In Monday’s (1/30) Star-Ledger (Newark, New Jersey), Ronni Reich reports, “In the 2012-13 season, announced today, The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra will return to 16 weeks of traditional concerts, including a focus on Richard Wagner and his legacy. The orchestra will also continue its multi-year ‘Man and Nature’ Winter Festival and the New Jersey Roots Project. In his third season, music director Jacques Lacombe follows the 2011-12 opening night Gershwin success—’An American in Paris’—by focusing this time on the composer’s ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ with pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet. The Sept. 28 program also includes Duke Ellington’s ‘Harlem’ and Garden State native John Harbison’s ‘Remembering Gatsby.’ The ‘Roots’ initiative continues with the East Coast premiere of Steven Mackey’s ‘Stumble to Grace’ featuring pianist Orli Shaham, an NJSO co-commission. … Eliminating the ‘Best of’ series—but remaining at its six statewide venues—in the coming season, the NJSO celebrates the 200th anniversary of Wagner’s birth. In addition to opera excerpts, the orchestra will offer diverse responses to Wagner’s groundbreaking music by composers: Strauss, Bruckner, Debussy, Sibelius, Schoenberg, Chausson and Stravinsky, whose ‘Rite of Spring’ will be the season finale.”
Posted January 30, 2012
