The Orchestra Now Performs Transcription as Translation at Carnegie Hall and a Free Presentation at Peter Norton Symphony Space February 11 and March 23
Guest Artists Include Cellist Raman Ramakrishnan and Conductor Zachary Schwartzman
New York, NY, January 14, 2025 — The Orchestra Now (TŌN) launches its winter/spring, 10th anniversary season in New York City with two concerts. Music Director Leon Botstein leads the first at Carnegie Hall, with a selection of orchestral transcriptions by Beethoven, Chopin, and Smetana (February 11); followed by a free concert at Peter Norton Symphony Space featuring guest cellist Raman Ramakrishnan in a work by the eminent Bard Conservatory faculty member, Joan Tower, with resident conductor Zachary Schwartzman (March 23).
Transcription as Translation
Tuesday, February 11, 2025, at 7 PM
Carnegie Hall, Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
The Orchestra Now
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, are available online at carnegiehall.org, by calling CarnegieCharge at 212.247.7800, or at the Carnegie Hall box office at 57th & Seventh Avenue.
Joan Tower & Tchaikovsky’s 5th
Sunday, March 23, 2025, at 4 PM
Peter Norton Symphony Space
The Orchestra Now
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
Resident 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.
Tickets are FREE and available online with RSVP at ton.bard.edu.
For detailed information about the 2025 winter/spring season, visit ton.bard.edu.
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 64 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-nominated 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, including 2024’s Exodus and The Lost Generation, which features 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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