artistry in both the concert hall and opera house. He was named the National Symphony Orchestra's seventh music director in January 2016 and began his four-year term with the 2017-2018 season. He leads 12 weeks of subscription concerts with the Orchestra this season, as well as their first appearance together at Carnegie Hall in New York in May 2019.

In addition to his position with the NSO, Noseda also serves as Principal Guest Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra and Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Principal Conductor of the Orquestra de Cadaqués, and Artistic Director of the Stresa Festival in Italy. In July 2018, the Zurich Opera House appointed him the next General Music Director beginning in the 2021-2022 season where the centerpiece of his tenure will be a new Ring Cycle directed by Andreas Homoki, the opera house's artistic director.

Nurturing the next generation of artists is important to Noseda, as evidenced by his ongoing work in masterclasses and tours with youth orchestras, including the European Union Youth Orchestra, and with his recent appointment as music director of the newly-created Tsinandali Festival and Pan-Caucasian Youth Orchestra in the village of Tsinandali, Georgia, which begins in 2019.

Noseda has conducted the most important orchestras and at leading opera houses and festivals including the Berlin Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, La Scala, Munich Philharmonic, Met Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, NHK Symphony, Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre National de France, Philadelphia Orchestra, Royal Opera House, Salzburg Festival, Vienna Philharmonic, Vienna Symphony, and Zurich Opera House. From 2007 until 2018, Noseda served as Music Director of Italy's Teatro Regio Torino where he ushered in a transformative era for the company matched with international acclaim for its productions, tours, recordings, and film projects.

Gianandrea Noseda also has a cherished relationship with the Metropolitan Opera dating back to 2002. He returns this season to lead performances of a new production of Adriana Lecouvreur featuring Anna Netrebko, which receives its premiere at the New Year's Eve Gala on December 31, 2018. In recent years, he has conducted Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, which received its premiere at the New Year's Eve Gala in 2016, and a critically acclaimed new production of Les pêcheurs de perles which premiered at the New Year's Eve Gala in 2015. His widely praised interpretation of Prince Igor from the 2013-2014 season is available on DVD from Deutsche Grammophon.

The institutions where he has had significant roles include the BBC Philharmonic which he led from 2002-2011; the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, where the Victor de Sabata Chair was created for him as principal guest conductor from 2010-2014; and the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, which appointed him its first-ever foreign principal guest conductor in 1997, a position he held for a decade. He was Principal Guest Conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic from 1999 to 2003 and Principal Guest Conductor of the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI from 2003 to 2006.

Noseda's intense recording activity counts more than 60 CDs, many of which have been celebrated by critics and received awards. His Musica Italiana project, which he initiated more than ten years ago, has chronicled under-appreciated Italian repertoire of the 20th century and brought to light many masterpieces. Conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and the Orchestra Teatro Regio Torino, he has also recorded opera albums with celebrated vocalists such as Ildebrando D'Arcangelo, Rolando Villazon, Anna Netrebko, and Diana Damrau.

A native of Milan, Noseda is Cavaliere Ufficiale al Merito della Repubblica Italiana, marking his contribution to the artistic life of Italy. In 2015, he was honored as Musical America's Conductor of the Year, and was named the 2016 International Opera Awards Conductor of the Year. In December 2016 he was privileged to conduct the Nobel Prize Concert in Stockholm.

Tickets ($15-$89) are available at the Kennedy Center Box Office, online at kennedy-center.org, and via phone through Instant Charge, (202) 467-4700; toll-free at (800) 444-1324. For all other ticket-related customer service inquires, call the Advance Sales Box Office at (202) 416-8540.

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