NEW YORK, NY.- In his final season as music director of the New York Philharmonic, Jaap van Zweden will lead a host of premieres, performances of Mozarts Requiem and Mahlers Second Symphony, and a residency in China, the orchestra announced Tuesday.
Gary Ginstling, the Philharmonics incoming president and CEO, said the season would showcase van Zwedens devotion to new music and traditional works.
This is an opportunity, Ginstling said in an interview, to really celebrate all the elements that Jaap brought to the New York Philharmonic.
Van Zweden will make his first appearance on Sept. 27, with a gala featuring cellist Yo-Yo Ma as the soloist in Dvoraks Cello Concerto.
The season will feature premieres by several composers, including Olga Neuwirth, Mary Kouyoumdjian and Melinda Wagner, as part of Project 19, a multiyear initiative to commission new pieces from 19 women. And in summer 2024, the orchestra will return to China for the first time since 2019, for a residency in partnership with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra.
New Yorkers hoping to hear a taste of the Philharmonics future will have to wait: There will be no appearances next season by Gustavo Dudamel, music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, who was announced as van Zwedens successor in February. Ginstling said scheduling conflicts were to blame.
Here are nine highlights of the coming season, chosen by critics for The New York Times. JAVIER C. HERNÁNDEZ
Mirga Grainytė-Tyla, Oct. 11-14: For those keeping track of all the ways in which the Philharmonic has followed the lead of its West Coast counterpart, the Los Angeles Philharmonic in its leadership, in its halls look, in its choice of music director heres another one: Mirga Grainytė-Tyla, the lively Lithuanian conductor who is being talked of as a possible successor to Gustavo Dudamel in Los Angeles, will be making her debut. Daniil Trifonov, a welcome fixture at David Geffen Hall, will join for a program of Robert Schumanns Piano Concerto, as well as selections from Sibelius Lemminkäinen Suite and Raminta erknytės De Profundis, from 1998. JOSHUA BARONE
Ligetis Centennial, Oct. 19-21: The Philharmonic is celebrating the centennial of Gyorgi Ligetis birth with multiple concerts. (Look out for pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard playing Études on Nov. 7.) This program, one of the most eclectic on the Philharmonics calendar, brings two pieces of Ligetis into dialogue with Brahmss Serenade No. 1 and a piano concerto by the living modernist Elena Firsova. The Ligeti works are from relatively early in his career. (And one, Mifiso la sodo, is a U.S. premiere!) Evaluating their place alongside the Brahms and the Firsova, with Yefim Bronfman as the soloist, should make for a bracing ride with David Robertson at the podium. SETH COLTER WALLS
Israel in Egypt, Oct. 25-26: A recent performance of Solomon at Carnegie Hall was a reminder of the sumptuous power of Handels English oratorios, his genre of concert-format, loosely plotted, often biblically inspired works that made choruses the stars. The Philharmonic rarely programs these pieces with the obvious exception of the perennial Messiah, conducted this year in mid-December by Fabio Biondi so Israel in Egypt will be a treat. On the podium, Jeannette Sorrell makes her subscription debut with the orchestra, leading the choir of Apollos Fire, her Cleveland-based ensemble. ZACHARY WOOLFE
Sound On, Oct. 27: Past concerts in this chamber-focused series have delved deeply into contemporary music and have also been relegated to smaller spaces inside Lincoln Center. But on this date, when Ensemble Signal conductor Brad Lubman joins Philharmonic players and a wide range of guest soloists, the music will be presented in Geffen Hall proper. That bodes well for Unsuk Chins transporting aesthetic, which is represented here by her Double Concerto for Piano and Percussion. And theres similar potential for a new (as yet untitled) collaborative work by Kinan Azmeh and Layale Chaker. Both are leading player-composers who also happen to improvise, and theyll both be onstage here. SETH COLTER WALLS
Dessners Concerto for Two Pianos, Nov. 30-Dec. 2: Bryce Dessner, one-fifth of the rock band the National, wrote his Concerto for Two Pianos for the tight, persuasive duo Katia and Marielle Labèque, who bring it to Geffen for its New York premiere. Dessners taste for lush transparency, evident in his orchestrations for Taylor Swifts album Folklore, shows in the way he cushions the pieces unabashedly pretty piano parts without overwhelming them. OUSSAMA ZAHR
Vertigo, Jan. 23-26: Playing film scores live alongside screenings has become a booming business for orchestras struggling with attendance, but the fare is usually blockbusters: the Harry Potter series, Jurassic Park, Raiders of the Lost Ark. Not when the Philharmonic performs Bernard Herrmanns lush, ominous music for Hitchcocks Vertigo as audiences watch that strange, hypnotizing study in erotic obsession. (Next season also brings West Side Story (Sept. 12-17) Spielbergs 2021 version, which featured the Philharmonic on its soundtrack and Black Panther (Dec. 20-23). ZACHARY WOOLFE
Karina Canellakis, April 4-6: Im not entirely joking when I say this, but now that the Philharmonic has lined up its next music director, it can start thinking about who Gustavo Dudamels eventual successor might be. Karina Canellakis, who coincidentally occupies Jaap van Zwedens former post as : chief conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, might well be on its shortlist when the time comes. This native New Yorkers belated Philharmonic debut offers a taste of her thoughtful programming: Weberns Six Pieces for Orchestra, Strauss Tod und Verklärung, Scriabins Le Poème de lExtase and Ravels Piano Concerto, with the soloist Alice Sara Ott. DAVID ALLEN
Olga Neuwirth, April 18-20: Olga Neuwirths contribution to Project 19 in 2020 went well, the way of many things early in the pandemic. Nearly four years after its scheduled premiere, it is finally coming to Geffen Hall, having been first unveiled instead with the Berlin Philharmonic, which streamed the unruly and delightful work for countertenor, childrens choir and orchestra on its Digital Concert Hall platform. Andrew Watts takes up the solo vocal part, making his New York Philharmonic debut alongside the conductor Thomas Sondergard, on a program that also includes Lili Boulangers Dun Matin de Printemps and Prokofievs Fifth Symphony. JOSHUA BARONE
Mahlers Resurrection Symphony, June 6-8: Those with a taste for dry humor might ask themselves what exactly it is that Jaap van Zweden plans to resurrect with these final Geffen Hall concerts as the Philharmonics music director, but Mahlers Symphony No. 2 at least offers him a grand farewell. He will be joined by the New York Philharmonic Chorus, soprano Hanna-Elisabeth Müller and mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Gubanova. DAVID ALLEN
This article originally appeared in
The New York Times.