Boston Symphony Orchestra

Performers

• Boston Symphony Orchestra
  Daniele Gatti, Conductor
• Anne Sofie von Otter, Mezzo-Soprano
• Women of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus
  John Oliver, Conductor
• Boys of the PALS Children’s Chorus
  Andy Icochea Icochea, Conductor

Program

• MAHLER Symphony No. 3

Bios

• Daniele Gatti

  
  Daniele Gatti has been music director of the Orchestre National de France since September 2008 and principal conductor of Zurich Opera since September 2009. He is also conductor laureate of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, having been music director there from 1996 to 2009. He was previously music director of Bologna's Teatro Comunale and Rome's Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, and principal guest conductor of London's Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. He enjoys close relationships with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and conducts such leading orchestras as the New York Philharmonic, Chicago and Boston symphony orchestras, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, and Philharmonia Orchestra. He has conducted new productions at opera houses that include Vienna State Opera, La Scala, Bavarian State Opera, Royal Opera House, Zurich Opera, and Metropolitan Opera, where he made his debut with Madama Butterfly in 1994; he returned to the Met this past February for Parsifal. In autumn 2013, he opens La Scala's new season with La traviata. Mr. Gatti has conducted Parsifal at the Bayreuth Festival every year between 2008 and 2011. In recent seasons at the Salzburg Festival, he has led Elektra and La bohème and a concert with the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra. He recently completed a European tour with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, featuring the four Brahms symphonies to celebrate the bicentenary of the Society of the Vienna Friends of Music, of which Brahms was music director. Other recent and future engagements include concerts with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the completion of a Mahler cycle with Orchestre National de France, Parsifal in concert at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, an Italian tour with the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra, the opening of the MiTo Festival in Turin and Milan, and concerts with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. This season, he marks the Verdi bicentennial with performances of Verdi's Requiem with the Boston Symphony, Philharmonia Orchestra, and Orchestre National de France. Also with Orchestre National de France, he leads a Beethoven symphony cycle in Paris; music of Rossini, Stravinsky, and Ravel in Vienna; and works of Verdi and Wagner on tour in Spain.

   

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  Anne Sofie von Otter

  
  Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter's lengthy and exclusive relationship with Deutsche Grammophon has led to a wealth of recordings and awards that include the International Record Critics Association's Recording Artist of the Year, a Grammy Award for Best Classical Vocal Performance (Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn), and a Diapason d'Or for a disc of Swedish songs with her longtime accompanist, Bengt Forsberg. She collaborated with pop legend Elvis Costello on For the Stars, and in 2010 released her first recording on the Naïve label, Love Songs, with jazz pianist Brad Mehldau. Her most recent recording for Naïve is Sogno Barocco, a collection of Italian Baroque arias, scenes, and duets with Leonardo García-Alarcón and Cappella Mediterranea. Recent opera highlights have included her role debut in Charpentier's Médeé for Oper Frankfurt, Countess Geschwitz in Lulu at the Metropolitan Opera, Clytemnestre in Iphigénie en Aulide in Pierre Audi's production for Netherlands Opera, Geneviève in Pelléas et Mélisande for Opéra National de Paris, and Giulio Cesare at the Salzburg Festival. She is renowned for her interpretation of Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier, which she has performed at Covent Garden's Royal Opera House, Bavarian State Opera, Opéra National de Paris, and Vienna State Opera, as well as with James Levine and the Metropolitan Opera, and in Japan under the late Carlos Kleiber (available on DVD). Among recently added roles are Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde, Baba the Turk in The Rake's Progress, Dido in Les Troyens, and Waltraute in Wagner's Ring. In concert this season she performs Mahler's Symphony No. 2 with the Berliner Philharmoniker under Sir Simon Rattle, sings orchestrated Schubert lieder with the National Symphony Orchestra and Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder with the Gothenburg Symphony, and also appears with the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, and Royal Stockholm Philharmonic. On the 100th anniversary of Mahler's death, she appeared with Claudio Abbado, Jonas Kaufmann, and the Berliner Philharmoniker for a televised performance of Das Lied von der Erde. Anne Sofie von Otter was born in Stockholm, graduated from the Stockholm College of Music, and studied further at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London.

   

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  Tanglewood Festival Chorus
  John Oliver, Conductor

  
  Organized in the spring of 1970 by founding conductor John Oliver, the Tanglewood Festival Chorus has performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra this season in Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, a double bill of Stravinsky's The Nightingale and Ravel's L'enfant et les sortilèges, Verdi's Requiem, Haydn's Mass in Time of War, and Mahler's Symphony No. 3. Made up of members who donate their time and talent, and formed originally under the joint sponsorship of Boston University and the Boston Symphony Orchestra for performances at Tanglewood, the Tanglewood Festival Chorus now performs year-round with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Boston Pops. It has performed with Seiji Ozawa and the BSO in Hong Kong and Japan, and with the BSO in Europe under James Levine and Bernard Haitink, also giving a cappella concerts of its own on the two latter occasions. Its most recent recordings, on BSO Classics, include a disc of a cappella music released to mark the chorus's 40th anniversary, and, with James Levine and the BSO, Ravel's complete Daphnis et Chloé (a Grammy winner for Best Orchestral Performance of 2009), Brahms's Ein Deutsches Requiem, and William Bolcom's Eighth Symphony for chorus and orchestra (a BSO 125th Anniversary Commission). The chorus had the honor of singing at Senator Edward Kennedy's funeral, has performed with the Boston Pops for the Boston Red Sox and Boston Celtics, and can be heard on the soundtracks of Clint Eastwood's Mystic River, John Sayles's Silver City, and Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan.
  
  In addition to his work with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, John Oliver was for many years conductor of the MIT Chamber Chorus and MIT Concert Choir, and a senior lecturer in music at MIT. He founded the John Oliver Chorale in 1977; made his Boston Symphony Orchestra conducting debut in 1985; has been guest conductor with the New Japan Philharmonic, Berkshire Choral Institute, and Montreal Symphony; and in October 2011 received the Alfred Nash Patterson Lifetime Achievement Award, presented by Choral Arts New England in recognition of his outstanding contributions to choral music. In February 2012 in Boston, and then for his Carnegie Hall debut that March, he replaced Kurt Masur to lead the BSO and Tanglewood Festival Chorus in Beethoven's Missa solemnis.

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• PALS Children's Chorus
  Andy Icochea Icochea, Artistic Director

  
  With singing at its core and training in dance and drama, PALS Children's Chorus changes the lives of children, building confidence, discipline, leadership, and a love of music that will last a lifetime. Throughout its history, PALS has collaborated with internationally known ensembles that include the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Lyric Opera, Boston Pops, and Boston Early Music Festival. PALS choristers perform a wide range of repertoire-from classical to world music, to gospel and new music-and present an opera every year. In addition to its performances with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, this season's highlights include the US premiere of Raoul Gehringer's opera Moby Dick. Founded 24 years ago, PALS serves 185 children ages 6-15 from the greater Boston area, regardless of their financial circumstance.
  
  PALS conductor Andy Icochea Icochea is a multifaceted musician who regularly appears as an orchestral, opera, and choral conductor, as well as an accompanist. His compositions and arrangements have been performed internationally. He has appeared in more than 500 concerts in 27 countries and four continents, in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Suntory Hall, Vienna's Musikverein, and Berlin's Konzerthaus. Mr. Icochea has collaborated as choral conductor and rehearsal accompanist under Riccardo Muti, Georges Prêtre, Adám Fischer, Franz Welser-Möst, Bertrand de Billy, Bernard Haitink, and Charles Dutoit. His choruses have performed with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Vienna Symphony, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, and Boston Symphony Orchestra. He has conducted world premieres of operas in Austria and Italy. Before joining PALS, he was Kapellmeister of the Vienna Boys Choir for six years.

   

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