With the recent announcement of its 2009-10 season, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra has set the stage for a marvelous musical journey. Let’s take a look:
MILESTONES
2009-10 marks the Orchestra’s 65th anniversary season, the ASO Chorus’s 39th and the Youth Orchestra’s 35th. The Creative Partnership of Music Director Robert Spano and Principal Guest Conductor Donald Runnicles enters an unprecedented 9th season.
NEW TERRITORY
Robert Spano and the ASO will perform five world premieres during the 2009-10 season, three of which are ASO commissions:
Jennifer Higdon is writing an innovative “Concerto” for chamber group and orchestra, featuring the unique sextet of performers called eighth blackbird.
Michael Gandolfi (composer of the ASO’s acclaimed Garden of Cosmic Speculation) is penning a new choral/orchestral work, featuring the ASO Chorus.
Jazz great Wynton Marsalis unveils his highly anticipated first purely orchestral work, an “American Symphony,” which explores American musical styles in a symphonic context.
The other two ASO world premieres are by:
Twenty-nine year old Chinese-American composer Angel Lam, who premieres her new Cello Concerto with superstar soloist Yo-Yo Ma.
Acclaimed pianist Dejan Lazic, who in the tradition of J. S. Bach, Beethoven and others, transforms Brahms’s familiar (and as some have claimed, pianistic) Violin Concerto into a new Piano Concerto.
EXCITEMENT AT THE HELM
“One of my greatest joys in life is working with the ASO,” said Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Music Director Robert Spano. “It is especially thrilling to be performing five new works this season: two from our good friends Jennifer Higdon and Michael Gandolfi, and three from new voices to be heard at Symphony Hall — Wynton Marsalis’s first purely orchestral work, Angel Lam’s new concerto for Yo-Yo Ma and Dejan Lazic’s fresh, personal perspective on Brahms’s Violin Concerto. Our engagement with these dynamic creative musical minds is a great inspiration.”
NAMES ALONG THE WAY
Some of the notable guest artists to grace the Symphony Hall stage in 2009/10 include:
- Pianists Lang Lang, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Jon Kimura Parker, Garrick Ohlsson, Olli Mustonen and Robert Levin.
- Violinists Midori, Leila Josefowicz and Vadim Repin
- Vocalists Sopranos Angela Brown, Jessica Rivera and Celena Shafer; Mezzo-Sopranos Kelley O’Connor and Ruxandra Denose;
- Tenor Thomas Glenn; Baritone Matthew Worth; and Bass Denis Sedov.
- Conductors Roberto Abbado, Oliver Knussen, Kristjan Järvi, and more.
FAMILIAR FACES/SPACES
The 2009-10 season features artists and works dear to Atlantans, such as soprano Sylvia McNair, who will celebrate New Year’s Eve with the ASO; Verdi’s monumental Requiem — a musical calling card of the ASO Chorus (which also marks a reprise of their first collaboration with Music Director Robert Spano); and the annual Robert Shaw-inspired traditional holiday offering of Christmas with the ASO.
GREAT WALL
On October 15 and 16, Robert Spano will lead a Chinese-themed ASO “Theater of a Concert” — the first half will feature the world premiere of Angel Lam’s Cello Concerto with Yo-Yo Ma; the second half, a dramatic presentation of Stravinsky’s exotic opera The Nightingale, with Stage Director James Alexander (the ASO’s La Bohème); the ASO Chamber Chorus; and a distinguished cast of singers.
CARNEGIE’S “HALL”
The ASO has the distinct honor of being invited as a special guest to open Carnegie Hall’s 2009 Chinese Festival on November 7 with the very Stravinsky/Lam concert that Atlanta audiences will have enjoyed a month earlier.
BERLIN’S WALL(S)
In addition to the highly anticipated ASO performances of the Brahms German Requiem with Principal Guest Conductor Donald Runnicles on October 29 and 30, the ASO Chorus (under the leadership of Norman Mackenzie) has a unique honor — their third invitation to return to Berlin, where in late December they will rejoin Maestro Runnicles to perform the Brahms with the Berlin Philharmonic in the resplendent Philharmonie concert hall.
FINALES
Robert Spano and the ASO celebrate the end of Mozart’s symphonic journey in a two weekend-long springtime performance of the master’s last three symphonies. And culminating the season, the ASO will host two high-profile American musical leadership organizations in their combined national conferences: the League of American Orchestras and Chorus America. The convention also will kick off the ninth anniversary of the “Atlanta School” of composers, featuring the music of Christopher Theofanidis, Osvaldo Golijov and new works by Michael Gandolfi and Jennifer Higdon.
NEW VERIZONS
To jump-start the new season, a 2009 summer full of great music is planned at the ASO’s glorious new outdoor venue, Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre at Encore Park in Alpharetta. On June 20, Robert Spano will lead the ASO in a double bill of Rossini’s Barber of Seville (excerpts) and Orff’s popular Carmina burana. Summer at Verizon also includes all-Mozart and all-Beethoven concerts; Holst’s Planets with NASA footage; 16-year-old wunderkind conductor Ilyich Rivas’s U.S. debut; a “Yankee Doodle Dandy” musical extravaganza on July 4th; and a Rodgers and Hammerstein evening hosted by Turner Classic Movies’ Robert Osborne.
POPS-POURRI
Krajewski! The word spells entertainment with a capital K next season at nsoro SuperPOPS! as conductor Michael Krajewski, who has his own theme song, sings and dances and captivates audiences. Guests include composer-arranger-singer Marvin Hamlisch, celebrating his 65th birthday with a hit-after-hit walk down Broadway; Michael Feinstein, who performs his new album, “The Sinatra Project”; the amazing Cirque de la Symphonie, back by popular demand; and the nsoro SuperPOPS! debut of Krajewski’s signature celebration, A Very Merry Holiday Pops.
“AWE-ROBICS”
During last month’s live ASO Web cast of the new season announcement, Donald Runnicles spoke of the joy of “deepening our bewilderment” through artistic endeavors. For this writer, it brought to mind Lily Tomlin’s wacky Bag Lady character, who used to speak to aliens from outer space. She would explain to them that the reason humans went to the theater and concert hall was to participate in “awe”-robics. Indeed, with Maestros Runnicles and Spano at the helm, Atlanta will experience many minutes of awe as the ASO sails forth into 2009-10.
