The Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra Performs Free Concert In Symphony Hall
The Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra will perform a concert which is free and open to the public on Monday, November 2, 2015 at 7:30pm, conducted by Benjamin Zander. The performance will take place in Symphony Hall, 301 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston.
Tickets for the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra are free and open to the public, and are general admission.
The Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra (BPYO) opens their fourth season with a concert which is free and open to the public thanks to the ‘Free For All Concert Fund’ on November 2, 2015 at 7:30pm in Symphony Hall. The Free for All Concert Fund, a grant-making public charity, ensures that all people from the Boston region — children, adults, families — have regular and permanent access to the rich world of classical orchestral music and related cultural events.
The November 2 program consists of Glinka’s Overture to Ruslan and Ludmila, Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto with violinist Ayano Ninomiya, Debussy’s La mer, and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5.
Benjamin Zander has said, “This is the first concert of the BPYO since their extraordinary tour last June of seven major cities in Germany, Switzerland and the Czech Republic. That tour, that elicited thunderous, prolonged standing ovations in many of Europe’s most prestigious concert halls, really put the BPYO on the map, so to speak. And the last time we performed in Boston, last April, was a performance of the complete third act of Wagner’s Siegfried, a concert that had even our world-renowned soloists almost speechless with amazement. For our return to Symphony Hall we have put together a program rich in contrasts, from the verve of Ruslan and Ludmila to the wit and surprising pathos of Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto, then the iridescent, infinite variety of La mer, and finally the rich, dramatic spiritual journey of the Tchaikovsky Fifth, from the depths of depression to a pinnacle of exaltation. This is a program for absolutely everybody – and it’s FREE, to boot!”
Violinist Ayano Ninomiya is the winner of numerous prizes including the Walter Naumburg International Competition, Tibor Varga International Competition, Astral Artists National Auditions, Young Performers Career Advancement, and Lili Boulanger awards. Ayano’s recent performances have included recitals and solos at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., at Lincoln Center (NYC), in the U.K., and a TEDx talk at the University of Tokyo. Following her debut recital at Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, she has performed with orchestras across the U.S. and in Switzerland and Bulgaria and has been featured in major halls in Vienna, Paris, Lucerne, Copenhagen, Barcelona, Melbourne, Beijing, and Tokyo, among others. She has performed at the Marlboro, Ravinia, Moab, Bowdoin, Skaneateles, Adams (New Zealand), Canberra International (Australia), and Prussia Cove (England) festivals, and has been featured on Musicians from Marlboro Festival tours on the west and east coast of the U.S. and France. She was first violinist of the Ying Quartet and Associate Professor at the Eastman School of Music from 2010-2015. In the fall of 2015 she joined the faculty of the New England Conservatory of Music. As a recipient of the Beebe Fellowship, Ayano studied in Budapest at the Liszt Academy after graduating from Harvard University and The Juilliard School. She is also a passionate watercolor artist and aikidoka.
The November concert is the first performance the orchestra will give since its triumphant European summer tour. Their critically acclaimed performances in Prague, Berlin, Berne, Basel, and Lucerne featured 120 players and 15 adults on a 17-day tuition free tour. The eight orchestral concerts in three countries featured Shostakovich’s Festive Orchestra, Dvořák’s Cello Concerto with soloist Natalia Gutman, Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra, Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro Overture, Schoenberg’s Five Pieces for Orchestra, Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe Suite #2, and Strauss: Don Quixote with cellist Jonah Ellsworth and violist Gerald Karni. Of the daunting European program, Neue Luzerne Zeitung wrote, “If you close your eyes you could think you were listening to the London Symphony Orchestra or the Seoul Philharmonic.”
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.
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