The Boston Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Andris Nelsons perform at Boston’s Symphony Hall. Photo: Michael Blanchard
“Haunted by the horrors of the war in Ukraine, the Boston Symphony Orchestra is sounding a decidedly somber note … for its 2022-23 season,” writes William Kole in Wednesday’s (4/20) Associated Press. The season “will include a three-week festival in March dubbed ‘Voices of Loss, Reckoning and Hope’—a musical exploration of racial injustice, civil rights and gender inequity…. The orchestra … will perform … Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 13—a five-movement denunciation of Stalinism based on poems by Yevgeny Yevtushenko. The first movement [invokes] a Nazi massacre of Ukrainian Jews. Omer Meir Wellber will direct the BSO in the American premiere of Israeli composer Ella Milch-Sheriff’s ‘The Eternal Stranger,’ which captures the hostility and rejection experienced by refugees and others…. Other concerts will feature … Górecki’s ‘Symphony of Sorrowful Songs’ … and … Osvaldo Golijov’s ‘Falling Out of Time.’… Featured in the March festival will be … Julia Wolfe’s ‘Her Story,’ [about] the continuing struggle for women’s rights…. Also highlighted: Anthony Davis’ clarinet concerto, ‘You Have the Right to Remain Silent,’ with soloist Anthony McGill, about the emotional consequences of encounters with law enforcement; and Uri Caine’s ‘The Passion of Octavius Catto,’ [about] the titular 19th-century Philadelphia civil rights activist.”
