oregon symphony announces 2012-2013 season

This past Saturday afternoon, the Oregon Symphony announced its plans for the 2012-2013 season. Late February is a good time for this, as it’s the thick of the season for musicians, patrons, board, and staff alike. This is the time of the year when I’m just trying to make it to the end of the season, and having a fresh set of repertoire to consider that doesn’t have to be practiced right away is a good thing for me. Especially when there’s something to look forward to. In this, the 2012-2013 season delivers in spades for me.

The last few seasons have been wonderful, not the least for the numbers of major star performers that have come our way. It seems that in the coming season, the focus has shifted somewhat. Those stars are staggeringly expensive, even if they do guarantee (as much as one can use that word in this business) a healthy box office return (which isn’t that significant after you take the artist fees out of the overall haul). And there are many lesser-known soloists who are the musical equals of these 300 pound gorillas of the solo circuit. So 2012-2013 seems to return the orchestra’s season to a more orchestra-focused mindset, with a few big stars thrown in, and plentiful almost-big-stars that pack serious artistic punch filling in the rest of the schedule. There are also a few more guest conductors on the docket for next year, which has me wondering if there is already an unofficial search for Carlos Kalmar’s successor as music director getting underway. Finding a new music director is often about building relationships with potential candidates, and that takes repeated guest conducting visits.

There is a lot to like and even to love in this upcoming season, and I’ll break it down into two major categories: repertoire, and soloists.

Repertoire

• Respighi’s Pines of Rome and Fountains of Rome – a showcase for our stunning brass section.
• Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances returns after last being done with James DePreist. It’s a stunning showpiece for the full orchestra, and will be definite must-see. Couple that with a piece by Andrew Norman entitled Drip, Blip, Sparkle, Glint, Glide, Glow, Float, Flop, Chap, Pop, Shatter, Splash, and you’ve got a great subscription opener to the season.
• Henri Dutilleux’s gorgeous violin concerto The Tree of Dreams (which should be paired with a screening of Terrance Malick’s film Tree of Life).
• Shostakovich’s austere and haunting Violin Concerto No. 2.
• Strauss’ Four Last Songs and Death and Transfiguration – two of my all-time favorite pieces, together on the same program.
• Leonard Bernstein’s Serenade (After Plato’s Symposium) and Copland’s Symphony No. 3. Two more of my favorite pieces paired.
• Thomas Adès’ Asyla – a blockbuster piece that is an orchestral tour de force. Check out the Berlin Philharmonic’s video with Sir Simon Rattle at the end of this post if you want a preview.
• Mahler (finally!) Symphony No. 6 “Tragic”
• Hindemith Concerto for Orchestra – this will have lots of great (and really difficult) parts for the violas!
• Britten War Requiem – one of the great masterpieces of the 20th century.
• Shostakovich – Symphony No. 15 – a harrowing late masterpiece, with big solos for principal cellist Nancy Ives.
• Bartók – Violin Concerto No. 2 – a beautiful piece that should be performed more often than it is.

Soloists

• Percussionist extraordinaire Colin Currie returns to play Aho’s percussion concerto.
• John Kimura Parker is back, and playing Mozart.
• André Watts makes a long-awaited return, playing Beethoven’s great Emperor concerto.
• Kirill Gerstein, a great, young pianist, returns to play Rachmaninoff First Concerto.
• The awesome violinist Jennifer Koh returns to play the Bartók Second Concerto.
• Musician-in-residence, cellist Alban Gerhardt plays Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations.

Conductor

• It’s great to welcome back on of the orchestra’s favorite guests, Hannu Lintu back after several years’ absence.

Now, you can do your part: go forth and purchase subscriptions!!
www.orsymphony.org

Asyla – mvt. III “Ecstasio”
http://youtu.be/HRQr33PdyiQ