“As the Boston Symphony Orchestra commences an eight-city European tour this week, anticipation has been gathering around one particular sold-out performance, on May 5 in Leipzig, Germany,” writes Jeremy Eichler in Tuesday’s (5/3) Boston Globe. “During the Cold War decades, the city of Leipzig was behind the Iron Curtain … and visits from American ensembles were rare…. The BSO’s early history … flows significantly through the city of Leipzig, with its venerable conservatory and its storied Gewandhaus Orchestra…. This concert … marks the unofficial start of a new formal partnership between the BSO and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra … announced last summer, along with news that BSO music director Andris Nelsons had accepted a second directorship at the helm of the Gewandhaus … beginning in the fall of 2017…. The partnership will most likely involve player exchanges, concert-programming initiatives such as joint commissions, archival exhibitions, visiting chamber ensembles, and new training opportunities for young conductors at Tanglewood.” Says Christoph Wolff, a Harvard musicologist serving as artistic adviser to the new alliance, “This is an innovative project…. I think both communities of musicians and listeners will benefit in a way that has no real precedent.”
Posted May 5, 2016
