Calling all Bernstein lovers!
The Philharmonic is celebrating Lenny’s 100th birthday with Bernstein’s Philharmonic: A Centennial Festival plus other events throughout the season — concerts, education activities, a Mahler marathon, and more — befitting the renowned composer, conductor, pianist, and educator who served as our Music Director (1958–69) and then Laureate Conductor.
Joshua Bell Performs Bernstein's Serenade
October 25 - 31 @ 7:30 pm
Superstar violinist Joshua Bell leads off Bernstein’s Philharmonicperforming the composer-conductor’s Serenade, the almost-violin-concerto Bernstein himself called a “timeless dinner party,” with all the guests in philosophical conversation, weighing in on the subject of love — charming, humorous, joyful. Alan Gilbert also conducts the profound and powerful Jeremiah Symphony.
Bernstein and Rhapsody in Blue
November 2 - 4
Our Bernstein festival continues with Prelude, Fugue, and Riffs, a flashy score that features our Principal Clarinet Anthony McGill. Jazz pianist Makoto Ozone (“Thrilling, virtuosic” — The New York Times) is the soloist in Gershwin’s all-American favorite Rhapsody in Blue — infectiously melodic, bluesy, romantic at heart — and the composer’s voice in Bernstein’s The Age of Anxiety.
Bernstein and Don Quixote
November 9 - 14
Leonard Slatkin leads the Philharmonic in the finale of our Bernstein festival. Oscar winner Jeremy Irons is the speaker in the powerful Kaddish Symphony, evoking the Jewish prayer of mourning and encompassing paeans to God, a confrontation between man and God, and a plea for peace. Strauss’s witty vignettes plunge us into the delightful flights of fancy of the bumbling knight-errant Don Quixote.
