“Of all the hours of music that will transpire at the Kimmel Center during the Philadelphia Orchestra’s 2015-2016 season, the most eagerly anticipated are likely to be the concerts led by James Levine,” writes David Patrick Stearns in Tuesday’s (1/27) Philadelphia Inquirer. At the invitation of Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Levine’s will lead Saint-Saëns’s Symphony No. 3 (“Organ”) in February 2016. The season will include “a mixture of choral and orchestral works, a three-week Vienna Festival, and two weeks of concerts by principal guest conductor Stéphane Denève, featuring the concert music of John Williams…. Composer/trumpeter Hannibal Lokumbe, who has written several major choral works premiered in Philadelphia, will unveil One Land, One River, One People…. Two new concertos, by Maurice Wright and Jonathan Leshnoff, will be premiered in April.” In addition to performances of Mahler’s Eighth and Tenth Symphonies, Nézet-Séguin will lead a family concert “featuring a group called Puppet Kitchen in a special presentation of Britten’s The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra,” as well as director James Alexander’s staging of Handel’s Messiah. “Other special events include a staging of Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale conducted by associate conductor Cristian Macelaru, also staged by Alexander.”
Posted January 28, 2015
