Andris Nelsons is music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Germany’s Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, which have “declared their commitment to being allies and partners: commissioning pieces together, celebrating their connection with Leipzig Week in Boston and Boston Week in Leipzig,” writes Zoë Madonna in Friday’s (10/25) Boston Globe. For Leipzig Week in Boston, October 27 to November 2, “The BSO will [welcome] the 103-strong GHO to Symphony Hall…. It’ll perform two concerts of its own … before the two orchestras join forces to make a sort of symphonic supergroup…. Nelsons, who often extols music’s ability to bring people together, said he sees something ‘global and colorful’ that can ‘embrace the bigger forces’ in Scriabin’s ‘Poem of Ecstasy,’ the final piece on the joint program…. [At] the Oct. 31 BSO/GHO concert … German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier will share welcoming remarks from the stage, and the audience will be treated to post-concert beer and pretzels…. The social component to the alliance is also extremely important, [BSO President and CEO Mark] Volpe said.… Despite the director they share, the two orchestras don’t sound alike—and they aren’t trying to, Volpe said. ‘The Leipzig Gewandhaus still sounds really German…. It’s a distinct sound.’ ”
Posted October 28, 2019
In photo: Andris Nelsons conducts the Boston Symphony Orchestra
