Carnegie Hall's New Season: What We're Excited to Hear
Carnegie Hall announced its 2025-26 season on Wednesday, with much of it devoted to celebrating the 250th birthday of the United States through a citywide festival featuring genres including jazz, rock, hip-hop, musical theater and classical music.
Clive Gillinson, Carnegie's executive and artistic director, said that the festival was meant to showcase 'the sheer breadth and dynamism of America.'
'Whether you look at film, Broadway, jazz or hip-hop, it's all very vivid music-making,' he said. 'It runs across the whole population.'
The season will open in October with the conductor Daniel Harding leading the NYO-USA All-Stars, an ensemble affiliated with Carnegie, in works by Bernstein and Stravinsky. That performance will also include Yuja Wang leading Tchaikovsky's grand Piano Concerto No. 1 from the keyboard.
The composer Arvo Pärt, who turns 90 in September, will be honored at Carnegie all season, with his friends and collaborators leading performances of his works. Pärt, Gillinson said, 'always has spoken in a language that everybody can engage with.'
Carnegie's season — some 170 performances — will also feature the conductor Marin Alsop, the pianist Lang Lang, the vocalist Isabel Leonard and the violinist Maxim Vengerov, who each will organize a series of Perspectives concerts.
Here are 12 highlights from the season, chosen by critics for The New York Times. JAVIER C. HERNÁNDEZ
Estonian Festival Orchestra, Oct. 23
What better way to celebrate the 90th birthday year of Arvo Pärt than with some of his music's finest interpreters and compatriots? Paavo Järvi will lead the Estonian Festival Orchestra (whose festival in Parnu, Estonia, is honoring Pärt this summer) in an all-Pärt program that also features the Estonian Philharmonic Choir and starry soloists like Midori and Nico Muhly. The choir returns the next evening for another program of works by Pärt, performed with the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra. JOSHUA BARONE
Philharmonia Orchestra, Oct. 28
Expect sparks to fly when Marin Alsop leads the Philharmonia Orchestra in Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra, with its eye-popping bursts of instrumental color. In the first half, the elegant pianist Alexandre Kantorow takes on the electric wit of Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3. In March, Alsop returns to lead the Philadelphia Orchestra in more Prokofiev, as well as a new work by John Adams and Gershwin's Piano Concerto in F, with Hayato Sumino, the YouTube sensation and audience favorite at the 2021 Chopin Competition. CORINNA da FONSECA-WOLLHEIM
Orchestra of St. Luke's, Nov. 6
When the conductor Raphaël Pichon made his New York debut at Carnegie with the Orchestra of St. Luke's last month, he pulled together pieces by Schubert into a fascinating narrative program. Returning with St. Luke's next season, his subject appears to be Beethoven, with a concert including the almighty Ninth Symphony; the great slow movement from the Seventh Symphony, in Friedrich Silcher's unfamiliar choral arrangement; and little-heard selections from Beethoven's incidental music for 'Leonore Prohaska.' ZACHARY WOOLFE
Nicolas Altstaedt and Thomas Dunford, Nov. 18
The vibrant lutenist Thomas Dunford and the sweet-toned cellist Nicolas Altstaedt come together in the intimate Weill Recital Hall for a program featuring French Baroque pieces originally written for viola da gamba by Marin Marais and Antoine Forqueray. Parts of Bach's great cello suites are also on the agenda, as is a melancholy movement from Henri Duparc's 19th-century Cello Sonata. Dunford and Altstaedt also nod to Pärt's composer residency with a transcription of one his most celebrated pieces, 'Spiegel im Spiegel.' ZACHARY WOOLFE
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Dec. 3
Manfred Honeck's directorship of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra must be counted as one of the country's most successful conductor-ensemble collaborations, his thoughtful interpretations of the standard repertory inflaming the players' super-committed virtuosity. They will bring to Carnegie a program that begins with Lera Auerbach's 'Frozen Dreams' and features the pianist Seong-Jin Cho in Rachmaninoff's 'Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini,' before closing with Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony, which they released in 2017 on a refined yet coruscating recording. ZACHARY WOOLFE
Igor Levit, Jan. 22
A pianist of dashing perspicacity and muscular technique, Igor Levit likes to double down on challenges. Last March, he regaled Carnegie concertgoers with solo transcriptions of symphonic works by Mahler and Beethoven, and next season he tackles variations, with Beethoven's 'Diabelli' Variations and Frederic Rzewski's 'The People United Will Never Be Defeated.' These pieces, which take off from a throwaway waltz and a Chilean protest song, require the kind of long-breathed concentration that is Levit's forte. OUSSAMA ZAHR
Leif Ove Andsnes, Jan. 27
You go to a recital by the pianist Leif Ove Andsnes to be as surprised as you are awed. His dignified virtuosity is a given, and will be a reason to a look forward to Robert Schumann's 'Carnaval' at the end of a program that also includes works less famous but likely more revelatory: selections from Gyorgy Kurtag's 'Jatekok,' Janacek's 'On the Overgrown Path' and Liszt's 'Consolations,' as well as more Schumann and a Bartok Burlesque. JOSHUA BARONE
Met Orchestra, Feb. 4
When supervising an early release of his ballet 'Fancy Free,' Leonard Bernstein included a prologue number, 'Big Stuff,' and got Billie Holiday to sing it. You can feel some of that stylistic expansiveness in the programming for this concert, which is part of United in Sound: America at 250. Alongside a suite from Bernstein's ballet and a Barber staple, you'll find William Dawson's 'Negro Folk Symphony' — another piece that takes mutual inspiration from European concert tradition and Black American music. SETH COLTER WALLS
Budapest Festival Orchestra, Feb. 6 and 7
Expect the unexpected whenever Ivan Fischer conducts the Budapest Festival Orchestra, which he helped found in 1983. The mutual trust and elegant, unshowy music-making of these players is sure to breathe life into what may seem like traditional programming: Arvo Pärt's 'Summa,' Brahms's Symphony No. 2 and the Sibelius Violin Concerto, with the charismatic Maxim Vengorov, on Feb. 6; the bucolic spirituality of Mahler's Symphony No. 3 on Feb. 7. Plus, Fischer always keeps some surprise up his sleeve for the end of the evening. CORINNA da FONSECA-WOLLHEIM
Vikingur Olafsson, March 24
The pianist Vikingur Olafsson, a wellspring of thoughtfulness and eloquence, has two visits to Carnegie planned next season. In the spring, he will take on some of the most profound music for piano, Beethoven's final three sonatas. And earlier, on Oct. 29, he will appear with the Philharmonia Orchestra (under its principal conductor, Santtu-Matias Rouvali) in Brahms's Second Piano Concerto, on a program that also includes Sibelius's Fifth Symphony and the local premiere of a new work by Gabriela Ortiz. JOSHUA BARONE
Philadelphia Orchestra, May 29
The symphonic catalog of the composer and trumpeter Wynton Marsalis has only been getting better. The balance between complex rhythmic interplay and memorable melodic writing in his Fourth was particularly enjoyable, so I'm looking forward to the New York premiere of his latest symphony — subtitled 'Liberty' — alongside Beethoven's Seventh and a new work by Julia Wolfe. The Philadelphia Orchestra is well attuned to Marsalis's aesthetic, thanks to its recent recording of his Violin Concerto. SETH COLTER WALLS
Lise Davidsen, June 5
In 2023, the incandescent dramatic soprano Lise Davidsen made her New York City recital debut like an opera star: with an aria-heavy solo program at the Metropolitan Opera. In that concert, she and the pianist James Baillieu dipped a toe in Schubert's oeuvre, enlivening some of his best-loved art songs with bighearted, lovingly limned renditions. Now, in the manner of a lieder singer, she will join Baillieu for an entire program of this composer's output. OUSSAMA ZAHR
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Chicago Tribune
a day ago
- Chicago Tribune
Review: Giancarlo Guerrero steps into new Grant Park Music Fest role with a pair of genial and dynamic programs
Talk about a perfect storm. On Wednesday, Giancarlo Guerrero's much-fêted debut as principal conductor and artistic director of the Grant Park Music Festival was dampened by relentless rain. Audiences scrunched under the Jay Pritzker Pavilion fringe, only to play musical chairs dodging the structure's many (and ever-changing) leaky spots. When they weren't doing that, seat shuffles and squabbles competed with the evening's violin concerto. But if Guerrero appeared unflappable onstage, it's because he's been there before. He made his sophomore appearance with the orchestra in 2014 under nearly identical circumstances, down to the solo string showcase and contemporary American opener. Despite the lousy weather, that appearance impressed festival musicians enough to fast-track Guerrero to the top of their director wishlist a decade later. While last week's storm never erupted into thunder, musical lightning struck twice here with yet another exuberant, water-resistant stand by Guerrero on Wednesday, followed by a masterful account of Mahler's Symphony No. 1 on Friday. Wednesday's concert included two harbor works: 'An American Port of Call,' by Virginia-based composer Adolphus Hailstork, and Leonard Bernstein's 'On the Waterfront' suite. Conducting with his pointer fingers rather than a baton, and sporting a new goatee, Guerrero led a sparky, whistle-clean run of Hailstork's eight-minute curtain raiser. But when the music dissipated into quietude — recalling a boat drifting far off from shore, surrounded only by blue horizon — Guerrero guided the music with expansive ease. Bernstein's 'Waterfront' benefited from the same balance of gusto and intuitive pacing. Patrick Walle's horn solo up top sounded suspended in time, before an increasingly feral orchestra jerked us back to street level. Amid the ferocity, the Grant Parkers always sounded whetted and clean, moving through the works' shifting meters with fearsome precision. In the final windup to the end, electric energy gave way to ringing, Mussorgskyan grandeur. Between the Hailstork and Bernstein, Jeremy Black returned to the festival as both concertmaster and featured soloist, offering up the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto. Even the brunt of the evening's downpour couldn't wash away the strong impression left by this filigree, soulful performance. Black's sound in the opening theme and balladic second movement was sugared but never treacly. Meanwhile, the Allegro molto vivace coasted along serenely, Black's bel canto phrasing and pristine intonation never betraying its finger-flying briskness. Promisingly, Guerrero's orchestral accompaniment was every bit as tasteful. Negotiating solo string balance in the park is always just that — a negotiation — but Guerrero hit the sweet spot of clarity and restraint. The orchestra was able to be a bit more gutsy under Friday's soloist, Pacho Flores. The Venezuelan trumpeter has a sparkling sound, which he dispatched with doting attention to phrase and line in Arturo Márquez's lively, if unseasonal, 'Concierto de Otoño' ('Autumn Concerto'). The work was specifically composed for Flores in 2018, taking unabashed advantage of not just the trumpeter's lyricism but his gatling-gun articulation, unflappable stamina and chameleon flexibility. (He traded four different horns across the 20-minute piece: C and D trumpets in the outer movements, then a flugelhorn and soprano cornet in the middle.) Flores also knows how to work a crowd. Rather than shooting to the stratosphere in his third-movement cadenza, he crawled to the bottom of his range — an amusing subversion of trumpet tropes. He then turned his bell directly at Guerrero and playfully pppththhed at him through his horn, prompting a teasing 'what gives?' shrug from the conductor. That said, it's hard to endorse Márquez's concerto beyond a mere virtuoso vehicle. The orchestral backing is often trite, cycling through the same progressions for what feels like minutes at a time. If the concerto's many flavors of theme-and-variation were engrossing at all, it was entirely thanks to Friday's soloist and orchestra, both playing with tempera-rich color and joie d'vivre. For pops-adjacent music under a more skillful hand, look to Flores himself. He opened and closed his appearance with two self-penned numbers: 'Morocota' (named for a $20 Venezuelan coin) and 'Lábios Vermelhos' ('Red Lips'). Originally recording both with guitar accompaniment for a 2017 Deutsche Grammophon release, Flores sang through his horn with a suave melodiousness that would have done the Rat Pack proud, with just a shimmer of vibrato where it counted. His lush orchestral arrangements would have been right at home in that milieu, too. At one point in 'Lábios Vermelhos,' section trumpets got in on the fun, with a sneering little interjection. Yet another short, Latin-inspired curtain raiser opened the concert: 'Baião n' Blues,' by Chicago composer Clarice Assad. A staple of the Carlos Kalmar years, Assad's inclusion in Guerrero's opening week bodes well for the new festival chief's attention to local composers. Ultimately, though, this performance had some of the same early-season jitters as last week's opener, with a scraggly opening and subdivision disagreement among the violins. 'Baião n' Blues' already isn't Assad's most compellingly structured piece, but a more honed performance might have made a better case. While Mahler sought to depict the world's natural beauty and bizarre juxtapositions in his music, he perhaps didn't anticipate contending with throbbing helicopters, the squeal of a coach's whistle, and hot rods sputtering down Lake Shore Drive on Friday. The Grant Park corps rose above the usual downtown backing track with a fresh, focused Mahler 1. Guerrero cued the unearthly, whistling first bars with an ambiguous gesture that invited the orchestra to melt in freely. Offstage trumpets were piped through the crown of the pavilion stage, sounding mysteriously heaven-sent. When the theme arrived in the cellos, Guerrero maintained their levity and grace throughout the movement — and, in fact, throughout much of the piece, bringing an aerodynamic lightness even to the symphony's final cadence. Because Grant Park 'does things a little differently,' per Guerrero, Friday's performance reinserted Mahler's discarded 'Blumine' movement. Through a complex change of hands, the only surviving manuscript copy of 'Blumine' ended up in in New Haven, Connecticut, where it was rediscovered as part of the Mahler renaissance of the 1960s. If 'Blumine' is heard at all, it's usually as a standalone piece, for good reason: It's arresting but nearly always out-of-place amid the lustiness of the rest of the symphony. Friday's performance gave the same impression — gauzy and subtle, but stopping short of the richness and emotional abandon that would make a better case for its inclusion. Elsewhere, other idiosyncratic touches intrigued and often convinced: more perky staccatos by oboist Alex Liedtke, orchestral accents like bitter twists of a knife in the funeral march, and a slower reading of the klezmer-band interludes. In all, it endorsed Guerrero's warhorse chops as enthusiastically as his new-music acumen. Rain or shine, Grant Park is looking like a fair place to be under his baton.
Epoch Times
2 days ago
- Epoch Times
‘3:10 to Yuma': Masculinity Is Real, Machismo Is Fake
Through his picture-perfect Western '3:10 to Yuma' (2007), director James Mangold is saying that children, women, and men who shelter beneath the shade of subtle masculinity ought to be grateful, not hanker after the spectacular but shallow alternative. Drought and debt force one-legged Civil War veteran and small-time rancher Dan Evans (Christian Bale) to join a posse. They're out to find and put crooked but charming outlaw Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) on the 3:10 train heading to prison in Yuma. While Evans limps through this real-world manhunt, his wife Alice (Gretchen Mol), younger son Mark (Benjamin Petry), and older son William (Logan Lerman) find themselves in a manhunt of a different sort.
Forbes
2 days ago
- Forbes
Melissa Errico To Perform Stephen Sondheim's Music In NY And London
Tony Award-nominated performer Melissa Errico is bringing her talents and the music of the incomparable Stephen Sondheim to top stages in New York and London this summer. NEW YORK, NY - OCTOBER 01: Melissa Errico performs onstage during Broadway's Best Comes Together To Salute Chita Rivera At Touch The Sky, A Benefit To Build NY's First Shane's Inspiration Inclusive Playground For Kids Of All Abilities at Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall on October 1, 2018 in New York City. (Photo byfor Shane's Inspiration) Getty Images for Shane's Inspiration Tonight and tomorrow night (June 20 and 21) she will sing songs written by Stephen Sondheim at 54 Below, the Broadway supper club, while she will perform a 'Sondheim in the City' program at Cadogan Hall in London on July 12, her debut in that hall. 54 Below said her shows there would present 'a sparkling evening of (Sondheim's) sublime songs side by side with engaging stories of his craft and life. Errico's admiration for her friend and teacher — she refers to his wisdom and inspiration as 'life-saving, sheer joy, giving us all creative courage' — is always evident. This…engagement is a preview of her upcoming concert hall debut in London.' Errico, 54 Below continued, 'worked with Stephen Sondheim on productions of Sunday in the Park with George , John Doyle's hit production of Passion , and Do I Hear A Waltz? at City Center. She played the Baker's Wife in a concert run of Into the Woods . She has sung Sondheim on PBS, 'Finishing The Hat' for Poetry In America and on her own filmed solo special. She sang and spoke at a tribute to him in her Carnegie Hall debut in 2022 with The New York Pops. She has made two all-Sondheim albums, with a third on the way.' The June 21 54 Below performance, which will be livestreamed, will feature Tony Award winner Len Cariou, the Sweeney in the original 1979 Broadway production of Sweeney Todd . In an interview with this week, Errico said Cariou would tell the story of how Sondheim's legendary song, 'Send in the Clowns' from Sweeney Todd —immortalized by Judy Collins—got written. Errico's July 12 performance at Cadogan Hall, 'Sondheim in the City,' will feature Olivier Award-winner Julian Ovenden, accompanied by Tedd Firth on piano and a trio from Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club. Errico will perform classics from Sondheim's Company, Merrily We Roll Along and Anyone Can Whistle , among other shows, and tell stories about her own work with him. Melissa Errico and Stephen Sondheim Bruce Glikas Asked what her favorite Sondheim musical and song are, Errico told this 'alters all the time. But I can never get past the beauties of Sunday In the Park and A Little Night Music and their big, ambivalent arias: 'Children and Art' — which I got to sing to him on his ninetieth birthday—and, of course, 'Send In the Clowns', which I'll be singing this week. Those two will always have a place in my heart and on my set list.' Asked what the message of Sondheim's music is for listeners today, she said, 'it's both to accept ambivalence and embrace pluralism. All of our lives, and particularly all of our loves, are always all mixed up – that's the moral of 'Sorry, Grateful' and 'Good Thing Going' and 'Moments In The Woods.' The course of true love (and marriage) never runs smooth, and we wouldn't recognize it if it did. But he also tells us to embrace the sheer variety of New York , and in that way of the world. That's the moral of 'Sunday' from Sunday In The Park and 'Move On' and 'Children and Art.' (I know, they're set in Paris, but Sondheim's Paris is another version of New York.) They tell us that we not only have to accept but embrace and celebrate all the complexities of life, and all the many kinds of people in the park – the ones we share the world with.'
