“Urbanism, minimalism, Haydn, anniversaries and a steady if subtle stress on the 20th century: these are some of the themes of the 2016-17 OSM season,” writes Arthur Kaptainis in Thursday’s (3/10) Gazette (Montreal, Canada). The season will open with Orff’s Carmina Burana and “Ligeti’s Concert Românesc of 1951, which the late Hungarian once personally asked [Music Director Kent] Nagano to program. Leonard Bernstein, Pierre Boulez, Henri Dutilleux and Olivier Messiaen are other departed composers with whom Nagano had direct contact and whose music he conducts next season… One labor of love for the conductor will be the 1951 Turangalîla-Symphonie of Messiaen, the French composer to whom Nagano functioned as an amanuensis in the 1970s…. A commission from José Evangelista, as yet untitled, celebrates the 50th anniversary of the inauguration of the Montreal métro on Oct. 20, 22 and 23…. Montreal-born Samy Moussa, a Nagano favourite, is tasked with composing a ‘Symphony for Montreal’ to celebrate the 375th anniversary of the city…. Another new Canadian work, The Seven Heavenly Halls by Brian Current, will be heard…. Nagano will conduct [Haydn’s last four symphonies] in January on programs that also feature music by the headline minimalists John Adams, Philip Glass, Arvo Pärt and Steve Reich.”
Posted March 10, 2016
Photo of Kent Nagano by Caroline Bergeron
