The Orchestra Now Opens Its 2025–26 Season of Concerts in New York City with “Creative Resistance to Empire” at Carnegie Hall on October 13
Performance Pairs Rarely-Heard Works by Čiurlionis, Kaprálová, and Liatoshynsky with Pieces by Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky
New York, NY, September 18, 2025 — The Orchestra Now (TŌN) launches its 11th season of New York City concerts led by Music Director Leon Botstein with Creative Resistance to Empire, on October 13, at Carnegie Hall. The program features both neglected and more familiar Eastern European works from the late-19th and early-20th centuries that confront cultural struggles resulting from the oppressiveness of the Russian Empire.. The first of two performances at Carnegie Hall this season, the concert will initially be performed at the Fisher Center at Bard on October 11-12 and livestreamed on TŌNtube.
TŌN will next perform a FREE concert in Manhattan featuring Strauss’s beloved tone poem Don Juan and works by Vaughan Williams, Henry Purcell, and Samuel Barber led by Resident Conductor Zachary Schwartzman at Peter Norton Symphony Space on November 23.
For detailed information about the 2025-26 season, visit ton.bard.edu.
Creative Resistance to Empire
Monday, October 13, 2025, at 7 pm
Carnegie Hall, Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
The Orchestra Now
Leon Botstein, conductor
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: Overture on Russian Themes in D Major, Op. 28
Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis: In the Forest (Miške)
Vítězslava Kaprálová: Military Sinfonietta, Op. 11 (Vojenská Symfonieta)
Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Festival Coronation March, TH 50
Borys Liatoshynsky: Symphony No. 3 in B Minor, Op. 50
The evening presents familiar pieces like Rimsky-Korsakov’s Overture on Russian Themes and Tchaikovsky’s grand Festival Coronation March, written to celebrate the coronation of Alexander III, alongside lesser-known works from the same time period. The symphonic poem In the Forest, by Lithuanian composer Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis, was among his earliest musical successes. The Military Sinfonietta of Vítězslava Kaprálová brought international exposure when the work received the prestigious Smetana Foundation award. Borys Liatoshynsky’s Third Symphony was premiered in his native Ukraine in 1951, but was later revised after being banned by Soviet authorities. TŌN performs the original version in this concert.
Tickets, priced at $29-$50, are available at carnegiehall.org, by calling CarnegieCharge at 212.247.7800, or at the Carnegie Hall box office at 57th & 7th Avenue.
The Orchestra Now
Founded in 2015 by Bard College, 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. Led by conductor and educator Leon Botstein, TŌN 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 2025-26 season, the Orchestra welcomes 29 new members, for a total of 64 musicians from 17 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 May 2025, TŌN performed two concerts in Koblenz and Nuremberg, Germany marking 80 years since the surrender of Nazi Germany. 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. Fall 2025 releases include Premieres with violinist Gil Shaham and Transcription as Translation. Other highlights include 2024’s The Lost Generation and Exodus, and rare recordings of Othmar Schoeck’s Lebendig begraben and Bristow’s Arcadian Symphony. 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 more than 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 May 2025 he led two concerts with TŌN in Koblenz and Nuremberg, Germany marking 80 years since the surrender of Nazi Germany. With ASO he has revived numerous neglected operas and rare repertoire, such as Schoenberg’s massive Gurre-Lieder, Richard Strauss’s first opera, Guntram, and the U.S. premiere of Sergei Taneyev’s final work, At the Reading of a Psalm.
Albums include The Lost Generation and Exodus, two 2024 releases 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. Fall 2025 releases include Premieres with violinist Gil Shaham and Transcription as Translation, both with TŌN. 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.
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