The bass-baritone Eric Owens and the composer-conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen will be featured presences at the New York Philharmonic next season, as artist and composer in residence, the orchestra said on Wednesday in announcing its 2015-16 programs.
The Philharmonic's next season, offering a mix of innovative new works and traditional fare, comes at a time when it has been expanding its touring activities, with new residencies in Ann Arbor, MI, Santa Barbara, CA, and Shanghai, China, plus plans for opera co-productions at Lincoln Center.
Music director Alan Gilbert will conduct his sixth opening gala concert on Sept. 24, focusing on Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony and Grieg's Piano Concerto with soloist Lang Lang.
In other programming ventures the Philharmonic will present a three-week Rachmaninoff festival in November featuring the dynamic young Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov in several of his popular concertos. A week-long festival in March will be devoted to the idiosyncratic French composer Olivier Messiaen, with performances of his 80-minute Turangalîla-symphonie (with pianist Yuja Wang) and several chamber works.
Eric Owens, who has sung in much of the Metropolitan Opera's Ring Cycle, will be the first African-American recipient of the artist in residence position. His plans include an evening-length tribute to great African-American singers and composers, conducted by Thomas Wilkins; programs of Mahler and Strauss songs; the finale of Wagner's Die Walkure; and a holiday program featuring Albert Hague's You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch.
Esa-Pekka Salonen, who was the Los Angeles Philharmonic's conductor from 1984 to 2009, will be the second Finn to hold the composer in residence position, following Magnus Lindberg, from 2009-2012. The orchestra will perform several of his pieces including a commission for its NY Phil Biennial festival in June 2016. The post is a three-year appointment.
The season also has its share of novelties: Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde in April (with baritone Thomas Hampson and tenor Sefan Vinke); six works by Sibelius, in commemoration of the composer's 150th birthday; and the return of the Art of the Score film music series in September, with Leonard Bernstein's On the Waterfront and Nino Rota's The Godfather, both played as the complete films are screened behind the stage. Also planned are premieres by several contemporary composers: Franck Krawczyk, Marc Neikrug, Per Nørgård, William Bolcom and Tan Dun.
Asked in a press conference Wednesday morning about the search for a concertmaster to succeed Glenn Dicterow, Gilbert would only say that an audition process is ongoing and that there is no timeline for an announcement.
The orchestra says its partnership with the Shanghai Symphony and Conservatory will expand in 2015-16, with the first New York visits by student musicians from China, who will play alongside Philharmonic musicians in Avery Fisher Hall throughout the season. Select Philharmonic players will travel to Shanghai to teach at three points during the year.
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