Beethoven and Stravinsky In Symphony Hall
Friday, February 5, 2016, 8pm
The Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra will perform Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, “Eroica” and Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring on Friday, February 5, 2016 at 8:00pm, conducted by Benjamin Zander. The performance will take place in Symphony Hall, 301 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston.
Tickets for the performance range from $15 to $50 with $10 tickets available for students and are available online at www.bostonphil.org, by calling the Boston Philharmonic Offices at (617) 236-0999 Monday-Friday 9:00 a.m.- 5:00 p.m., or at the Symphony Hall Box Office.
The two works on this program are among the most famous great works ever written. There is no doubt that Beethoven’s epochal “Eroica” Symphony changed music forever. With its premiere in 1805, it heralded a bold new musical language and a whole new stance of the composer towards his audience. Beethoven dictated the terms, made the rules – the tastes and preferences of the audience and the convenience or ego of the performer were no longer to be taken into account. Everything about this symphony is unprecedented: its size, its range of expression, its harmonic audacity, its political and philosophical implications, its demands on the orchestra and on the conductor. In these performances the attempt will be to recapture the extraordinary newness, the now-ness, of this pinnacle of the symphonic repertoire.
Stravinsky’s shockingly powerful The Rite of Spring is probably the most famous piece of music composed in the twentieth century. Written for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes 1913 Paris season, it is a kaleidoscope of vivid orchestral colors, powerful, complex rhythms, stunningly gorgeous harmonies, and brief, powerful melodies that sear their way under your skin. The music eventually achieved greater recognition than the choreography, and the piece is acclaimed as a masterpiece. The Rite of Spring caused a riot at its first performance; thankfully those days are over, and today its every performance is greeted with praise and enthusiasm.
Benjamin Zander is the conductor of The Boston Philharmonic Orchestra and the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra and a guest conductor around the world. With London’s famed Philharmonia Orchestra he is recording the complete cycle of Mahler symphonies, recordings that have been received with extraordinary critical acclaim both for the performance and Zander’s now famous full-length disc explaining the music for the lay listener. Their recordings of Mahler 9th and Bruckner’s 5th Symphony were nominated for Grammys for Best Orchestral Performance. Their latest recording, Mahler’s 2nd Symphony, was nominated for a Grammy in 2014.
In 1967, Mr. Zander joined the faculty at New England Conservatory, where he taught an interpretation class, conducted the Youth Philharmonic Orchestra, and conducted the conservatory orchestras. For 30 years he was the Artistic Director of the joint program between New England Conservatory’s Preparatory School and The Walnut Hill School for the Performing Arts in Natick, Massachusetts.
Mr. Zander is one of the most sought after speakers in the world. He has given both the opening and the closing Keynote address at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where on another occasion he was awarded the Crystal award for “outstanding contributions in the Arts and international relations”. In 2002 he was awarded the “Caring Citizen of the Humanities” Award by the International Council for Caring Communities at the United Nations. In honor of his 70th birthday, and 45 years of teaching, he was recently awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the New England Conservatory. His partner Rosamund Zander and he have collaborated on a best-selling book, “The Art of Possibility” which has been translated into fifteen languages.
About the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra:
Formed in 2012, the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra has already established itself as a significant feature in the cultural and educational fabric of Boston and beyond. In addition to the tour of Europe this past June, the orchestra gave a Carnegie Hall concert two years ago that was acclaimed in the pages of The New York Times, and also undertook a major tour of the Netherlands, capped by a triumphant performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw.
The 112 members of the BPYO range in age from 12 to 21, and are chosen through a highly-selective audition process. They reside or attend school throughout New England, and come together on Saturday afternoons for sectionals and full orchestra rehearsals at the Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology, in Boston’s South End.
