Sir Simon Rattle conducts new Daniel Kidane commission; Sibelius and Bruckner; Szymanowski and Brahms choral masterpieces; Janáček opera cycle continues with Katya Kabanova
· Leading guest soloists Alice Sara Ott, Jess Gillam, Janine Jansen, Mitsuko Uchida, Evgeny Kissin
· American Gospel and Jazz concerts conducted by André J Thomas
· LSO Principal Trombone – Peter Moore, Tuba – Ben Thomson and Violin – Roman Simovic take centre stage
Kathryn McDowell, Managing Director of the London Symphony Orchestra announced today the concert programme for September 2022 to January 2023 saying:
“Since the return to concert-going last autumn we have witnessed a welcome number of younger enthusiastic audiences attending Barbican concerts, with a healthy appetite for new compositions, jazz and gospel-influenced work alongside the recognised masterpieces. This positive development has spurred us to be bold with our future programme choices. For the September 2022 to January 2023 Barbican concert programme, LSO Music Director Sir Simon Rattle and guest conductors Gianandrea Noseda, André J.Thomas, Kevin John Edusei and Nathalie Stutzmann present a diverse range of music including works by composers in the African-American tradition, Carlos Simon, Wynton Marsalis, and Joel Thompson and Black Canadian composer Samy Moussa alongside world premieres of LSO commissions by British composers Daniel Kidane and Louise Drewett. These pieces are accompanied by established well-known popular pieces in a new chapter post pandemic that further expands our musical horizons.”
Music Director Sir Simon Rattle opens the 2022/23 Season with an all-British programme, with the world premiere of Daniel Zidane’s Precipice Dances. Daniel Kidane’s relationship with the LSO began in 2016 when he joined the cohort of the 2016/17 Panufnik Composers programme. He has continued a close association with Orchestra following participation in the Soundhub and Jerwood Composer+ schemes, in addition to curating evenings of music at LSO St Luke’s, and most recently contributing works to concert programmes on the theme of multiculturalism. In 2021, he composed Dappled Light for violinists Maxine Kwok and Julian Gil Rodriguez for the LSO’s 2021 Summer Shorts concert series. Great British works sit alongside Kidane’s work: Frank Bridge’s symphonic poem Enter Spring composed in 1926/27, and Elgar’s Symphony No 2 Op 63, completed in 1911.
Sir Simon and the LSO continue their exploration of works by Sibelius and Bruckner this autumn with Sibelius’ Symphony No 7 featuring in two September concerts. The first in a programme along with Berlioz’ Overture: Le Corsaire Op21, TõruTakemitsu’s Fantasma/Cantos II for Trombone and Orchestra with LSO Principal Trombone Peter Moore as soloist, with Ravel’s La Valse and Bartók’s The Miraculous Mandarin Op 19 Suite. For the second evening Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No 7 is coupled with two tone poems by Sibelius: The Oceanides Op73, and Tapiola Op 112.
In October, Sir Simon conducts the Orchestra on a tour of Japan; he returns to the Barbican in late November for a series of concerts in the run up to the holiday season.
Echoing the successful LSO/Rattle/ Krystian Zimerman Beethoven piano concerto series in December 2021, during late November and December there is second series of concerts with leading guest pianists from the world stage. To begin Gianandrea Noseda conducts a concert on November 24 featuring Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G with Alice Sara Ott. This programme opens with the world premiere of a Panufnik composers’ commission by Louise Drewett, and concludes with Shostakovich’s Symphony 11 Op 103. Sir Simon then picks up the baton on 30 November with Schumann’s Piano Concerto Op 54 featuring Mitsuko Uchida as guest soloist, in a double-bill with Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No 3 Op 44. For concerts on 14 and 15 December, Evgeny Kissin joins Sir Simon and the LSO for Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No 3 Op 30. This is paired with a Stravinsky Journey, a curated “tapas” of Stravinsky music by the LSO’s Music Director for the first half of the evening.
For final LSO concerts at the Barbican in 2022 choral singing returns to the Barbican Hall. Sir Simon conducts performances of a two great choral masterpieces, Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater Op 53 and Brahms’ German Requiem Op 45 with the London Symphony Chorus and soloists soprano Iwona Sobotka, mezzo Hanna Hipp, and bass Florian Boesch.
New Year 2023 sees Sir Simon and the LSO back at the Barbican to continue the exploration of Janáček operas with two performances of Katya Kabanova with an outstanding line-up of soloists, including soprano Katarina Dalayman (Kabanicha), tenor Andrew Staples (Tichon), soprano Amanda Majeski (Katya), bass John Tomlinson (Dikoj), tenor Ladislav Elgr (Kudrjas) and mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená (Varvara).
Jazz and gospel feature significantly during the autumn with American gospel composer and conductor André J Thomas conducting a choral gospel evening on Sunday 6 November. A week later, he curates and conducts his first symphonic programme with the LSO introducing works by a selection of leading living American composers including Carlos Simon’s Portrait of a Queen, Wynton Marsalis’ Tuba Concerto with soloist LSO Principal Ben Thomas and Joel Thompson’s To Awake the Sleeper. This work includes narration with texts by James Baldwin, composed by Thompson for the Seattle Symphony Orchestra after the first waves of deaths from Covid-19 and after the death of George Floyd in 2020.
In November, Gianandrea Noseda, takes a break from the Russian repertoire, and conducts an evening with a strong American influence, featuring John Adams’ Saxophone Concerto with guest saxophonist Jess Gillam as part of the EFG London Jazz Festival 2022. The concert includes a second work this month by Carlos Simon entitled This Land. The evening continues with two classics of the American repertoire: Bernstein’s Divertimento for Orchestra, and Gershwin’s An American in Paris.
Noseda then conducts a concert at LSO St Luke’s welcoming the musicians from the Music Academy of the West to play alongside the LSO musicians. The programme features Beethoven’s Triple Concerto for Violin, Cello and Piano Op 56, Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique Op 14. On 24 November, back in the Barbican, Noseda conducts a programme with a new work by Panufnik composer Louise Drewett, Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G with Alice Sara Ott, and Shostakovich’s Symphony No 11. His final concert during the winter continues his musical partnership with violinist Janine Jansen in January 2023 with two evenings that include Sibelius’ Violin Concerto No 6 Op 11 as the centrepiece. Both evenings’ programmes open with Beethoven Overture: Coriolan and end with Prokofiev’s Symphony No 6 Op 111.
German Conductor Kevin John Edusei and French conductor Nathalie Stutzmann return this autumn as guests. Edusei conducts his first Barbican concert with LSO (Edusei was guest conductor during the streamed series of concerts from LSO St Luke’s during the pandemic), and makes his LSO Barbican debut on 27 October with a programme including Canadian Samy Moussa’s Crimson, Bartók’s Violin Concerto No 2 and Stravinsky’s Petrouchka (1947). Nathalie Stutzmann conducts Franck’s Le Chausser Maudit, Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No 3 Op 37 with Alice Sara Ott as guest soloist, and rounds off the programme with Brahms’ Symphony 4 Op 98.
LSO section Principals take centre-stage this season as guest soloists. Principal Trombone Peter Moore plays for Takemitsu Fantasma/Cantos II (trombone and Orchestra), Principal Oboe, Juliana Koch with the Strauss Oboe Concerto in Japan; Leader Roman Simovic for Bartók’s Violin Concerto No 2, Principal Cello David Cohen for Beethoven Triple Concerto and Principal Tuba Ben Thomson for Wynton Marsalis’ Tuba Concerto.
LSO St Luke’s hosts a full programme BBC Radio Friday and LSO Discovery Lunchtime Concerts. The first BBC series beginning in September One Pianist, One Composer, explores works for solo piano featuring pianists Simone Dinnerstein, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Bertand Chamayou and Christian Ihle Hadland. In October, Jazz Inflections begins featuring pianist Joanna MacGregor, saxophonist Jess Gilliam and violinist Aleksey Semenenko. In January 2023, Beethoven becomes the focus with programmes featuring tenor Ilker Arcayurek, with pianist Simon Lepper, solo cellist Anastasia Kobekina, and the French string quartet Quatuor Modigliani.
Concert listings for autumn 2022/23 season can be viewed at www.lso.co.uk/autumn22