Classical Music Commentary: The Boston Symphony Orchestra’s 2020-21 Season Announcement

By Jonathan Blumhofer

If ever there was a season the BSO needed to put its right foot forward — balancing the core repertory with some strong steps outside of it — this is the one.

Boston Symphony Orchestra, November 2019, at Symphony Hall — Andris Nelsons, conductor, and Mitsuko Uchida, piano. Photo: Winslow Townson.

The Boston Symphony Orchestra’s 2020-21 season may or may not happen as planned. But the orchestra’s upcoming schedule, announced Thursday afternoon, certainly gives one added cause to hope that the “old normal” of live musical performances can somehow return much sooner than later.

Its opening gambit – a cycle of the complete Beethoven symphonies (running between September 16 and October 3) – certainly seems tailor-made for the moment. The music may be familiar and frequently played, but, given the context, there’s hardly any set of works more apt or fitting to the day than these nine scores which culminate in the immortal “Ode to Joy” and its vision of universal brotherhood.

That Beethoven’s sestercentennial figures into the BSO’s season is to be expected (his actual 250th birthday falls in December). That it doesn’t dominate the year, though, is to be commended: after October, the next major Beethoven works don’t turn up until April, when Mitsuko Uchida plays the First and Third Piano Concertos.

What falls in between is largely enticing and builds on the better moments of several of the orchestra’s last seasons.

BSO music director Andris Nelsons is slated to conduct a full 18 programs, including the culminating installments of his complete Shostakovich symphony cycle with the orchestra. For those, one won’t want to miss the Symphony no. 13, Babi Yar (October 15-20), featuring the magnificent bass Ildar Abdrazakov; or the BSO’s concert performances of the opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (April 6-10).

Other highlights of Nelsons’s dates promise to include the Boston premiere of Kevin Puts’s The Brightness of Light with Renée Fleming and Rod Gilfry (October 8-10); Augustin Hadelich playing Benjamin Britten’s luminous Violin Concerto (October 22-24); the acclaimed soprano Lise Davidsen making her BSO debut singing Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs (March 18-23); and a season finale that sandwiches a couple of Anatoly Liadov miniatures between Igor Stravinsky’s Petrushka and Alexander Scriabin’s Prometheus.

The season’s other can’t-miss dates include Giancarlo Guerrero directing a double-bill of Henryk Górecki’s Symphony no. 3 and the local premiere of Julia Wolfe’s Her Story (November 5-7); Alan Gilbert conducting Carl Nielsen’s Symphony no. 3 (November 19-21); Anna Rakitina leading Thomas Adès’s Polaris (November 24-28); Thomas Wilkins conducting works by Duke Ellington, George Gershwin, and William Grant Still (January 28-30); Thomas Adès and Kirill Gerstein reprising Adès’s phenomenal and whimsical Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in tandem with Ravel’s beguiling Concerto for the Left Hand (February 11-13); and the ageless Herbert Blomstedt conducting Sibelius’s Symphony no. 4 (March 4-6).

Additional contemporary offerings for the coming season mix shorter pieces – like Brian Raphael Nabors’s Pulse (January 7-12), Outi Tarkiainen’s Midnight Sun Variations (February 18-20), and a new work by Julia Adolphe (March 25-26, April 16-17) – with more substantial fare: Detlev Glanert’s Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra (featuring BSO principal trumpet Thomas Rolfs) (October 8-10), Sofia Gubaidulina’s Prologue (October 15-20), Victoria Borisova-Ollas’s Angelus (October 29-31), Brett Dean’s Cello Concerto (February 4-6), Bernard Rands’ Symphonic Fantasy (February 25-March 2), and Joan Tower’s Chamber Dance (April 22-27).

The all-star lineup of pianists appearing with the BSO is typically impressive: Lang Lang (Opening Night, September 16), Garrick Ohlsson (November 19-21), Inon Barnatan (November 24-28), Daniil Trifonov (January 7-12), Rudolf Buchbinder (January 14-19), Aaron Diehl (January 28-30), Gerstein (February 11-13), Emanuel Ax (February 25-March 2), Paul Lewis (March 25-26, April 16-17), Uchida (April 22-27), and Yefim Bronfman (April 29-May 1).

Fewer, but all top-drawer, are next year’s selection of string soloists: violinists Hadelich (October 22-24), Alina Ibragimova (October 29-31), Frank Peter Zimmermann (November 12-17), and Gil Shaham (January 21-23); as well as cellists Alban Gerhardt (February 4-6), Sol Gabetta (February 18-20), and Yo-Yo Ma (March 21).

In addition to those already mentioned, the BSO’s guest conductors next year are Andrew Manze, Dima Slobodeniouk, Klaus Mäkelä, John Storgårds, and Juanjo Mena.

Also included in the BSO’s season announcement are the Boston Symphony Chamber Players four programs at Jordan Hall (November 6, February 21, March 28, and April 25).

Of course, much needs to happen before any of these programs can be actualized. That said, if ever there was a season the BSO needed to put its right foot forward – balancing the core repertory with some strong steps outside of it – this is the one. And, on paper at least, they’ve largely delivered.


Jonathan Blumhofer is a composer and violist who has been active in the greater Boston area since 2004. His music has received numerous awards and been performed by various ensembles, including the American Composers Orchestra, Kiev Philharmonic, Camerata Chicago, Xanthos Ensemble, and Juventas New Music Group. Since receiving his doctorate from Boston University in 2010, Jon has taught at Clark University, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and online for the University of Phoenix, in addition to writing music criticism for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.

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