The BSO Celebrates the Inaugural Season of their new Music Director, Andris Nelsons!

In his first season as BSO Music Director,35 year-old Latvian-born Andris Nelsons leads ten programs at Symphony Hall. The Maestro’s first concert, September 27, was a one-night-only event featuring the works of Wagner and Respighi with his wife soprano Kristine Opolais and tenor Jonas Kaufmann as soloists, for an evening to be remembered for years to come.

Maestro Nelsons returns in November, for his second group of programs, joining forces with several longtime collaborators for music with a Scandinavian and Slavic accent including works of Sibelius, Tchaikovsky, and Rachmaninoff, plus the world premiere of a BSO commission for chorus and orchestra from the conductor’s compatriot, Latvian composer Ēriks Ešenvalds.

The program November 6-11, features acclaimed Latvian violinist Baiba Skride as soloist in Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina’s Offertorium—a piece recorded by the BSO in 1988 and considered one of the most important 20th-century concertos for the instrument. Closing the concert is Finnish composer Jean Sibelius’s Second Symphony, a work of remarkably pastoral temperament that remains one of his most beloved works.

For performances November 13-18, Andris Nelsons is joined by close collaborator the masterful Swedish trumpet virtuoso Håkan Hardenberger, for the American premiere of Brett Dean’s trumpet concerto Dramatis personae which was written for Hardenberger. Stravinsky’s groundbreaking, still-thrilling ballet score The Rite of Spring, an orchestral tour de force, closes these concerts.

Andris Nelsons demonstrates his thoughtful, adventurous programming with a wide-range of works November 20-22. He and the BSO are joined by cellist Yo-Yo Ma for Prokofiev’s Symphony-Concerto for cello and orchestra, whose title suggests the symphonic nature of the score. Nelsons also leads the BSO’s first world premiere and BSO commission of the season, a new work for chorus and orchestra by the conductor’s Latvian compatriot Eriks Ešenvalds. Opening the program is John Harbison’s choral scherzo Koussevitzky Said:. Written for the 75th anniversary of Tanglewood and premiered there in 2012, this short piece sets words about music by the BSO’s great former music director, Serge Koussevitzky. Setting Konstantin Balmont’s Russian translation of Edgar Allan Poe’s poem The Bells, Rachmaninoff’s work for vocal soloists, chorus, and orchestra is considered one of his highest achievements.

The BSO is looking forward to these amazing performances in November, as well as many more to come later in the season. For a complete season schedule, go to www.bso.org.