Boston Symphony to present an array of premieres in 2022-23 season

April 21, 2022 at 12:29 pm

By Aaron Keebaugh

Andris Nelsons will open the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s 2022-23 season on September 22. Photo: Winslow Townson

The Boston Symphony Orchestra’s 2022-2023 season will showcase a host of world and American premieres, a music festival dedicated to “social change,” and the culmination of the multi-season survey of Shostakovich’s symphonies.

Music director Andris Nelsons will open the season September 22 with John Williams’s A Toast! and Holst’s The Planets. Pianist Awadagin Pratt will make his BSO debut performing Bach’s Piano Concerto in A major.

Headlining the new music offerings will be the local premiere of Julia Wolfe’s Her Story, a BSO co-commission that will feature the Lorelei Ensemble and orchestra under Giancarlo Guerrero’s direction (March 16-18, 2023). Osvaldo Golijov’s Falling out of Time will involve a semi-staged production co-sponsored with the Celebrity Series on April 30, spotlighting vocalists Biella da Costa and Nora Fischer. Omer Meir Wellber will conduct the American premiere of Ella Milch-Sheriff’s The Eternal Stranger for narrator and orchestra in concerts January 5-7. Alan Gilbert returns to Symphony Hall January 12-14 with the world premiere of Justin Dello Joio’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, with pianist Garrick Ohlsson.

The BSO will also present “Voices of Loss, Reckoning, and Hope,” a three-week festival running March 3-18 that will explore American works with a social theme. The festival will include performances of Uri Cane’s The Passion of Octavius Catto; Anthony Davis’s You Have the Right to Remain Silent, featuring clarinetist Anthony McGill; Margaret Bonds’s Montgomery Variations; and William Levi Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony, led by Thomas Wilkins.

The multi-year Shostakovich project will conclude with Andris Nelsons leading the composer’s Symphony No. 3, “The First of May” (October 6-8) and Symphony No. 13, “Babi Yar” (May 4-6). Pianist Yuja Wang performs both of Shostakovich’s piano concertos under Nelsons’ direction (September 29-October 1).

Nelsons will also lead Mahler’s Symphony No. 6 (October 20-22), performances of new works by Iman Habibi and Elizabeth Ogonek (September 29-October 1 and October 6-8 respectively), the world premiere of Steven Mackey’s Concerto for Orchestra (January 26 and 28), and the American premieres of Thierry Escaich’s Cello Concerto, featuring Gautier Capuçon (April 13-15), and Thomas Adès’s Air, with violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter (April 20-22).

Concert opera returns next season with Nelsons conducting Act III of Tannhäuser as part of an all-Wagner program, with a cast of Amber Wagner, Klaus Florian Vogt, and Christian Gerhaher (February 2 and 4, 2023).

Podium guests include conductor Karina Canellakis, who makes her Symphony Hall debut with music by Dvořák, Szymanowski, and Lutosławksi (January 19-21). Lahav Shani conducts Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, and Khachaturian’s Piano Concerto with soloist Jean-Yves Thibaudet (February 16-18). Andrés Orozco-Estrada makes his BSO debut leading music by Tchaikovsky, Bartók, Enescu, and Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 18, featuring Emanuel Ax (October 13-15).

Thomas Adès will return to lead Stravinsky’s Perséphone and his own Suite from Inferno and Paradiso (March 23-25).

BSO assistant conductor Anna Rakitina leads a program of Langer, Rachmaninoff, and Mussorgsky (November 25 and 26). Assistant conductor Earl Lee will conduct Unsuk Chin’s subito con forza, Schumann’s Symphony No. 2, and Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20, with Eric Lu as soloist (April 6-8).

Other soloists to appear next season include Lang Lang in Saint-Saens’s Piano Concerto No. 2 (September 24), cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason in Ernest Bloch’s Schelomo (February 9-12), and pianist Seong-Jin Cho in Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G (April 28-29, 2023). Violinists scheduled to appear include Augustin Hadelich (May 4-6, 2023), Janine Jansen (October 6-8), and Baiba Skride (January 26-28).

Subscription renewals are now on sale. Single tickets go on sale August 8. bso.org

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