LINCOLN CENTER ANNOUNCES 2017/18 GREAT PERFORMERS SERIES

 

Baroque Specialist and Beloved Conductor John Eliot Gardiner Opens Season with a Tribute to Claudio Monteverdi, the Father of Opera, With Rare Performances of the Three Surviving Operas;

Simon Rattle and the London Symphony Orchestra Explore Mahler’s Final Three Symphonic Works

 

Other Highlights Include an Esa-Pekka Salonen NY Premiere; Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic;

 “Missa Solemnis” with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra and Swedish Radio Choir

 

Performances by Violinist Christian Tetzlaff; Cellist Sol Gabetta; Pianists Richard Goode and

Garrick Ohlsson; the Emerson String Quartet; and  

Singers Simon Keenlyside, Mark Padmore, and Gerald Finley

 

Academy of St. Martin in the Fields with Joshua Bell;

Bach Collegium Japan with Founder Masaaki Suzuki; Budapest Festival Orchestra and Iván Fischer; Concerto Köln; Freiburg Baroque Orchestra

 

Sunday Morning Coffee Concerts; Behind-the-Scenes Films of Leonard Bernstein, Georg Solti, Carlos Kleiber, and the U.S. Premiere of a New Mstislav Rostropovich Documentary;

Free Atrium Concerts with Rising Stars

 

NEW YORK, NY (January 31, 2017) — Details of Lincoln Center’s 52nd season of Great Performers were announced today by Jane Moss, Ehrenkranz Artistic Director. Since its inception, the series has captivated audiences by presenting the world’s most accomplished and inspirational musicians in the concert halls and theaters across the Lincoln Center campus. The 2017/18 season features prominent and beloved artists of our time: distinguished vocalists and illustrious instrumental soloists; acclaimed period-instrument orchestras and renowned chamber ensembles; esteemed choral groups; and extraordinary conductors with their virtuosic orchestras.

 

The season is bookended with appearances by two internationally acclaimed ensembles, each bringing an intensive focus on a singular composer over the course of three consecutive concerts. To open the season,  John Eliot Gardiner, the enduring, beloved, and respected trailblazer of historically informed performance, brings two of the groups he founded, the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists, to observe a Monteverdi milestone—the composer’s 450th birthday. Monteverdi is regarded as a forefather of opera, and in tribute, Gardiner and his groups will perform semi-staged performances of the great composer’s three surviving operas: L’Orfeo, Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, and L’incoronazione di Poppea.

 

Toward the end of the season, Simon Rattle, in his first New York appearance as music director of the London Symphony Orchestra, offers an in-depth study of Mahler’s dramatic final three symphonic masterpieces: his ninth and tenth symphonies as well as Das Lied von der Erde. All three works were written at the end of Mahler’s life and, performed back-to-back, give audiences a rare glimpse into the mind of this great composer as he contemplated his own mortality.

 

Other highlights of the season include the Emerson String Quartet pairing late Beethoven and Shostakovich; single-composer focuses with violinist Christian Tetzlaff performing unaccompanied Bach, plus an all-Beethoven recital with pianist Garrick Ohlsson; Gustavo Dudamel conducting two concerts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic; a holiday appearance by Bach Collegium Japan and Masaaki Suzuki; the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields with Joshua Bell; a film series focusing on legendary conductors at work and cellist Mstislav Rostropovich; and a wide range of recitals and concerts with luminaries and emerging artists presented in David Geffen Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the Walter Reade Theater, and the David Rubenstein Atrium.

 

“Each Great Performers season offers us the opportunity to explore extraordinary musical works performed by the outstanding virtuosos and ensembles of our time,” said Jane Moss. “These musical experiences provide us with transcendent illumination of the human heart and are certain to elevate our spirit in the midst of very challenging times.”

 

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Lincoln Center’s Great Performers 2017/18

Series Overviews at a Glance

 

Symphonic Masters

The Symphonic Masters series is a mainstay of Great Performers, offering peak performances of vibrant masterpieces by the world’s leading orchestras and conductors. In 2017/18, Simon Rattle, in his first New York appearances as the London Symphony Orchestra’s music director, conducts Mahler’s final three works (May 4, 6, and 7, 2018). And,and the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel return to Lincoln Center with two concerts. The first puts Shostakovich’s searing Symphony No. 5 with a New York premiere by Esa-Pekka Salonen and Varèse’s Amériques. The second features two choral masterpieces: Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, a Bernstein hallmark (April 27 and 29, 2018).

 

Further, the Swedish Chamber Orchestra and Swedish Radio Choir perform Beethoven’s epic Missa solemnis conducted by Thomas Dausgaard (November 12, 2017) and Iván Fischer and his Budapest Festival Orchestra offer a Beethoven piano concerto with Jean-Yves Thibaudet, along with works of Bach and Rachmaninoff (January 14, 2018). Perennial favorite Joshua Bell leads the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields in Mendelssohn and Beethoven, and takes a solo turn with the Wieniawski Violin Concerto No. 2 (March 19, 2018).

These programs are supported by the Leon Levy Fund for Symphonic Masters.

Symphonic Masters is made possible in part by endowment support from UBS. 

 

Chamber Orchestras

The season opens with the legendary and beloved John Eliot Gardiner’s tribute to Monteverdi with two of the period performance groups he founded: the eponymously named Monteverdi Choir and his English Baroque Soloists present semi-staged concerts of all three of the composer’s operas in succession: L’Orfeo, Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, and L’incoronazione di Poppea—representing the genesis of this art form (October 18, 19, 21, 2017). Three more ensembles specializing in period performance will make appearances during the 2017/18 season. Just in time for the holidays, Bach Collegium Japan and its founder and music director Masaaki Suzuki will perform four cantatas from Bach’s Weihnachts-Oratorium (known as the “Christmas Oratorio”) (December 6, 2017). January brings Concerto Köln to perform Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons with concertmaster Shunske Sato serving as leader and soloist (January 24, 2018). And in May, the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra wraps up the season with fortepiano phenom Kristian Bezuidenhout, who leads from the keyboard in his first season as the group’s artistic director (May 19, 2018).

 

Art of the Song

For more than 30 years, the Art of the Song series has featured the world's finest vocalists in recital. In 2017/18, Lincoln Center presents three of the leading male vocalists of our time in the intimate and elegant setting of Alice Tully Hall. Baritone Simon Keenlyside and his longtime collaborator, pianist Malcolm Martineau open the series (March 1, 2018); tenor Mark Padmore and pianist Paul Lewis join forces performing Schumann and Brahms (April 19, 2018). Rounding up the series are bass-baritone Gerald Finley, and pianist Julius Drake, offering works by Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, Schubert, Tchaikovsky, and others (May 2, 2018).

 

Virtuoso Recitals and Chamber Music

For 2017/18, in Alice Tully Hall, the incomparable Emerson String Quartet will perform two separate programs pairing late Beethoven with late Shostakovich (October 24 and November 28, 2018). Pianist Garrick Ohlsson will dazzle with an all-Beethoven program (February 27, 2018), while violinist Christian Tetzlaff has chosen Bach’s unaccompanied partitas and sonatas as his fare (March 28, 2018). Cellist Sol Gabetta brings Beethoven, Britten, and Chopin (May 12, 2018), and the unparalleled Richard Goode delights with works of Brahms, Debussy, Beethoven, Haydn, and Janácek (April 17, 2018).

 

Sunday Morning Coffee Concerts

Sunday Morning Coffee Concerts are intimate one-hour concerts at the Walter Reade Theater accompanied by Nespresso coffee and conversation with the artists. This season’s lineup features an array of accomplished soloists and ensembles, including pianists Jenny Lin (November 12, 2017), Conrad Tao (December 3, 2017), and sibling duo Christina and Michelle Naughton (May 13, 2018); the German vocal quintet Calmus performing Christmas carols from around the world (December 17, 2017); Trio con Brio Copenhagen February 4, 2018); and violinist Chad Hoopes with pianist David Fung (April 15, 2018).

Refreshments are provided by Zabar’s and Zabars.com

 

Music on Film

Every season, Great Performers presents rare, behind-the-scenes film footage providing a backstage glimpse at master artists and musicians at work. This year’s film series focuses on visionary conductors Leonard Bernstein (February 25, 2018), Georg Solti and Carlos Kleiber (February 28, 2018), and Sergiu Celibidache (February 28, 2018); plus the U.S. premiere of a new documentary by Bruno Monsaingeon on legendary cellist Mstislav Rostropovich (February 24, 2018).

Presented in association with the Film Society of Lincoln Center and Christian Labrande.

 

Complimentary Classical

The 2017/18 Great Performers season will be the fifth for Lincoln Center’s series of free string quartet recitals in the David Rubenstein Atrium. Concerts last one hour, and admission is on a first-come, first-served basis. The Rolston String Quartet paves the way (January 25, 2018) with works by Mozart and R. Murray Schafer. Next comes the Harlem Quartet (February 22, 2018) in a recital featuring Piston, Debussy, and Guido López Gavilán. The Heath Quartet performs Haydn and Tchaikovsky (March 22, 2018), and the Aeolus Quartet winds up the series with Beethoven and Ives (April 12, 2018).

 

Lincoln Center’s Great Performers 2017/18

Chronological Season Listing

 

Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists

John Eliot Gardiner, conductor

 

Wednesday, October 18, 2017 at 7:00 pm

Alice Tully Hall

Monteverdi: L’Orfeo, SV 318

With English supertitles

 

Thursday, October 19, 2017 at 7:00 pm

Alice Tully Hall

Monteverdi: Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, SV 325

With English supertitles

 

Saturday, October 21, 2017 at 7:00 pm

Alice Tully Hall

Monteverdi: L’incoronazione di Poppea, SV 308

With English supertitles

 

Although Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643) has long been recognized as the father of opera, only three of his contributions to the art form survive. 2017 marks the 450th anniversary of the Venetian master’s birth, and to celebrate this musical milestone, the peerless John Eliot Gardiner brings his Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists to Alice Tully Hall for intimate, semi-staged concerts of all three operas—L’Orfeo, Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, and L’incoronazione di Poppea. Gardiner’s most recent appearances at Lincoln Center were in the 2005/06 season, with his Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique and the Monteverdi Choir performing two all-Mozart programs in celebration of that composer’s 250th birthday. John Eliot Gardiner and Elsa Rooke provide stage direction for the theatrical treatment of these concerts.

 

Says Gardiner of the Monteverdi operas, “The full unchanging gamut of human emotions—bewildering, passionate, uncomfortable, and sometimes uncontrollable—form the subtext of all of Monteverdi’s surviving musical dramas. By performing the trilogy in consecutive performances, we hope to take audiences on a voyage—from the pastoral world to the court and the city, from myth to political history, from innocence to corruption, from a portrait of man subject to the whim of the gods, to a hero imprisoned by his human condition, and finally to a dual portrait of mad lovers, uncontrolled in their ambition and lust. Who is the true victor in the end? Perhaps the music.”

 

Since establishing the Monteverdi Choir in the 1960s, Gardiner has become renowned as one of the most versatile conductors of our time, as well as key figure in the early-music revival movement. Gardiner and the Monteverdi Choir have always focused on bringing a fresh perspective to the repertoire, creating immediacy and drama in everything they do. Likewise, the English Baroque Soloists have always sought to challenge preconceptions of Baroque and early Classical music. Combining the untamed sound of period instruments with passionate and virtuosic playing, they have long been established as one of the world’s leading period-instrument orchestras. Both ensembles exist independently, but also regularly collaborate in larger-scale projects, among them a Bach Cantata Pilgrimage in 2000, during which they performed all of Bach’s sacred cantatas throughout Europe. More recently, they joined forces in a “Bach Marathon” event at the Royal Albert Hall (2013), and collaborated on recordings and tours of Ascension Cantatas (2012) and Bach Motets (2011), both of which reached No. 1 in the U.K. classical charts.

 

These performances are the culmination of a global tour that takes Gardiner and his ensembles to prestigious venues and festivals in the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Italy, Spain, and the U.S.A. in 2017. European highlights include complete Monteverdi trilogies in Paris and Bristol, as well as at the Berliner Festspiele, Lucerne Festival, and Venice’s La Fenice.

 

Emerson String Quartet

 

Tuesday, October 24, 2017 at 7:30 pm

Alice Tully Hall

Beethoven: String Quartet in E-flat major, Op. 127

Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 15 in E-flat minor, Op. 144

Performed Without Intermission

 

Tuesday, November 28, 2017 at 7:30 pm

Alice Tully Hall

Beethoven: String Quartet in B-flat major, Op. 130

Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 13 in B-flat minor, Op. 138

Beethoven: Grosse Fuge in B-flat major, Op. 133

 

Praised by audiences and critics alike as one of the most polished, authoritative, and virtuosic chamber ensembles among us, the Emerson String Quartet has an extensive Lincoln Center history. Past performances have focused on revelatory “single-composer” explorations of Shostakovich, Brahms, and Mozart. In fall 2017, they will bring their intense energy, musicality, and finesse to a pair of performances delving into the late Beethoven and late Shostakovich quartets.

 

The Emerson String Quartet—with violinists Eugene Drucker and Philip Setzer, violist Lawrence Dutton, and cellist Paul Watkins—has amassed an unparalleled list of achievements over three decades: more than 30 acclaimed recordings, nine Grammy Awards (including two for Best Classical Album), three Gramophone Awards, the Avery Fisher Prize, recognition as Musical America’s Ensemble of the Year, and collaborations with many of the greatest artists of our time. Formed in 1976 and based in New York City, the Emerson was one of the first quartets whose violinists alternated in the first chair position. In 2002, the Quartet began to stand for most of its concerts, with the cellist seated on a riser. The ensemble, which took its name from the American poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, is Quartet-in-Residence at Stony Brook University. During the spring of 2016, full-time Stony Brook faculty members Philip Setzer and Lawrence Dutton received the honor of Distinguished Professor, and part-time faculty members Eugene Drucker and Paul Watkins were awarded the title of Honorary Distinguished Professor. In January 2015, the Quartet received the Richard J. Bogomolny National Service Award, Chamber Music America’s highest honor, in recognition of its significant and lasting contribution to the chamber music field.

 

Missa solemnis

 

Swedish Chamber Orchestra, Thomas Dausgaard, conductor

Swedish Radio Choir, Peter Dijkstra, choral director

 

Sunday, November 12, 2017 at 3:00 pm

Pre-concert lecture at 1:45 pm, Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse

David Geffen Hall

Malin Christensson, soprano

Kristina Hammarström, mezzo-soprano

Michael Weinius, tenor

Josef Wagner, bass

Beethoven: Mass in D major, Op. 123 (“Missa solemnis”)

With English supertitles

 

Lincoln Center audiences have been spellbound by the Swedish Chamber Orchestra’s past performances with conductor Thomas Dausgaard as part of the Mostly Mozart Festival as well as at Great Performers. An all-Beethoven Great Performers concert in 2008 inspired New York Times praise for Dausgaard’s “flair for drama” and his ability to “mold [the orchestra’s] performances for maximum impact,” adding that “the ensemble’s playing crackled with fierce electricity and dramatic urgency.” This November, Dausgaard and his orchestra will be joined by the exquisite Swedish Radio Choir, named by Gramophone as one of the world’s leading choirs, for one performance only of Beethoven’s inspirational Missa solemnis.

 

The Swedish Chamber Orchestra (SCO) is the resident chamber orchestra for the Örebro municipality in Sweden. For the past 14 years, music director Thomas Dausgaard and the ensemble have worked closely together to create their own distinctive and dynamic sound, which has placed them firmly on the international scene. A tightly knit ensemble of 38 regular members, the SCO made both their United Kingdom and United States debuts with Thomas Dausgaard in 2004 performing at the BBC Proms and Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, respectively. With Daausgaard, the ensemble has recorded the complete Beethoven orchestral works and all the Schumann symphonies, as well as symphonies of Dvorák, Schubert, and Bruckner. “Opening Doors,” on the BIS label, is their ongoing series recording 19th-century repertoire more usually associated with larger-scale symphony orchestras.

 

Thomas Dausgaard is Chief Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Chief Conductor of the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, Principal Guest Conductor of the Seattle Symphony, Honorary Conductor of the Orchestra della Toscana (ORT), and Honorary Conductor of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, having previously served as its Principal Conductor. He is renowned for his creativity and innovation in programming, the excitement of his live performances, and his extensive catalog of critically acclaimed recordings. He regularly appears with many of the world’s leading orchestras, including, in Europe, the Munich Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Staatskapelle Dresden, Bavarian Radio Symphony, Berlin Konzerthaus Orchestra, Vienna Symphony, BBC Symphony, and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. In North America he has appeared with the Cleveland Orchestra, Boston Symphony, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, among others.

 

The Swedish Radio Choir is considered one of the world’s finest a cappella ensembles. It is also unique in its mastery of the entire choral repertoire in all its breadth and depth, from Bach and Palestrina through the Romantics, including Schumann and Brahms, to Strauss, Ligeti, and other contemporary composers, including Pärt, Honegger, Penderecki, and Schnittke. Today the choir is led by music director Peter Dijkstra, winner of the Eric Ericson Award. Ever since its first sensational tours to Berlin, Venice, and elsewhere in the 1960s, the choir has carried on a rich and varied program of international activities. It is regularly invited to participate in international festivals and concerts, and has worked with Riccardo Muti, Claudio Abbado, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra with Valery Gergiev, and other important ensembles and conductors. The Swedish Radio Choir’s vision is to deploy its exceptional sonic range to place its own special imprint on the a cappella and the symphonic choral repertoires. It is an ensemble in which each individual voice finds its place in a unified artistic expression.   

 

Peter Dijkstra is one of today’s most sought-after choral conductors. Born in 1978, he studied choral conducting, orchestral conducting, and voice at the conservatories of The Hague, Köln, and Stockholm, and graduated summa cum laude with distinction. From 2005 until 2016, Dijkstra was artistic director of the Choir of the Bavarian Radio in Munich. He developed the choir into a world-class ensemble, known for its versatile music-making and with guest appearances at the foremost European festivals and orchestras.

 

In September 2007, he was appointed music director of the Swedish Radio Choir, a position he still holds, and in September 2015, he became Chief Conductor of the Netherlands Chamber Choir.

 

Bach Collegium Japan

Masaaki Suzuki, conductor

 

Wednesday, December 6, 2017 at 7:30 pm

Pre-concert lecture at 6:15 pm, Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse

Alice Tully Hall

Sherezade Panthaki, soprano

Jay Carter, countertenor

Zachary Wilder, tenor

Dominik Wörner, bass

Bach: Four Cantatas from Weihnachts-Oratorium (“Christmas Oratorio”)

 

Music director Masaaki Suzuki, a leading authority on the works of Bach, brings the celebrated ensemble he founded in 1990 to perform four of the six cantatas from Weihnachts-Oratorium (“Christmas Oratorio”). 

 

Masaaki Suzuki, a leading authority on the works of J.S. Bach, founded Bach Collegium Japan in 1990 to introduce Japanese audiences to period instrument performances of great works from the Baroque period, and remains its music director to this day. Hailed in BBC Music Magazine as “Kings from the East,” Bach Collegium Japan comprises a Baroque orchestra and choir that are recognized worldwide as leading interpreters of J.S. Bach and his contemporaries. The group made their North American debut in April 2003 performing the St. Matthew and St. John Passions of J. S. Bach at Carnegie Hall and as part of a United States tour. In 2010 the ensemble celebrated its 20th anniversary with a series of special concerts in Tokyo. In 2013 Masaaki Suzuki and the choir were invited by the New York Philharmonic to collaborate for the opening of their Bach Variations Festival. Their recent recording of Bach Motets on the BIS label was honored with a German Record Critics’ Award (Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik), Diapason d’Or de l’Année 2010, and also in 2011 with a BBC Music Magazine Award.

 

In addition to Bach Collegium Japan, Masaaki Suzuki works with renowned period ensembles such as Collegium Vocale Gent and Philharmonia Baroque and also conducts modern-instrument orchestras in works by composers as diverse as Britten, Haydn, Mahler, Mendelssohn, Mozart, and Stravinsky. Born in Kobe, Japan, Suzuki graduated from the Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music with a degree in composition and organ performance. He is currently Visiting Professor of Choral Conducting at the Yale School of Music and the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, and conducts the Yale Schola Cantorum.

 

Budapest Festival Orchestra, Iván Fischer, conductor

Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano
 

Sunday, January 14, 2018 at 3:00 pm

Pre-concert lecture at 1:45 pm, Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse

David Geffen Hall

Bach: Orchestral Suite No. 2 in B minor, BWV 1067

Beethoven: Piano Concerto TBA

Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Op. 27

 

Full of delightful surprises, one never knows quite what to expect from conductor Iván Fischer and his “consistently glorious” Budapest Festival Orchestra (New York Times). A regular presence at Great Performers, they will collaborate with pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet in a Beethoven piano concerto and offer a Bach orchestral suite as well as Rachmaninoff’s lush Symphony No. 2. 

 

In the current season, Fischer and the BFO perform a pair of all-Beethoven concerts featuring four symphonies and a concerto with Richard Goode as soloist. Jean-Yves Thibaudet recently appeared with the Emerson String Quartet performing Fauré’s Piano Quartet No. 1 as part of the 2015 Mostly Mozart Festival.

 

The Budapest Festival Orchestra (BFO), founded by Iván Fischer and Zoltán Kocsis, is ranked among the top orchestras in the world.. The orchestra is a regular guest at the world’s most important music venues and concert halls, including Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Musikverein, the Concertgebouw, and Royal Albert Hall, and at international music events, including the Mostly Mozart Festival, Salzburger Festspiele, and the Edinburgh International Festival. Over the years, the BFO has received the highest of accolades. In New York Magazine’s 2013 list of the city’s top classical music events, the BFO’s production of The Marriage of Figaro, performed at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, was voted the best of the year. The orchestra’s albums have won two Gramophone Awards, a Grammy nomination, and a Diapason d’Or, among other distinctions.

 

Iván Fischer is the music director and a founder of the Budapest Festival Orchestra, as well as music director at Berlin’s Konzerthaus and Konzerthausorchester. His 30-year-long partnership with the Budapest Festival Orchestra is one of the great success stories in all of classical music. As a guest conductor, he has worked with the finest symphony orchestras in the world, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, and Cleveland Orchestra. As music director, he has led the Kent Opera and the Opéra National de Lyon, and was Principal Conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C. Many of his recordings have been awarded prestigious international prizes.

 

For more than three decades, Jean-Yves Thibaudet has performed worldwide, recorded more than 50 albums, and built a reputation as one of today’s finest pianists. He plays a range of solo, chamber, and orchestral repertoire—from Beethoven through Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Grieg, and Saint-Saëns to Ravel, Khachaturian, and Gershwin to contemporary composers Qigang Chen and James MacMillan. In addition to his demanding international touring schedule, Thibaudet is currently Artist-in-Residence with Orchestre National de France, Wiener Symphoniker, and the Colburn School in Los Angeles. Thibaudet was born in Lyon, France, where he began his piano studies at age five and made his first public appearance at age seven. At 12, he entered the Paris Conservatory to study with Aldo Ciccolini and Lucette Descaves, a friend and collaborator of Ravel. At age 15, he won the Premier Prix du Conservatoire and, three years later, the Young Concert Artists Auditions in New York City. Previously a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Thibaudet was awarded the title Officier by the French Ministry of Culture in 2012.

 

Concerto Köln

Shunske Sato, violin

 

Wednesday, January 24, 2018 at 7:30 pm

Alice Tully Hall

Vivaldi: The Four Seasons

 

Concerto Köln Concertmaster Shunske Sato takes a solo turn in Vivaldi’s perennial favorite, The Four Seasons.

 

For 30 years Concerto Köln has ranked among the leading ensembles for historically informed performance practice. Since its inception in 1985, audiences and critics at the most renowned concert halls and music festivals around the globe have been highly enthusiastic about the energetic performance style of the ensemble, which often performs conductor-less. A trademark of the ensemble is the rediscovery of works by composers who have remained in the shadows of more celebrated names. The seamless integration of research and practical application is especially important for the ensemble and continues to play a significant role in its musical approach. Accordingly, Concerto Köln has made significant contributions to the renaissance of various works, including those by Joseph Martin Kraus and, in particular, Henri-Joseph Rigel. Concerto Köln last performed Handel’s Athalia at Lincoln Center in 2009.

 

For large-scale projects, Concerto Köln often collaborates with conductors and has worked with Kent Nagano, Ivor Bolton, Daniel Harding, René Jacobs, Marcus Creed, Peter Dijkstra, Laurence Equilbey, and Emmanuelle Haïm, among others. Concerto Köln celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2005, and has especially close ties to its home town of Cologne, regularly performing in the Cologne Philharmonie and, for almost ten years, hosting its own concert series.

 

Garrick Ohlsson, piano

 

Tuesday, February 27, 2018 at 7:30 pm

Pre-concert lecture at 6:15 pm, Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse

Alice Tully Hall

All-Beethoven program

Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13 (“Pathétique”)

Sonata No. 23 in F minor, Op. 57 (“Appassionata”)

Sonata No. 21 in C major, Op. 53 (“Waldstein”)

Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor, Op. 27, No. 2 (“Moonlight”)

 

Since his triumph as winner of the 1970 Chopin International Piano Competition, pianist Garrick Ohlsson has established himself worldwide as a musician of magisterial interpretive and technical prowess. He is a frequent and beloved Lincoln Center artist, and most recently was seen as part of A Day in the Life at Lincoln Center, a daylong Facebook Live event that captured behind-the-scenes glimpses of artists at work throughout the entire campus. In 2016, he appeared in Mark Morris’s Mozart Dances as part of Mostly Mozart, and in 2015, he presented an all-Scriabin recital.

 

Although long regarded as one of the world’s leading exponents of the music of Frédéric Chopin, Ohlsson commands an enormous repertoire, ranging the entire piano literature. A student of the late Claudio Arrau, Ohlsson has come to be noted for his masterly performances of the works of Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert, as well as of the Romantic period. A prolific recording artist, his ten-disc set of the complete Beethoven Sonatas, for Bridge Records, has garnered critical acclaim, including a Grammy Award for Vol. 3. He has recorded Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No. 3, with the Atlanta Symphony and Robert Spano. With Hyperion, he has re-released his 16-disc set of the complete works of Chopin, as well as the complete Brahms piano variations, “Goyescas” by Enrique Granados, and music of Charles Tomlinson Griffes. Most recently on that label are Scriabin: Complete Poèmes, Smetana Czech Dances, and études by Debussy, Bartók, and Prokofiev. The latest CDs in his ongoing association with Bridge Records are Close Connections, a recital of 20th-century pieces, an all-Liszt recording, and the complete sonatas of Scriabin.

 

A native of White Plains, New York, Garrick Ohlsson began his piano studies at the age of eight, at the Westchester Conservatory of Music; at 13 he entered The Juilliard School, and in 1994, he was awarded the Avery Fisher Prize.

 

Simon Keenlyside, baritone

Malcolm Martineau, piano

 

Thursday, March 1, 2018 at 7:30 pm

Alice Tully Hall

Program TBA

 

Simon Keenlyside has appeared at Lincoln Center as both recitalist and orchestral soloist. In 2011, he performed in Britten’s War Requiem with the London Symphony Orchestra and Gianandrea Noseda, and in 2012, he appeared in Wozzeck with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Philharmonia Orchestra. This program marks Keenlyside’s eagerly awaited return to Alice Tully Hall.

 

Simon Keenlyside was born in London, and appears in all the world’s great opera houses. He has particularly close associations with New York’s Metropolitan Opera, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, and the Bavarian and Vienna State Opera houses. Major roles include Prospero (The Tempest), Posa (Don Carlo), Germont Père (La Traviata), Papageno (The Magic Flute), Count Almaviva (Le Nozze di Figaro), and the title roles in Don Giovanni, Eugene Onegin, Pelléas et Mélisande, Wozzeck, Billy Budd, Hamlet, Macbeth, and Rigoletto. A renowned recitalist, Keenlyside appears regularly in the world’s major recital venues. He has recorded Schumann Lieder with Graham Johnson and four recital discs with Malcolm Martineau of Schubert, Strauss, and Brahms. Their English song disc, Songs of War won the 2012 Gramophone Solo Vocal Award. Additional recordings include: Mendelssohn’s Elijah under McCreesh, Des Knaben Wunderhorn under Rattle, Macbeth under Gardner, and Don Giovanni under Abbado, among others. He has been in the cast for two Grammy Award–winning recordings for Best Opera Recording, as Count Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro under Jacobs (2005), and as Prospero in Thomas Adès’s The Tempest (2014), which also won Music DVD Recording of the Year (Echo Klassik Awards).

 

Recognized as one of the leading accompanists of his generation, Malcolm Martineau has worked with many of the world’s greatest singers, from Dame Janet Baker and Frederica von Stade to Simon Keenlyside and Bryn Terfel. He has presented his own series at Wigmore Hall (a Britten and a Poulenc series, and Decade by Decade – 100 years of German Song, broadcast by the BBC) and at the Edinburgh Festival (the complete lieder of Hugo Wolf), and he has appeared throughout Europe, North America, and Australia. Recording projects include albums with Bryn Terfel (Deutsche Grammophon), Simon Keenlyside (EMI), Angela Gheorghiu and Barbara Bonney (Decca), Magdalena Kožená (for DG), and many more, as well as the complete Poulenc songs (Signum), and Britten song cycles and Schubert’s Winterreise with Florian Boesch (Onyx).

 

Academy of St. Martin in the Fields

Joshua Bell, director and violin

 

Monday, March 19, 2018 at 8:00 pm

David Geffen Hall

Mendelssohn: Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Op. 21

Wieniawski: Violin Concerto No. 2 in D minor

Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68 (“Pastoral”)

 

Joshua Bell has a prolific history at Lincoln Center, having appeared multiple times as concerto soloist, recitalist, and in chamber music. His most recent appearances were both in 2016: in recital with Alessio Bax and leading the program for the institution’s fall gala in Joshua Bell: Seasons of Cuba, featuring the Havana Chamber Orchestra and an appearance by Dave Matthews. The concert was also broadcast on Live From Lincoln Center.

 

Formed by Neville Marriner in 1958 from a group of leading London musicians, the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields is one of the world’s premier chamber orchestras, renowned for its fresh, brilliant interpretations of the repertoire’s most-loved classical music. The ensemble gave its first performance in its namesake church in November 1959. Through its live performances and vast recording output—highlights of which include the 1969 best-seller Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and the soundtrack to 1985’s Oscar-winning film Amadeus—the orchestra quickly gained an enviable international reputation for its distinctive, polished, and refined sound. Today the ensemble is led by virtuoso violinist Joshua Bell, who was appointed music director in 2011, the first person to hold the post since the orchestra’s inception. With Bell, the orchestra retains the collegiate spirit and flexibility of the original small, conductor-less ensemble that has become an Academy hallmark. Each year the ensemble works with some of the most talented soloists and directors in the classical music scene, performing symphonic repertoire and “chamber music on a grand scale” at prestigious venues throughout the world, while expanding the Academy’s celebrated recording catalog.

 

Joshua Bell is among the most celebrated violinists of his era, renowned for his passion, restless curiosity, and multifaceted musical interests. His scope is almost unparalleled, equally at home as a soloist, chamber musician, recording artist, and orchestra leader. Bell was named the music director of the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields in 2011, becoming the first person to hold this post since Neville Marriner formed the orchestra in 1958. An exclusive Sony Classical artist, Bell has recorded more than 40 CDs—garnering Grammy, Mercury, Gramophone, and Echo Klassik Awards—since his first LP recording at age 18 on the Decca Label. Recent releases include French Impressions with pianist Jeremy Denk, featuring sonatas by Saint-Saëns, Ravel, and Franck; At Home with Friends, including Vivaldi's The Four Seasons with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields; and The Tchaikovsky Concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic, as well as The Red Violin Concerto, The Essential Joshua Bell, Voice of the Violin, and Romance of the Violin, which Billboard named the 2004 Classical CD of the Year and Bell the Classical Artist of the Year. Bell appeared on the Grammy-nominated crossover recording Short Trip Home with composer and double bass virtuoso Edgar Meyer, as well as on a recording with Meyer of the Bottesini Gran Duo Concertante. Highlights of the Sony Classical film soundtracks on which Bell has performed include The Red Violin, which won the Oscar for Best Original Score, the Classical Brit–nominated Ladies in Lavender, and the films Iris and Defiance. Convinced of the value of music as both a diplomatic and educational tool, he has performed for three U.S. presidents as well as the president of China and devoted himself to several charitable causes, most notably Education Through Music, which has helped put instruments in the hands of thousands of kids in America’s inner cities.

 

Christian Tetzlaff, solo violin

 

Wednesday, March 28, 2018 at 7:30 pm

Alice Tully Hall

All-Bach program

Sonata No. 2 in A minor, BWV 1003

Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004

Sonata No. 3 in C major, BWV 1005

Partita No. 3 in E major, BWV 1006

 

Christian Tetzlaff is a longtime friend to Lincoln Center audiences having performed on numerous occasions as a recitalist and also as a concerto soloist. His most recent appearance was at the 2014 Mostly Mozart Festival with Louis Langrée.

 

From the outset of his career, Tetzlaff has performed and recorded a broad spectrum of the repertoire, ranging from Bach's unaccompanied sonatas and partitas to 19th-century masterworks by Mendelssohn, Beethoven, and Brahms; and from 20th-century concertos by Bartók, Berg, and Shostakovich to world premieres of contemporary works. Tetzlaff has been in demand as a soloist with the world's leading orchestras and conductors, establishing close artistic partnerships that are renewed season after season. Mr. Tetzlaff has performed with the orchestras of Chicago, Cleveland, Boston, Philadelphia, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Minnesota, Montreal, and Toronto, among many others in North America, as well as with the major European ensembles, including the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, London Symphony and London Philharmonic orchestras, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic, and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam. He also appears at the world’s most prominent summer music festivals, including Verbier, Salzburg, Tanglewood, and New York’s Mostly Mozart Festival.

 

Tetzlaff's highly regarded recordings reflect the breadth of his musical interests and include solo works, chamber music, and concertos ranging from Haydn to Bartók. His recordings include the complete Bach Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin for the Musical Heritage and Haenssler labels. His most recent recordings, all on the Ondine label, are the Dvorák, Suk, and two Shostakovich violin concertos with the Helsinki Philharmonic/John Storgaards; the Brahms violin sonatas with Lars Vogt and the Brahms Piano Trios with Tanja Tetzlaff and Lars Vogt, which was nominated for a 2016 Grammy Award; and quartets by Berg and Mendelssohn with the Tetzlaff Quartet, which was awarded a 2015 Diapason d’Or. Mr. Tetzlaff recorded the complete Bach Sonatas and Partitas for a third time in October 2016.

 

Richard Goode, piano

 

Tuesday, April 17, 2018 at 7:30 pm

Alice Tully Hall

Works by Brahms, Debussy, Beethoven, Haydn, and Janácek

 

Richard Goode has been hailed for music-making of tremendous emotional power, depth, and expressiveness, and has been acknowledged worldwide as one of today’s leading interpreters of Classical and Romantic music. In the summer of 2016, Goode joined Louis Langrée and the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra in a program filmed as part of a Live From Lincoln Center broadcast celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Mostly Mozart Festival. He appears in the current Great Performers season with the Budapest Festival Orchestra and Iván Fischer.

 

Goode, Fischer, and the BFO have received worldwide acclaim for their recordings of the five Beethoven Piano Concertos, and are taking the second and fourth concertos on a global tour, which includes performances in February 2017 at Lincoln Center, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, the University Musical Society in Ann Arbor, and Celebrity Series of Boston. The tour also includes appearances at numerous European festivals, including the prestigious Edinburgh Festival, and performances in London, Budapest, Madrid, Stockholm, Antwerp, and Helsinki. A compelling recitalist, Goode appears this season at the Royal Festival Hall in London, in series with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and at major venues in the U.S. and Europe. He has won a large and devoted following through regular performances with major orchestras, recitals in the world’s music capitals, and his extensive and acclaimed Nonesuch recordings.

 

Mark Padmore, tenor

Paul Lewis, piano

 

Thursday, April 19, 2018 at 7:30 pm

Alice Tully Hall

Schumann: Liederkreis, Op. 24

Brahms: Es liebt sich so lieblich im Lenze, Op. 71, No. 1

Brahms: Sommerabend, Op. 85, No. 1

Brahms: Mondenschein, Op. 85, No. 2

Brahms: Es schauen die Blumen, Op. 96, No. 3

Brahms: Meerfahrt, Op. 96, No. 4

Brahms: Der Tod, das ist die kühle Nacht, Op. 96, No. 1

Schumann: Dichterliebe, Op. 48

 

For their Alice Tully Hall recital, tenor Mark Padmore and pianist Paul Lewis offer an evening of Brahms songs bookended by two of Schumann’s heart-wrenching song cycles: Liederkreis Op. 24 and Dichterliebe. In recent seasons, Padmore has performed Schubert’s Die Schöne Mullerin, Schwanengesang, and Winterreise and sung the role of the Evangelist in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic at Park Avenue Armory, all as part of Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival. This is the first time the pair will appear together in recital at Lincoln Center. In reviewing a recording of Schubert lieder, Opera News noted, “It is of course obvious by now that Padmore and Lewis are musically perceptive and temperamentally adventurous.”

 

Mark Padmore was born in London and grew up in Canterbury. After beginning his musical studies on the clarinet he attended King’s College, Cambridge, on a choral scholarship, and graduated with an honors degree in music. His appearances in Bach’s Passions have gained particular notice, especially his acclaimed performances as the Evangelist in the St. Matthew and St. John Passions with the Berlin   Philharmonic and Simon Rattle, staged by Peter Sellars, in Berlin, Salzburg, New York, and the BBC Proms. Recent work includes the leading roles in Harrison Birtwistle’s The Corridor and The Cure at the Aldeburgh Festival and Linbury Theatre, Covent Garden, Handel’s Jephtha for WNO and ENO, Captain Vere in Britten’s Billy Budd, and the Evangelist in a staging of St. Matthew Passion for Glyndebourne Festival Opera. In concert he has performed with the world’s leading orchestras, including the Bavarian Radio and London Symphony Orchestras, the Berlin, Vienna, New York, and London Philharmonic orchestras, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and the Philharmonia. He has performed the three Schubert song cycles in London, Liverpool, Paris, Tokyo, Vienna, and New York, as well as at the Schubertiade in Schwarzenberg. Regular recital partners include Kristian Bezuidenhout, Jonathan Biss, Imogen Cooper, Julius Drake, Paul Lewis, and several other collaborators. Composers who have written for him include Sally Beamish, Harrison Birtwistle, Jonathan Dove, Thomas Larcher, Nico Muhly, Alec Roth, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Huw Watkins, Ryan Wigglesworth, and Hans Zender.

 

Pianist Paul Lewis is internationally regarded as one of the leading musicians of his generation. His cycles of core piano works by Beethoven and Schubert have received unanimous critical and public acclaim worldwide and consolidated his reputation as one of the world’s foremost interpreters of the central European classical repertoire. He appears regularly as soloist with the world's great orchestras, including the Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, London Symphony, London Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony, NHK Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Royal Concertgebouw, Cleveland, Tonhalle Zurich, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Philharmonia, and Mahler Chamber Orchestras. Lewis’s recital career takes him to venues such as London's Royal Festival Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and Carnegie Hall in New York, the Musikverein and Konzerthaus in Vienna, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and the Berlin Philharmonie and Konzerthaus. He is also a frequent guest at the some of the world's most prestigious festivals, including Tanglewood, Schubertiade, Edinburgh, Salzburg, Lucerne, and the BBC Proms, where in 2010 he became the first person to play the complete cycle of Beethoven piano concertos in a single season.

 

Los Angeles Philharmonic

Gustavo Dudamel, conductor

 

Friday, April 27, 2018 at 8:00 pm

Pre-concert lecture at 6:45 pm, Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse

David Geffen Hall

Esa-Pekka Salonen: New work (New York premiere)

Varèse: Amériques

Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op. 47

 

Sunday, April 29, 2018 at 3:00 pm

David Geffen Hall

John Holiday, countertenor

Julianna Di Giacomo, soprano

Jennifer Johnson Cano, mezzo-soprano

Davóne Tines, bass

Tenor and Choir TBA

Bernstein: Chichester Psalms

Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125

 

Gustavo Dudamel brings his Los Angeles Philharmonic for two distinct programs. The first encompasses the New York premiere of a new work by the group’s Conductor Laureate, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Varèse’s Amériques, and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5. The second is a nod to New York’s Leonard Bernstein commemorating his 100th year with his Chichester Psalms and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, a work that was deeply meaningful to the late conductor.

 

Currently in its 98th season, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, under the dynamic leadership of Gustavo Dudamel, offers a diverse range of programs both onstage and in the community. During its 30-week subscription season of more than 170 performances, the LA Phil creates festivals, artist residencies, and other thematic programs delving deeper into the music to enhance the symphonic experience. The organization’s commitment to the music of our time is evident throughout its season, its Green Umbrella series, and its extensive commissioning initiatives. LA Phil programs represent the best and boldest in new music, with numerous premieres and commissions by composers such as John Adams, Philip Glass, Bryce Dessner, Arvo Pärt, Sofia Gubaidulina, and Kaija Saariaho. Since 2003, the orchestra’s base has been the Frank Gehry–designed Walt Disney Concert Hall. Among its wide-ranging education initiatives is Youth Orchestra LA (YOLA). Inspired by Venezuela's revolutionary El Sistema, the LA Phil and its community partners provide free instruments, intensive music training, and leadership training to more than 700 students from underserved neighborhoods. The Los Angeles Philharmonic was founded 1919, with Walter Henry Rothwell as its first music director. Since then, ten renowned conductors have served in that capacity: Georg Schnéevoigt, Artur Rodzinski, Otto Klemperer, Alfred Wallenstein, Eduard van Beinum, Zubin Mehta, Carlo Maria Giulini, André Previn, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and, currently, Gustavo Dudamel.

 

Gustavo Dudamel is motivated by a profound belief in music’s power to unite and inspire. His early musical and mentoring experiences inspired his life-long commitment to music as a catalyst for learning, integration, and social change. He is currently in his eighth season serving as music and artistic director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and is concurrently music director of the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela. The impact of his leadership extends from the greatest concert stages to classrooms, cinemas, and innovative digital platforms around the world. He spearheaded the creation of Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA), influenced by the philosophy of Venezuela’s admired El Sistema, which encourages social development through music in underserved communities of Los Angeles. Named one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2009, Gustavo Dudamel was born in 1981 in Barquisimeto, Venezuela. His conducting studies began in 1996 with Rodolfo Saglimbeni, and, that same year, he was given his first conducting position, music director of the Amadeus Chamber Orchestra. In 1999, he was appointed music director of the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra and began conducting studies with the orchestra’s founder, Dr. Abreu. Dudamel was brought to international attention by winning the inaugural Bamberger Symphoniker Gustav Mahler Competition in 2004. He then went on to become music director of the Gothenburg Symphony (2007–2012), where he currently holds the title Honorary Conductor.

 

Gerald Finley, bass-baritone

Julius Drake, piano

 

Wednesday, May 2, 2018 at 7:30 pm

Alice Tully Hall

Works by Beethoven, Schubert, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and more

 

Grammy Award–winning Canadian bass-baritone Gerald Finley is a leading singer of his generation and is devoted to the wide range of vocal art, encompassing opera, orchestral works, and song, collaborating with the greatest orchestras and conductors of our time.

 

He has appeared as the Count in Le nozze di Figaro at the Royal Opera Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera, Salzburg Festival, Paris, Vienna, Munich, and Amsterdam. Earlier in his career he performed the baritone roles in Don Giovanni and garnered acclaim singing Figaro throughout Europe. Recently, he has focused on the Wagner repertoire, with critical successes as Hans Sachs at the Glyndebourne Festival and Opéra de Paris, as Amfortas in Parsifal at Royal Opera Covent Garden, and as Wolfram at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Finley’ s many solo recital CD releases have been devoted to songs of Barber, Britten, Ives, Ravel, and Schumann’ s song cycles Dichterliebe and Liederkreis Op. 24 & 39. Recordings from his continuing partnership with Julius Drake have been critically acclaimed, including an unprecedented three Gramophone Awards in the Solo Vocal category. Their recent release of Schubert s Winterreise won a Canadian Juno Award, and this past year saw the release of Bass songs by Liszt.

 

Mahler’s Final Masterworks

 

London Symphony Orchestra

Simon Rattle, conductor

 

Friday, May 4, 2018 at 8:00 pm

Pre-concert lecture at 6:45 pm, Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse

David Geffen Hall

Mahler: Symphony No. 9 in D major

 

Sunday, May 6, 2018 at 3:00 pm

David Geffen Hall

Christian Gerhaher, baritone

Tenor TBA

Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde

With English supertitles

 

Monday, May 7, 2018 at 8:00

David Geffen Hall

Mahler: Symphony No. 10 (completed by Deryck Cooke)

 

A longtime mainstay of Great Performers, the London Symphony Orchestra returns to David Geffen Hall for a comprehensive exploration of Mahler’s final three works with Simon Rattle at the helm—his first New York appearances as music director of the illustrious ensemble. Mahler’s Symphony No. 9, the composer’s final completed symphony, opens the LSO’s three-concert series. It continues with Das Lied von der Erde (“Song of the Earth”), which Mahler referred to as “a symphony in songs,” with themes of love, life, and death. Christian Gerhaher will be one of two soloists. The third concert in the cycle will be Mahler’s Symphony No. 10, left unfinished at his death and later completed by British musicologist Deryck Cooke.

 

Resident orchestra of the Barbican London, the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) annually presents more than 70 concerts at home and an equal number on tour. In addition to its annual Lincoln Center concerts, the LSO is international resident orchestra at the Philharmonie de Paris. Established in 1904, the LSO is a self-governing body, selecting the conductors they most want to collaborate with, and developing long-term creative partnerships with them. In addition to Rattle, the orchestra performs regularly with Principal Guest Conductors Gianandrea Noseda and Daniel Harding and Conductor Laureate Michael Tilson Thomas. Outside the concert hall, the LSO’s many other activities include an energetic and groundbreaking education and community program, a record company, a music education center, and pioneering work in the field of digital music.

 

Christian Gerhaher’s intensive preoccupation with the music of Gustav Mahler brought him together with the conductors Riccardo Chailly, Gustavo Dudamel, and Pierre Boulez, and major orchestras regularly invite him to perform, including the London Symphony Orchestra and Vienna and Berlin Philharmonics. Gerhaher maintains close ties with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, with which he recorded his first album of arias devoted to opera of the German Romantic era, earning him the International Opera Award.

 

Gerhaher’s exemplary lied interpretations with the pianist Gerold Huber set a gold standard—their recordings have won numerous prizes, including Echo Klassik Awards and a Gramophone Classical Music Solo Vocal Award. The lied duo can be heard on the stages of major international recital centers, from the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam to Lincoln Center in New York, and many in between. Besides giving concerts and recitals, Gerhaher is also a highly sought-after performer on the opera stage for which his prizes include the Laurence Olivier Award and the theater prize known as Der Faust. Christian Gerhaher is a regular guest at major European festivals. He has been artist-in-residence at Wigmore Hall in London, and has recorded CDs with major European and American orchestras. Accompanied by Gerold Huber, he has also recorded cycles by Schumann and Schubert, as well as many other lied recordings, all on Sony Music. 

 

Simon Rattle was born in Liverpool and studied at the Royal Academy of Music. For several years he was Principal Guest Conductor of the Rotterdam and Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestras, and in 1980 became Principal Conductor and Artistic Adviser of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, stepping up to music director from September 1990 until August 1998. He is also Founding Patron of the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and since the early 1990s, has been a Principal Artist of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. As guest conductor, he appears regularly in the United States and Europe, with close links to a number of orchestras most notably with the Vienna Philharmonic and Philadelphia Orchestras. In September 2002 he became Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Berlin Philharmonic where he leads regular tours in Europe, North America, and the Far East and has recently conducted in Lucerne, Salzburg, and London's BBC Proms.  His most recent opera engagements include appearances at the Staatsoper Berlin, Wiener Staatsoper, the Metropolitan Opera, and the Royal Opera House Covent Garden. Beginning in the 2017/18 season, Rattle will serve as the music director of the London Symphony Orchestra.

 

Sol Gabetta, cello

Bertrand Chamayou, piano

 

Saturday, May 12, 2018 at 7:30 pm

Alice Tully Hall

Beethoven: Cello Sonata in F major, Op. 5, No. 1

Britten: Sonata in C major, Op. 65

Chopin: Sonata in G minor, Op. 65

Chopin/Franchomme: Grand Duo on themes from Meyerbeer’s Robert le diable

 

Sol Gabetta appeared at Mostly Mozart in 2015 as soloist with the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra and also in a late-night recital. She achieved international acclaim upon winning the Crédit Suisse Young Artist Award in 2004 and making her debut with Vienna Philharmonic and Valery Gergiev. Born in Argentina, Gabetta won her first competition at the age of ten, soon followed by commendations at Moscow's Tchaikovsky Competition and the ARD International Music Competition in Munich. She made highly acclaimed debuts with Berlin Philharmonic and Simon Rattle at the Baden-Baden Easter Festival in 2014, at Mostly Mozart in New York in August 2015, and at the opening concert of the BBC Proms 2016 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Sakari Oramo. This season sees Gabetta work with the Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala in Milan and the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Vienna Symphony, Seattle Symphony Orchestra, and the Orchestre Natinoal de France. Tours will take her to the major European summer festivals, such as Lucerne and Salzburg with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under the baton of Daniele Gatti, with the SWR Radio-Sinfonieorchester to Scandinava and Estonia, and with the kammerorchesterbasel to Asia. In recital, Sol Gabetta will appear at Boston Celebrity Series, Club musical de Québec and Shriver Hall with Bertrand Chamayou, and at San Francisco Performances and in Santa Barbara with Alessio Bax. In Germany she will tour with Hélène Grimaud, restating their highly acclaimed DUO project of 2012. As a chamber musician Gabetta performs worldwide in venues such as Wigmore Hall in London, Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona, and the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, with distinguished partners including Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Bertrand Chamayou.

 

Bertrand Chamayou has established himself at the highest level on the international music scene, performing in venues such as the Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Lincoln Center, the Herkulessaal Munich and London’s Wigmore Hall. He has appeared at major festivals including New York’s Mostly Mozart Festival, the Lucerne Festival, Edinburgh International Festival, Rheingau Musik Festival, Beethovenfest Bonn and Klavier-Festival Ruhr. Chamayou is a regular chamber music performer, with partners including Renaud and Gautier Capuçon, Quatuor Ebène, Antoine Tamestit and Sol Gabetta. A recital tour of the United States and Canada with Gabetta in 2016/17 will lead the duo to Baltimore’s Spivey Hall, Boston Celebrity Series and Club Musical de Québec.

 

Freiburg Baroque Orchestra

Kristian Bezuidenhout, director and fortepiano  

 

Saturday, May 19, 2018 at 7:30 pm

Alice Tully Hall

Haydn: Symphony No. 74 in E-flat major, Hob. I:74

Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 17 in G major, K.453

Johann Christian Bach: Symphony in G minor, Op. 6, No. 6

Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 9 in E-flat major, K.271 (“Jeunehomme”)

 

The Freiburg Baroque Orchestra presents about 100 performances per year in a variety of formations from chamber to opera orchestra, and is a self-administrated ensemble with its own subscription concerts at Freiburg’s Concert Hall, Stuttgart’s Liederhalle, and Berlin’s Philharmonie and worldwide tours. The FBO collaborates with important artists such as René Jacobs, Andreas Staier, Isabel Faust, Christian Gerhaher, and Kristian Bezuidenhout, who becomes the orchestra’s artistic director beginning with the 2017/18 season. The artistic success of this musical partnership is reflected in numerous CD productions and the FBO has a close alliance with the French label Harmonia mundi France. The ensemble has received many prominent awards, such as Germany’s ECHO Classical Music Award in 2014 and 2013 and Edison Classical Music Award 2013, the ECHO Classical Music Award in 2012 and 2014, Gramophone Award 2012, Edison Classical Music Award 2012, Gramophone Award 2011, Germany’s ECHO Classical Music Award 2011, and the German Record Critics’ Annual Award 2009.

 

Kristian Bezuidenhout is one of the most notable and exciting keyboard artists today, equally at home on the fortepiano, harpsichord, and modern piano. Born in South Africa in 1979, he began his studies in Australia, completed them at the Eastman School of Music, and now lives in London. He begins his tenure as the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra’s artistic director beginning with the 2017/18 season. Bezuidenhout first gained international recognition at the age of 21 after winning the prestigious first prize and audience prize in the Bruges Fortepiano Competition. Bezuidenhout is a regular guest with the world’s leading ensembles, including Les Arts Florissants, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Orchestre des Champs Elysées, Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and has guest-directed (from the keyboard) the English Concert, Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, Tafelmusik, Collegium Vocale, Juilliard 415, and the Kammerakademie Potsdam.

 

* * *

 

Sunday Morning Coffee Concerts, Music on Film, and Complimentary Classical

Lincoln Center’s Great Performers season is augmented by films, lectures, Sunday morning recitals, and complimentary concerts in the David Rubenstein Atrium.

 

Sunday Morning Coffee Concerts

Intimate one-hour concerts at the Walter Reade Theater accompanied by Nespresso coffee and conversation with the artists—a Sunday tradition.

Refreshments are provided by Zabar’s and Zabars.com

 

Jenny Lin, piano

 

Sunday, November 12, 2017 at 11:00 am

Walter Reade Theater

Silvestrov: Benedictus

Mompou: Angelico, from Música callada, Vol. I, No. 1

Silvestrov: Der Bote (“The Messenger”)

Mozart: Allegro, from Piano Sonata No. 16 in C major, K.545

Silvestrov: Wedding Waltz

Schubert: Impromptu No. 3 in G-flat major, D.899

Silvestrov: Chopin Moments

Chopin: Nocturne in C minor, Op. 48, No. 1

Silvestrov: Bagatelle

Debussy: Reflets dans l’eau, from Images, Book I

Silvestrov: Postludium

Wagner (trans. Liszt): “Isoldes Liebestod” from Tristan und Isolde

 

Pianist Jenny Lin celebrates the 80th birthday of visionary Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov in a program that features his lyrical meditations alongside masterworks that inspired him.

 

Born in Taiwan and raised in Austria, Jenny Lin made her Lincoln Center debut with a late performance in the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse as part of the 2011 Mostly Mozart Festival’s night A Little Night Music concerts. She studied with Noel Flores at the Hochschule für Musik in Vienna, with Julian Martin at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, and with Dominique Weber in Geneva. She has also worked with Leon Fleisher, Richard Goode, and Blanca Uribe, and with Dimitri Bashkirov and Andreas Staier at the Fondazione Internazionale per il pianoforte in Como, Italy. Lin has performed recitals at Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall (now David Geffen Hall), Kennedy Center, Miller Theatre, MoMA, Whitney Museum, San Francisco Performances, Freer Gallery of Art, Morgan Library, (Le) Poisson Rouge, National Gallery of Art, Corcoran Gallery, Spivey Hall, and throughout Europe and Asia; as well as festivals worldwide including BAM’s Next Wave and Spoleto in the U.S., the Chopin Festival in Austria, Flanders and Ars Musica Festivals in Belgium, Shanghai New Music Festival in China, Divonne Festival in France, Schleswig-Holstein, and others.

 

Conrad Tao, piano

 

Sunday, December 3, 2017 at 11:00 am

Walter Reade Theater

Works by Bach, Elliott Carter, Rachmaninoff, and Beethoven

 

Rising star Conrad Tao is both a pianist and composer, and has been dubbed a musician of “probing intellect and open-hearted vision” by the New York Times, a “thoughtful and mature composer” by NPR, and “ferociously talented” by Time Out New York. In his wide-ranging recital, Tao explores the major periods of music history, as represented by composers from Bach to Carter.

 

Tao is no stranger to Lincoln Center: In May of 2012, he was awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, and studied piano with Professor Yoheved Kaplinsky at Juilliard as well as composition with Christopher Theofanidis. As a pianist, Tao has been named a Presidential Scholar in the Arts, a Gilmore Young Artist, and he won the Young Arts gold medal in music. He was the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s artist-in-residence, performing solo recitals, chamber music, and concertos, and has appeared with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra of Malaysia, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the San Diego Symphony, the Toronto Symphony, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Bern Symphony, among others. He has also collaborated with the young musicians of the New York Youth Symphony and the Hawai’i Youth Symphony, and performs recitals in Europe and throughout the United States with repertoire ranging from Bach to Toru Takemitsu to Julia Wolfe.

 

Calmus

 

Sunday, December 17, 2017 at 11:00 am

Walter Reade Theater

Christmas Carols From Around the World

 

The German a capella group presents a selection of international carols evoking holiday celebrations from around the world, from the frozen fjords of Scandinavia to the Christmas carnivals of the Caribbean.

 

Calmus, a vocal quintet comprised of soprano Anja Pöche, countertenor Sebastian Krause, tenor Tobias Pöche, baritone Ludwig Böhme, and bass Manuel Helmeke, is one of the most successful vocal groups in Germany, widely praised by the press for its refined blend of sound, precision, lightness, and wit. The five Leipzig musicians have won numerous international prizes and competitions, including the ECHO Klassik and Supersonic awards, and they have toured extensively throughout Europe as well as in North and South America. In 2010 the Quintet made its debut at Carnegie Hall. Calmus is tireless in its quest to discover and commission new repertoire. Shaped by the centuries-old tradition of great German boys' choirs, they are at home in the vocal music of the Renaissance, the Baroque, and the Romantic, and are equally passionate about the music of our own time. They are known for collaborating with musicians such as the Lautten Compagney Berlin, the Raschèr Saxophone Quartet, Hamburger Ratsmusik, and the Frankfurt Radio Bigband, and as part of these partnerships have commissioned numerous new works from composers, including Bernd Franke, Steffen Schleiermacher, Wolfram Buchenberg, Mathew Rosenblum, Bill Dobbins, Michael Denhoff and Harald Banter. In addition to the standard repertoire, the ensemble revels in pop, folk and jazz, as well as chansons and golden oldies from the 1920s.

 

Trio con Brio Copenhagen

 

Sunday, February 4, 2018 at 11:00 am

Walter Reade Theater

Haydn: Piano Trio No. 39 in G major (“Gypsy”)

Hans Abrahamsen: Serenade, from Traumlieder

Hans Abrahamsen: Arabesque, from Traumlieder

Smetana: Piano Trio in G minor, Op. 15

 

Trio con Brio Copenhagen, previously seen during the 2009 Mostly Mozart Festival, returns to Lincoln Center for a program featuring folk-influenced pieces by Haydn and Smetana, as well as selections from Traumlieder by the Grawemeyer Prize-winning Danish composer Hans Abrahamsen.

 

Founded in Vienna in 1999, Trio con Brio Copenhagen (violinist Soo-Jin Hong, cellist Soo-Kyung Hong, and pianist Jens Elvekjaer) is in great international demand and has an intensive worldwide touring schedule. In recent years,the trio has appeared in major concert halls in Europe, the United States, and Asia, such as Tivoli Concert Hall, the Concertgebouw, Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, the Konzerthaus Berlin, the Seoul Arts Center, Bunka Kaikan Tokyo, and Teatro Olimpico Vicenza. Trio con Brio has won nearly every international competition for piano trio, including the ARD (Munich), Vittorio Gui (Florence) and Norway’s Trondheim Competition. In January 2015 the trio was the first ensemble to receive one of Denmark’s most prestigious awards, the P2 Artists Prize, at a live televised concert where they performed Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra. Other major awards received include the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson International Trio Award (USA) and the Allianz Prize in Germany’s Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

 

Chad Hoopes, violin

David Fung, piano

 

Sunday, April 15, 2018 at 11:00 am

Walter Reade Theater

Prokofiev: Violin Sonata in D major, Op. 94bis

Dvorák: “Romantic pieces” Op. 75

Ravel: Tzigane

 

Chad Hoopes, a frequent guest of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, makes his Great Performers debut in a robust program culminating in the gypsy fireworks of Ravel’s Tzigane.

 

In recent seasons, Chad Hoopes has debuted at the Orchestre de Paris at Salle Pleyel and the Munich Symphony Orchestra; in recital at Tonhalle Zürich; on a tour of Russia with the MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra; and in performances with the Vancouver Symphony and Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo. Hoopes has performed with the San Francisco, Pittsburgh and Houston symphony orchestras, as well as Minnesota Orchestra, Colorado Music Festival Orchestra, and the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Canada. He is a frequent guest artist at the Menuhin Festival in Gstaad, Switzerland and at Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and was the artist-in-residence for Classical Minnesota Public Radio during the 2011/12 season. Born in Florida, Hoopes began his violin studies at the age of three in Minneapolis, and continued his training at the Cleveland Institute of Music under David Cerone and Joel Smirnoff,and at Kronberg Academy, and with Professor Ana Chumachenco. He recently won first prize in the Young Artists Division of the Yehudi Menuhin International Violin Competition.

 

Described as “stylish and articulate” in the New York Times and having “superstar qualities” by Le Libre, pianist David Fung is widely recognized for performances that are elegant and refined, yet intensely poetic and uncommonly expressive.  Fung has appeared regularly with the Cleveland Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Israel Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the National Orchestra of Belgium, the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra, the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the San Diego Symphony Orchestra, and the San Francisco Symphony. As a recitalist and chamber musician, Fung is a frequent guest artist at prestigious festivals and venues worldwide. Festival highlights include performances at the Aspen Music Festival, Blossom Music Festival, Edinburgh International Festival, Hong Kong Arts Festival, and Ravinia Festival. 

 

Christina and Michelle Naughton, pianos

 

Sunday, May 13, 2018 at 11:00 am

Walter Reade Theater

Mozart: Sonata for Piano Four-Hands in D major, K.381

John Adams: Roll Over Beethoven

Chopin: Rondo in C major for Two Pianos

Lutoslawski: Variations on a Theme by Paganini

 

Sibling piano duo Christina and Michelle Naughton make their Lincoln Center debuts in a recital that features John Adams’s Roll Over Beethoven. Adams cites Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 31 in A-flat, Op. 110, the Diabelli Variations, and Chuck Berry as his inspiration for this work.

 

Christina and Michelle Naughton have been hailed by the San Francisco Examiner for their “stellar musicianship, technical mastery, and awe-inspiring artistry.” The Naughtons made their European debut at Herkulesaal in Munich, where the Süddeutsche Zeitung proclaimed them “an outstanding piano duo.”.They made their Asian debut with the Hong Kong Philharmonic, where the Sing Tao Daily said of their performance: “Joining two hearts and four hands at two grand pianos, the Naughton sisters created an electrifying and moving musical performance.” An appearance with the Philadelphia Orchestra led the Philadelphia Inquirer to characterize their playing as “paired to perfection,” while the Saarbrücker Zeitung exclaimed “this double star could soon prove to be a supernova.” They have captivated audiences throughout the globe with the unity created by their mystical musical communication. As told to the Wall Street Journal by Christina Naughton in an interview: “There are times I forget we are two people playing together”. The sisters recently signed an exclusive recording contract with Warner Classics which released their second album, Visions in March 2016.  Subsequently, Visions"was named Editor's Choice in May 2016 by Gramophone. Born in Princeton, New Jersey to parents of European and Chinese descent, Christina and Michelle are graduates of The Juilliard School and the Curtis Institute of Music, where they were each awarded the Festorazzi Prize. They are Steinway Artists and currently reside in New York City.

 

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Music on Film

Every season, Great Performers presents rare, behind-the-scenes film footage providing a backstage glimpse at master artists and musicians at work. This year’s film series features four brilliant and visionary conductors as well as legendary cellist Mstislav Rostropovich.

Presented in association with the Film Society of Lincoln Center and Christian Labrande.

 

Saturday, February 24, 2018 at 1:00 pm

Film Program 1: Portrait of Rostropovich (U.S. premiere)

A new biographical film on Mstislav Rostropovich by the award-winning French filmmaker Bruno Monsaingeon, who directed documentaries on Glenn Gould, Sviatoslav Richter, and other luminaries.

 

Sunday, February 25, 2018 at 1:00 pm

Film Program 2: Leonard Bernstein

The late incomparable composer and longtime New York Philharmonic music director Leonard Bernstein imparts the lessons of a musical lifetime in rehearsals of Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette and Stravinsky’s Le sacre du printemps with students of the Orchestral Academy of the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival in 1989.

 

Wednesday, February 28, 2018 at 6:15 pm

Film Program 3: Sergiu Celibidache

Remembered as an idiosyncratic perfectionist, these two films of conductor Sergiu Celibidache catch him at the height of his career and toward the end of his life. The first, a 1965 rehearsal of Ravel’s sinuous Boléro with the Swedish National Radio Symphony. Then, in 1992 he returns to the Berlin Philharmonic for Bruckner’s monumental Seventh Symphony.

 

Wednesday, February 28, 2018 at 8:45 pm

Film Program 4: Georg Solti and Carlos Kleiber

Go behind the scenes as Georg Solti rehearses the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra in Wagner’s Tannhäuser Overture (1969); then, Carlos Kleiber conducts the same orchestra in the overture to Die Fledermaus (1970).

 

* * *

 

Complimentary Classical

The 2017/18 Great Performers season will be the fifth for Lincoln Center’s series of free string quartet recitals in the David Rubenstein Atrium. Concerts last one hour, and admission is on a first-come, first-served basis.

 

Rolston String Quartet

 

Thursday, January 25, 2018 at 7:30 pm

David Rubenstein Atrium

Mozart: Quartet in A major, K.464

R. Murray Schafer: String Quartet No. 2 (“Waves”)

 

The 2016 First Prize winner of the prestigious Banff International String Quartet Competition, the Rolston String Quartet was named among the CBC’s 2016 “30 Hot Canadian Classical Musicians Under 30.” The Calgary Herald says they “played affectionately, shifted colors with the mood of every phrase, and showed a caramel blend in tone that only makes you want to hear more.” A winner of Astral’s 2016 National Auditions and the 2016 John Lad Prize, the quartet was also the Grand Prize winner of the Chamber Music Yellow Springs Competition and a prizewinner at the inaugural M-Prize competition and the Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition. The Rolston String Quartet was formed in the summer of 2013, at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity’s Chamber Music Residency. The ensemble takes its name from Canadian violinist Thomas Rolston, founder and longtime director of the Music and Sound Programs at the Banff Centre. This is the Quartet’s Lincoln Center debut.

 

Harlem Quartet

 

Thursday, February 22, 2018 at 7:30 pm

David Rubenstein Atrium

Piston: String Quartet No. 3

Debussy: String Quartet in G minor, Op. 10

Guido López Gavilán: Guaguanco

 

The Grammy Award-winning Harlem Quartet, praised for its “panache” by the New York Times, brings “a new attitude to classical music, one that is fresh, bracing and intelligent,” says the Cincinnati Enquirer. The quartet’s mission is to advance diversity in classical music, engaging young and new audiences through the discovery and presentation of varied repertoire that includes works by minority composers. This is the Quartet’s Lincoln Center debut. Since its first public appearance in 2006 at Carnegie Hall, the New York-based ensemble has performed throughout the U.S., Europe, South America, Canada, and in South Africa, where the U.S. State Department facilitated a two-week tour of concert performances and outreach activities. Each member of the quartet is a seasoned solo artist, having appeared with such orchestras as the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Pops, and the Atlanta, Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit, National, Utah, Puerto Rico, Juilliard, New World, and Pittsburgh symphony orchestras. Harlem Quartet is known collaborations with other artists. With Music Director Mei-Ann Chen and the Chicago Sinfonietta, they gave the world premiere of Randall Craig Fleischer’s arrangement of Bernstein’s West Side Story for string quartet and orchestra, with repeat performances by the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra and the Santa Fe Concert Association. The Chicago Sinfonietta performances are immortalized by Cedille Records along with other works for string quartet and orchestra by Michael Abels and Benjamin Lees. Other recordings include the string quartet version of Billy Strayhorn’s jazz standard Take the “A” Train for White Pine Music; a Naxos recording featuring works of Walter Piston; and a collaboration with pianist Awadagin Pratt showcasing American composer Judith Lang Zaimont. Additionally, the group has worked with jazz greats Chick Corea and Gary Burton on multiple occasions.

 

Heath Quartet

 

Thursday, March 22, 2018 at 7:30 pm

David Rubenstein Atrium

Haydn: String Quartet in C major, Op. 74, No. 1

Tchaikovsky: String Quartet No. 1 in D major, Op. 11

 

The dynamic and charismatic Heath Quartet are fast earning a reputation as one of the most exciting British chamber ensembles today. In May 2013 they became the first ensemble in 15 years to win the prestigious Royal Philharmonic Society’s Young Artists Award. Formed in 2002 at the Royal Northern College of Music they were selected for representation by YCAT, were awarded a Borletti-Buitoni Special Ensemble Scholarship and in 2012 won the Ensemble Prize at the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Strong exponents of contemporary music, the Quartet have also worked with several leading composers including Hans Abrahamsen, Louis Andriessen, Brett Dean, Anthony Gilbert, Sofia Gubaidulina, Steven Mackey and John Musto. They took part in the European première of Steve Mackey’s Gaggle and Flock for string octet, the world première of John Musto’s Another Place with Carolyn Sampson at the Wigmore Hall as well as receiving unanimous critical acclaim for their performance of Ligeti’s Quartet No.2 and Thomas Adès’s Arcadian’ for The Park Lane Group at the Purcell Room. The Heath Quartet members are Professors of Chamber Music at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, individually holding instrumental teaching posts in the faculty.

 

Aeolus Quartet

 

Thursday, April 12, 2018 at 7:30 pm

David Rubenstein Atrium

Beethoven: String Quartet in F major, Op. 18, No. 1

Ives: String Quartet No. 2

 

Violinists Nicholas Tavani and Rachel Shapiro, violist Gregory Luce, and cellist Alan Richardson formed the Aeolus Quartet in 2008 at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Since its inception, the all-American quartet has been awarded prizes at nearly every major competition in the United States and won several, among them:  gold medals in the 2011 Plowman Chamber Music Competition, the 2011 Chamber Music Yellow Springs Competition, and the 2009 Coleman International Chamber Ensemble; silver at the 2011 Fischoff International Chamber Music Competition; and bronze at the 2010 International Chamber Music Ensemble Competition in New England. The Quartet’s travels have taken them across the globe through North America, Europe, and Asia in venues such as Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Reinberger Recital Hall at Severance Hall, Merkin Hall, The Library of Congress, Renwick Gallery, St. Martin-in-the-Fields, and the Shanghai Oriental Arts Center. From 2013 until 2015 Aeolus served as Graduate Resident String Quartet at the Juilliard School, and currently make their home in New York City. The Quartet is named for the Greek god Aeolus, who governed the four winds. This idea of a single spirit uniting four individual forces serves as an inspiration to the members of the Aeolus Quartet as they pursue their art. This is their debut as part of Lincoln Center’s Great Performers series.

 

TICKET INFORMATION

 

Subscription Tickets for Great Performers 2017/18 are on sale beginning January 31, 2017 online at LCGreatPerformers.org/Subscribe, by phone via CenterCharge, 212.721.6500, by mail: Great Performers, Alice Tully Hall Box Office, 1941 Broadway, New York, NY 10023-6588, or in person at the Alice Tully Hall or David Geffen Hall Box Office, 65th Street and Broadway. Renewing subscribers should call CenterCharge or send in their renewal form. Single tickets will be on sale starting June 12, 2017. For more information, call 212.875.5766.

 

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Support is provided by Rita E. and Gustave M. Hauser, Audrey Love Charitable Foundation, Great Performers Circle, Chairman’s Council, and Friends of Lincoln Center.

 

Public support is provided by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature

 

Endowment support for Symphonic Masters is provided by the Leon Levy Fund.

 

Endowment support is also provided by UBS.

 

American Airlines is the Official Airline of Lincoln Center

 

Nespresso is the Official Coffee of Lincoln Center

 

NewYork-Presbyterian is the Official Hospital of Lincoln Center

 

Initiated in 1965, Lincoln Center’s Great Performers series presents classical and contemporary music performances from the world’s outstanding symphony orchestras, vocalists, chamber ensembles, and recitalists. One of the most significant music presentation series in the world, Great Performers runs from October through May with offerings in Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Walter Reade Theater, David Rubenstein Atrium, and other performance spaces around New York City. From symphonic masterworks, lieder recitals, and Sunday morning coffee concerts to films and groundbreaking productions specially commissioned by Lincoln Center, Great Performers offers a rich spectrum of programming throughout the season. For more information: LCGreatPerformers.org.

 

Great Performers is a presentation of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (LCPA), which serves three primary roles: presenter of artistic programming, national leader in arts and education and community engagement, and manager of the Lincoln Center campus. A presenter of more than 3,000 free and ticketed events, performances, tours, and educational activities annually, LCPA offers 16 series, festivals, and programs, including American Songbook, Avery Fisher Career Grants and Artist program, David Rubenstein Atrium programming, Great Performers, Lincoln Center at the Movies, Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Awards, Lincoln Center Festival, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, Lincoln Center Vera List Art Project, Midsummer Night Swing, Mostly Mozart Festival, White Light Festival, the Emmy Award–winning Live From Lincoln Center, which airs nationally on PBS, and Lincoln Center Education, which is celebrating 40 years enriching the lives of students, educators, and lifelong learners. As manager of the Lincoln Center campus, LCPA provides campus-wide services and fundraising support for the 11 resident organizations: The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Film Society of Lincoln Center, Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Juilliard School, Lincoln Center Theater, The Metropolitan Opera, New York City Ballet, New York Philharmonic, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, School of American Ballet, and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. 

 

Lincoln Center has become a leading force in using new media and technology to reach and inspire a wider and global audience. Reaching audiences where they are—physically and digitally—has become a cornerstone of making the performing arts more accessible to New Yorkers and beyond. The reimagination of David Geffen Hall will play an important part in these efforts.

For more information, visit LincolnCenter.org.