The Orchestra Now Performs Two “Sight & Sound” Concerts at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on April 13 and May 18
Programs Offer Schumann’s Symphony No. 3 and An All-Fauré Concert with Tenor Benjamin Truncale
New York, NY, March 18, 2025 — Music Director Leon Botstein and The Orchestra Now (TŌN) welcome spring with two Sunday concerts as part of its Sight & Sound series, an audience favorite at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, on April 13 and May 18 at 2 PM. The April program presents Schumann’s Symphony No. 3 with artwork by Caspar David Friedrich; and the May performance is an all-Fauré concert featuring tenor Benjamin Truncale, a GraduateVocal Arts Program student at the Bard College Conservatory of Music, in the composer’s Shylock Suite alongside artwork by John Singer Sargent.
In the popular Sight & Sound series, The Orchestra Now explores the parallels between orchestral music and the visual arts. Each performance includes a discussion with conductor and music historian Leon Botstein, accompanied by on-screen exhibition images and live musical excerpts, followed by a full performance of the works and an audience Q&A.
Schumann & Friedrich: Nature in Music & Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Sunday, April 13, 2025, at 2 PM
Leon Botstein, conductor
Schumann: Symphony No. 3, in E-flat major, Op. 97, “Rhenish”
Artwork by Caspar David Friedrich and others.
As the German Romantic movement took hold in the early 19th century, artists of all types began examining the relationship between nature and the human soul. Painter Caspar David Friedrich, widely considered the most important German artist of the era, portrayed nature as a setting for spiritual encounters. His compatriot, the renowned composer Robert Schumann, also took inspiration from the natural world. Upon moving to Düsseldorf along the Rhine River, he wrote his Third Symphony, which he titled the Rhenish.
The exhibition Caspar David Friedrich: The Soul of Nature will be on view at The Met Fifth Avenue February 8–May 11, 2025.
Fauré, Sargent, & Paris
Sunday, May 18, 2025, at 2 PM
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Leon Botstein, conductor
Benjamin Truncale, tenor
Gabriel Fauré:
Shylock Suite, Op. 57
Masques et bergamasques, Op. 112
Pavane, Op. 50
Artwork by John Singer Sargent and others.
Artist John Singer Sargent was 18 years old when his family moved to Paris, and within only a few years made a name for himself within a “painters’ row” on the Left Bank, becoming one of the best portrait artists in France by age 23. He soon moved to the more cosmopolitan Right Bank, where he painted the infamous “Madame X” and took steady commissions from wealthy patrons. Meanwhile, Gabriel Fauré was hitting a turning point in his career in Paris; several of his works were premiered at the Société nationale de musique, and he eventually became head of the Paris Conservatoire. Both artists successfully merged the end of Romanticism with the dawn of Modernism. The concert features young tenor and recent Juilliard graduate Benjamin Truncale, currently pursuing his Master of Music degree at Bard College Conservatory.
The exhibition Sargent and Paris will be on view at The Met Fifth Avenue April 27–August 3, 2025.
Tickets, priced at $30 – $50, include same-day museum admission and may be purchased online at metmuseum.org, by calling The Met at 212.570.3949, or at The Great Hall box office at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The Orchestra Now
Founded in 2015 by conductor and educator Leon Botstein, The Orchestra Now (TŌN) is a graduate program of Bard College that trains the next generation of music professionals to become creative ambassadors of classical music. It offers accomplished young musicians a full-tuition fellowship toward a master’s degree in Curatorial, Critical, and Performance Studies or an advanced certificate in Orchestra Studies. TŌN’s innovative curriculum combines rehearsal, performance, recording, and touring with seminars, masterclasses, professional development workshops, teaching, and more. The members of the Orchestra are graduates of the world’s leading conservatories, and hail from countries across North and South America, Europe, and Asia. Many have gone on to careers in the Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boston, Vancouver, and National symphony orchestras; Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Colombia; the United States military bands; and many others. In the 2024-25 season, the Orchestra welcomes 18 new members, for a total of 63 musicians from 14 countries around the globe.
TŌN performs dozens of concerts a year at venues including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Fisher Center at Bard. Specializing in both familiar and rarely heard repertoire, the Orchestra has given numerous New York, U.S., and world premieres, and performed the work of living composers including Joan Tower and Tania León. In 2023, TŌN appeared with Bradley Cooper in the Academy Award-nominated film Maestro, and was featured on the Grammy-winning Deutsche Grammophon soundtrack, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. The Orchestra has performed with many other distinguished guest conductors and soloists, including Leonard Slatkin, Gil Shaham, Neeme Järvi, Stephanie Blythe, Fabio Luisi, Vadim Repin, Peter Serkin, Tan Dun, and JoAnn Falletta.
TŌN has released several albums on the Hyperion, Sorel Classics, and AVIE labels. May 2024’s The Lost Generation includes world-premiere recordings of works by Hugo Kauder, Hans Erich Apostel, and Adolf Busch. Other highlights include rare recordings of Othmar Schoeck’s Lebendig begraben and Bristow’s Arcadian Symphony, and the soundtrack to the motion picture Forte. Recordings of TŌN’s live concerts from the Fisher Center can be heard regularly on Classical WMHT-FM and WWFM The Classical Network, and the Orchestra has appeared over 100 times on Performance Today, broadcast nationwide.
Visit ton.bard.edu to find out more about TŌN’s academic program, concerts, musicians, albums, and broadcasts; sign up for the email list; and support the orchestra with a donation.
Leon Botstein
Leon Botstein is founder and music director of The Orchestra Now (TŌN), music director and principal conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra (ASO), artistic co-director of Bard SummerScape and the Bard Music Festival, and conductor laureate and principal guest conductor of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra (JSO), where he served as music director from 2003 to 2011. He has been guest conductor with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Aspen Music Festival, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Mariinsky Theatre, Russian National Orchestra in Moscow, Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden, Taipei Symphony, Simón Bolivar Symphony Orchestra, and Sinfónica Juvenil de Caracas in Venezuela, among others. In 2018, he assumed artistic directorship of Campus Grafenegg and Grafenegg Academy in Austria.
Recordings include acclaimed recordings of Othmar Schoeck’s Lebendig begraben with TŌN, Hindemith’s The Long Christmas Dinner with the ASO, a Grammy-nominated recording of Popov’s First Symphony with the London Symphony Orchestra, and other various recordings with TŌN, ASO, the London Philharmonic, NDR Orchestra Hamburg, and JSO, among others. He is editor of The Musical Quarterly and author of numerous articles and books, including The Compleat Brahms (Norton), Jefferson’s Children (Doubleday), Judentum und Modernität (Bölau), and Von Beethoven zu Berg (Zsolnay). His many honors include Harvard University’s prestigious Centennial Award; the American Academy of Arts and Letters award; and Cross of Honor, First Class, from the government of Austria, for his contributions to music. Other distinctions include the Bruckner Society’s Julio Kilenyi Medal of Honor for his interpretations of that composer’s music, the Leonard Bernstein Award for the Elevation of Music in Society, and Carnegie Foundation’s Academic Leadership Award. In 2011, he was inducted into the American Philosophical Society.
Press Contacts
Pascal Nadon
Pascal Nadon Communications
Phone: 646.234.7088
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Mark Primoff
Associate Vice President of Communications
Bard College
Phone: 845.758.7412
Email: [email protected]
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