The Orchestra Now Announces 10th Anniversary Season Featuring Concerts at Carnegie Hall, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Fisher Center at Bard, and Three Free Performances in New York City September 14, 2024 – May 18, 2025
Rarely Heard Works by Carlos Chávez, Gabriel Fauré, Albéric Magnard, Manuel Ponce, and Bedřich Smetana
Three Special Events at the Fisher Center at Bard, Including a Screening of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial with Live Performance of the Score; A Celebration of Sondheim & Friends Featuring Mezzo-Soprano Stephanie Blythe, and a Collaboration with American Ballet Theatre Studio Company
Soloists Include Soprano Jana McIntyre, Mezzo-Soprano Stephanie Blythe, Baritone William Sharp, Cellist Raman Ramakrishnan, and Clarinetist Miles Wazni
New York, NY, August 8, 2024 — The Orchestra Now (TŌN), the visionary orchestra and master’s degree program founded by Bard College president, conductor, educator, and music historian Leon Botstein, launches its 10th anniversary season on September 14, 2024, through May 18, 2025. Hailed for presenting innovative combinations of both well-known and less-familiar repertoire, TŌN offers 14 programs and a total of 24 concerts, including two at Carnegie Hall, three at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, three free concerts in Manhattan at Peter Norton Symphony Space and the Talent Unlimited High School, and 16 at the Orchestra’s home at Bard College’s Fisher Center, including three special events.
The Orchestra welcomes 18 new members this season, for a total of 70 musicians from 14 countries around the globe.
“As The Orchestra Now celebrates the milestone of its 10th anniversary season, I am deeply gratified by what we’ve achieved,” said Music Director and founder Leon Botstein. “What began as an idealistic vision in 2015 has fully blossomed and taken root around the world. The program now provides an ever-expanding, international collection of talented young musicians with the skills to bridge the gap from music student to professional musician, as well as the opportunity to perform both classic and non-traditional repertoire in multiple venues.”
Highlights of the 2024-25 season
Leon Botstein conducts two concerts at Carnegie Hall,including a Charles Ives sesquicentennial program and a concert of orchestral transcriptions of works by Beethoven, Chopin, and Smetana. The popular Sight & Sound seriesat The Metropolitan Museum of Art returns with three programs investigating the links between fine arts and music through a focus on Wagner’s Parsifal and Sienese painters during the Italian Renaissance; on Schumann’s music, the artist Caspar David Friedrich, and the reflection of nature in music and art at the rise of the German Romantic movement; and on the parallel ascending careers of Gabriel Fauré and John Singer Sargent in Paris. The Fisher Center series at Bard College offers 16 performances of eight different programs. Of special note are three special events at Bard: a screening of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial with a live performance of the film score by TŌN; A Celebration of Sondheim & Friends featuring Metropolitan Opera mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe and vocalists from Bard Conservatory’s Graduate Vocal Arts Program; and a collaboration with the students of American Ballet Theatre Studio Company. There are also three free concerts in Manhattan led by TŌN resident conductor Zachary Schwartzman and assistant conductor Andrés Rivas at Peter Norton Symphony Space and the Talent Unlimited High School.
Broadcasts and Recordings
This year marks the 8th season of TŌN’s popular broadcast series on WMHT-FM, the classical music radio station of New York’s Capital Region, and the 7th season on WWFM, the Classical Network station serving New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania, both featuring programs from the Orchestra’s Fisher Center series. TŌN’s performances are also heard regularly on American Public Media’s Performance Today, a program on which the Orchestra has appeared more than 100 times. TŌN’s latest album, The Lost Generation,was just released on AVIE Records in May 2024, and the album Exodus—featuring Josef Tal’s Exodus, Walter Kaufman’s Indian Symphony, and Marcel Rubin’s Symphony No. 4, Dies Irae—will be released on September 20, 2024. An upcoming album with acclaimed violinist Gil Shaham will be released in Spring 2025 on Canary Classics, and the Orchestra will be recording February’s Carnegie Hall program for a 2025 release.
For detailed information about the 2024-25 season, visit ton.bard.edu.
CARNEGIE HALL SERIES, Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
Charles Ives’ America
Thursday, November 21, 2024, at 7 PM
Pre-concert talk at 6 PM with Leon Botstein, J. Peter Burkholder, Joseph Horowitz, Donald Berman, and William Sharp
Leon Botstein, conductor
William Sharp, baritone
Donald Berman, piano
J. Peter Burkholder, host
All-Ives Program:
The Fourth of July from the Holidays Symphony
Central Park in the Dark
Orchestral Set No. 2
Symphony No. 2
Plus performances of songs quoted in Ives’ music
Leon Botstein and TŌN celebrate the sesquicentennial of one of the most quintessential American composers, Charles Ives. With Grammy Award-winning baritone William Sharp, currently on the vocal faculty of the Peabody Conservatory; pianist Donald Berman, president of The Charles Ives Society; and preeminent Ives scholar J. Peter Burkholder; this program explores the way the composer created unique works from familiar tunes. Before each piece, Sharp and the Orchestra will highlight these classic songs, including “Bringing in the Sheaves” and “Camptown Races.” The concert is preceded by a 6 PM talk with Botstein, Sharp, Burkholder, Berman, and cultural historian Joseph Horowitz, free for all ticket holders. This concert is supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Transcription as Translation
Tuesday, February 11, 2025, at 7 PM
Leon Botstein, conductor
Mily Balakirev: Chopin Suite
Bedřich Smetana (orch. Szell):From My Life (String Quartet in E Minor)
Beethoven (orch. Weingartner): Hammerklavier (Piano Sonata No. 29)
TŌN performs three orchestral transcriptions of works by master composers Beethoven, Chopin, and Smetana. In 1910, the last year of his life, Russian composer and pianist Mily Balakirev transcribed four pieces into an orchestral suite to celebrate the centenary of Chopin’s birth. To honor another centenary in 1927, that of Beethoven’s death, Austrian conductor and composer Felix Weingartner crafted a full orchestration of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 29, the Hammerklavier. While teaching composition at Mannes College of Music in 1940, acclaimed Hungarian-born American conductor George Szell created an orchestral transcription of Smetana’s E-minor String Quartet, From My Life.
Tickets, priced at $25-$50, will be available August 14 online at carnegiehall.org, by calling CarnegieCharge at 212.247.7800, or at the Carnegie Hall box office at 57th & Seventh Avenue.
SIGHT & SOUND SERIES AT THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
In the popular Sight & Sound series, The Orchestra Now explores the parallels between orchestral music and the visual arts. Each performance includes an introduction by a Met curator, 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.
Siena, Wagner & Parsifal
Sunday, December 8, 2024, at 2 PM
Leon Botstein, conductor
Richard Wagner: Selections from Parsifal
Act I Prelude
Act III Prelude
Good Friday Music
Artwork by Duccio, Lorenzetti, Martini, and others.
At the dawn of the Italian Renaissance, Siena was the site of remarkable artistic innovation. Sienese artists—including Duccio, Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, and Simone Martini—played a pivotal role in defining Western painting. Over 500 years later, Richard Wagner revolutionized opera composition in much the same way. Twelve years after he read Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival, a poem from the Renaissance era, he began working on a libretto inspired by this tale of the quest for the Holy Grail. This eventually became his final composition, the opera Parsifal.
The exhibition Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300–1350, will be on view at The Met Fifth Avenue October 13, 2024–January 26, 2025.
Schumann & Friedrich: Nature in Music & Art
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 exhibitionCaspar 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
Leon Botstein, conductor
Tenor soloist to be announced at a later date.
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.
Tickets, priced at $30 – $50, include same-day museum admission. Tickets will be available August 14, 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 FISHER CENTER SUBSCRIPTION SERIES AT BARD, Sosnoff Theater
The Orchestra Now, Bard’s orchestral masters, presents its 10th subscription season of five different programs and 10 concerts. All subscription series performances will be livestreamed on TŌNtube at ton.bard.edu/tontube.
Mahler & Strauss
Saturday, September 14, 2024, at 7 PM
Sunday, September 15, 2024, at 2 PM
Leon Botstein, conductor
Jana McIntyre, soprano
Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 4
Arnold Schoenberg: Five Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 16
Richard Strauss: Four Last Songs
TŌN’s 10th anniversary season kicks off with works by three master composers of the late-19th and early-20th centuries. The concert begins with Gustav Mahler’s mystical Fourth Symphony. Soprano Jana McIntyre, a Metropolitan Opera National Council grand finalist, performs the final movement’s “Das himmlische Leben” (“The Heavenly Life”), a song originally composed by Mahler as a free-standing piece in 1892, based on a child’s vision of heaven. Next on the program is Arnold Schoenberg’s Five Pieces for Orchestra, written in 1909. He called the work “a bright, uninterrupted interchange of colors, rhythms and moods.” After two initial performances, Schoenberg revised the pieces in 1922 and again in 1949, which is the version TŌN will be performing. Jana McIntyre returns to close the concert with Richard Strauss’ Four Last Songs. In 1946, Strauss read a poem by Eichendorff, ‘Im Abendrot,’ in which an aging couple at the end of their lives together view the setting sun and ask, ‘Is that perhaps death?’ The words became the motivation for an incomplete five-song cycle, four of which were linked together after Strauss’ death when his publisher named them ‘Four Last Songs.’
Musica Mexicana
Saturday, October 5, 2024, at 7 PM
Sunday, October 6, 2024 at, 2 PM
Leon Botstein, conductor
Manuel Ponce: Ferial
Carlos Chávez: Suite de Caballos de Vapor (Horsepower Suite)
Manuel Ponce:Chapultepec
Silvestre Revueltas: La noche de los Mayas (The Night of the Mayas)
The Orchestra Now performs works by three of the leading Mexican symphonic composers of the 20th century. Manuel Ponce, known as the “father of Mexican Music,” is represented by two pieces: the Ferial, depicting an afternoon fair in a small town, and Chapultepec, a symphonic poem that takes audiences to the Mexico City suburb where the composer lived. Carlos Chávez’s Horsepower Suite reflects the interconnection of humans and industry, which the composer referred to as “struggle, effort, and creation.” The suite from Silvestre Revueltas’ score for the film La noche de los Mayas, a work straight out of the Yucatan jungles, completes the program.
Charles Ives’ America: A Carnegie Hall Preview Concert
Saturday, November 16, 2024, at 7 PM
Sunday, November 17, 2024, at 2 PM
Leon Botstein, conductor
William Sharp, baritone
Donald Berman, piano
J. Peter Burkholder, host
All-Ives Program:
The Fourth of July from the Holidays Symphony
Central Park in the Dark
Orchestral Set No. 2
Symphony No. 2
Plus performances of songs quoted in Ives’ music
TŌN performs this program at Carnegie Hall on November 21; see description above. The November 16-17 performances will be followed by a talk with Leon Botstein, William Sharp, J. Peter Burkholder, Donald Berman, and cultural historian Joseph Horowitz, free for all ticket holders.
Transcription as Translation: A Carnegie Hall Preview Concert
Saturday, February 8, 2025, at 7 PM
Sunday, February 9, 2025, at 2 PM
Leon Botstein, conductor
Mily Balakirev: Chopin Suite
Bedřich Smetana (orch. Szell):From My Life (String Quartet in E Minor)
Beethoven (orch. Weingartner): Hammerklavier (Piano Sonata No. 29)
TŌN performs this program at Carnegie Hall on February 11; see description above.
Weber & Laterna Magica
Saturday, April 5, 2025, at 7 PM
Sunday, April 6, 2025, at 2 PM
Leon Botstein, conductor
Miles Wazni, clarinet
Kaija Saariaho: Laterna Magica
Carl Maria von Weber: Clarinet Concerto No. 2 in E-flat major, Op. 74
Albéric Magnard: Symphony No. 4
The final performance of TŌN’s 10th season at the Fisher Center begins with Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho’sLaterna Magica (The Magic Lantern), inspired by filmmaker Ingmar Bergman’s autobiography of the same name, and commissioned by the Berlin Philharmonic and the Lucerne Festival. As she read the book, Saariaho said her composition was inspired by “the Laterna Magica, the first machine to create the illusion of a moving image: as the handle turns faster and faster, the individual images disappear and instead the eye sees continuous movement.” The work’s 2009 world premiere was given by the Berlin Philharmonic and Simon Rattle. The Orchestra is then joined by clarinetist Miles Wazni, a winner of the 2023 Bard Conservatory Concerto Competition, for Carl Maria von Weber’s virtuosic three-movement Clarinet Concerto No. 2, written for the notable clarinetist Heinrich Baermann, the soloist at the 1813 premiere. The concert closes with composer Albéric Magnard’s final symphony. Often referred to as the “French Bruckner,” his work is fully rooted in late 19th-century French Romantic tradition. Magnard became a national hero in 1914 when he died defending his property from German invaders.
Tickets, priced at $15 – $35, will be available August 23 online at fishercenter.bard.edu, or by calling the Fisher Center at 845.758.7900.
SPECIAL EVENTS AT THE FISHER CENTER AT BARD
Fall Benefit: E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial in Concert
Saturday, September 21, 2024, at 7 PM
Sunday, September 22, 2024, at 2 PM
James Bagwell, conductor
John Williams: E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
The Orchestra Now, led by Associate Conductor James Bagwell, presents a special screening of Steven Spielberg’s magical E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial with John Williams’ Academy Award®-winning score performed live.
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial is a trademark and copyright of Universal Studios. Licensed by Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved.
A Celebration of Sondheim & Friends
Saturday, November 2, 2024, at 7 PM
Sunday, November 3, 2024, at 2 PM
James Bagwell, conductor
Stephanie Blythe, mezzo-soprano
Vocalists from Bard Conservatory’s Graduate Vocal Arts Program
Various selections by Stephen Sondheim and friends
TŌN celebrates the artistry of one of the most important figures in 20th-century musical theater, composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim, along with his contemporaries in musical theater. Winner of an Academy Award, eight Tony Awards, eight Grammy Awards, the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and a Kennedy Center Honor, among many others, Sondheim was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015. James Bagwell and the Orchestra will perform many favorites by Sondheim and others with Metropolitan Opera star, mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe—a Musical America Vocalist of the Year, Opera News, and Richard Tucker Award-winner—along with her talented students from Bard Conservatory’s Graduate Vocal Arts Program.
Spring Benefit: TŌN + ABT Studio Company
Friday, February 28, 2025, at 7:30 PM
Saturday, March 1, 2025, at 7:30 PM
Charles Barker, conductor
American Ballet Theatre Studio Company
Program to be announced
Two of New York’s finest artistic training programs join forces as the graduate musicians of The Orchestra Now welcome the dancers of American Ballet Theatre Studio Company to the Fisher Center at Bard for a performance of music and dance.
Tickets will be available August 23 online at fishercenter.bard.edu, or by calling the Fisher Center at 845.758.7900.
FREE CONCERTS SERIES
Debussy and Romeo & Juliet
Sunday, October 27, 2024, at 4 PM
Peter Norton Symphony Space
Zachary Schwartzman, conductor
Herman Whitfield III: Scherzo No. 1
Claude Debussy: Nocturnes
Sergei Prokofiev: Romeo and Juliet Suite
TŌN Resident Conductor Zachary Schwartzman returns with the Orchestra to Symphony Space as part of its 2024-25 Free Concerts Series. The program comprises Debussy’s Nocturnes and selections from Prokofiev’s three Romeo & Juliet suites, plus the Scherzo No. 1 of composer Herman Whitfield III, a Black man who died in April 2022 after he was restrained by the police when his parents called 911 because he was having a mental health crisis.
The Nutcracker & The Planets
Sunday, December 15, 2024 at 3 PM
Talent Unlimited High School, 300 E 68th Street, New York, NY
Andrés Rivas, conductor
Selections performed with the All-City High School Orchestra
Gioachino Rossini:The Barber of Seville Overture
Edvard Grieg:”In the Hall of the Mountain King” from Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, Op. 46
Camille Saint-Saëns:Danse macabre, Op. 40
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a
Alexander Borodin: Polovtsian Dances (from Prince Igor)
Gustav Holst:”Mars” and “Jupiter” from The Planets, Op. 32
The Orchestra Now and Assistant Conductor Andrés Rivas present a free holiday season concert at the Talent Unlimited High School for the performing arts on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The program of high-spirited audience favorites includes Rossini’sBarber of Seville Overture and Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite. TŌN is joined by NYC’s All-City High School Orchestra for Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances and two movements from Holst’s The Planets.
Joan Tower & Tchaikovsky’s 5th
Sunday, March 23, 2025, at 4 PM
Peter Norton Symphony Space
Zachary Schwartzman, conductor
Raman Ramakrishnan,cello
David Serkin Ludwig: Fanfare for Sam
Joan Tower: A New Day
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64
Conductor Zachary Schwartzman opens the program with the Fanfare for Samuel Barber by David Serkin Ludwig, nephew of the late Peter Serkin, a Bard Conservatory faculty member. Cellist Raman Ramakrishnan, a founding member of the Daedalus Quartet and Bard Conservatory faculty member, joins TŌN for A New Day, a recent composition by another Bard Conservatory faculty member, the renowned Joan Tower. The concert concludes with Tchaikovsky’s 5th Symphony.
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 70 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 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
Email: [email protected]
Mark Primoff
Associate Vice President of Communications
Bard College
Phone: 845.758.7412
Email: [email protected]
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