“Gianandrea Noseda and the National Symphony Orchestra are going places,” writes Anne Midgette in Monday’s (2/4) Washington Post. “In 2020, conductor and orchestra are performing and recording all nine Beethoven symphonies over 18 days…. Over another 18 days, they’ll tour Japan and China…. They’ll travel to New York’s Lincoln Center, with Christine Goerke and Stephen Gould singing Act II of Wagner’s ‘Tristan und Isolde.’ Those are some of the highlights of the Kennedy Center’s classical season in 2019-2020, announced Monday by the administrative and artistic heads of the NSO, the Washington National Opera and the Fortas Chamber Concerts…. With the NSO and Noseda, [Renée Fleming will] sing Kevin Puts’s ‘Brightness of Light’ … with Rod Gilfry…. The Washington National Opera … is stepping up its laudable longtime commitment … to hiring women and artists of color. Tenor Russell Thomas … will sing Verdi’s ‘Otello’ to open the season; ‘Porgy and Bess’ will return to close it. And a major focus is the local premiere of ‘Blue’ by Jeanine Tesori and Tazewell Thompson, about a black family whose teenage son is killed by a white police officer…. The Chineke! orchestra, a British ensemble of black and minority musicians, will perform with the wunderkind cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason.”
Posted February 5, 2019
