JoAnn Falletta conducts the Buffalo Philharmonic. Photo by Brendan Bannon
“The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra’s 2020-21 season is stuffed to the brim with classics, new works, pops programs and returning favorites,” writes Jeff Miers in last Sunday’s (1/26) Buffalo News (NY). “Music Director JoAnn Falletta and her team have rather masterfully worked … ‘new discoveries’ into programs that seek to fuse the seasoned with the modern in thematically linked presentations. One such program will find up-and-coming guest conductor Teddy Abrams leading the orchestra through an evening featuring Antonin Dvorak’s love letter to North America, the ‘New World Symphony,’ and former BPO music director (and mentor to Abrams) Michael Tilson-Thomas’ ‘From the Diary of Anne Frank.’ Another finds Falletta leading … Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and pairing it with the percussive luminosity of contemporary composer Joan Tower’s Pacific Northwest-themed ‘Sequoia.’ … ‘Presenting a big mix of the familiar and unfamiliar—that’s really the idea behind everything we do,’ says Falletta.” In addition to standard repertoire, the season will include Lili Boulanger’s D’un soir triste and D’un matin de printemps; Kodaly’s Symphony in C; Miranda by Puerto Rican composer Ernesto Cordero; and Russell Platt’s Symphony: for Clyfford Still. The season will conclude in June with Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 (“Resurrection”) with the Buffalo Philharmonic Chorus.
