Boston Symphony Orchestra
Orchestras
The first Boston Symphony concert, in the Old Boston Music Hall, was performed under the direction of Georg Henschel. Symphony Hall, one of the world's most highly regarded concert halls, was inaugurated on October 15, 1900. Henschel's tenure as Music Director ended in 1884. He was succeeded by a series
of German-born and -trained conductors including Wilhelm Gericke, Arthur Nikisch, Emil Paur, Max Fiedler, and Karl Muck, who served two tenures as music director, 1906-08 and 1912-18. In 1915, the orchestra made its first transcontinental trip to San Francisco where it played thirteen concerts at the Panama-Pacific Exposition.
In 1918, Henri Rabaud was engaged as conductor. He was succeeded a year later by Pierre Monteux. These appointments marked the beginning of a French-oriented tradition that would be maintained, even during the Russian-born Serge Koussevitzky's time, with the employment of many French-trained musicians.
Koussevitzky, legendary for his extraordinary musicianship and electric personality, began an unprecedented 25-year term as Music Director in 1924. During his tenure, the Boston Symphony began regular radio broadcasts and, in 1936, performed the first Boston Symphony summer concerts in the Berkshires. The orchestra moved into its permanent summer residence, Tanglewood, in 1937. Three years later Koussevitzky, who passionately shared Higginson's dream of "a good honest school for musicians," founded the Berkshire Music Center (now called the Tanglewood Music Center).
Charles Munch succeeded Koussevitzky in 1949. He continued his predecessor's practice of supporting contemporary composers, and introduced the United States to a great deal of music from the French repertory. During his tenure, the orchestra toured abroad for the first time and the Youth Concerts series was initiated. Then, in 1962, Erich Leinsdorf took over the job of Music Director. He presented numerous premieres, restored many forgotten and neglected works to the repertory, and continued to extend the orchestra's audience reach through recordings for RCA and televised concerts. The Boston Symphony Chamber Players were also founded during this time. William Steinberg succeeded Leinsdorf in 1969. He conducted a number of American and world premieres, made recordings for Deutsche Grammophon and RCA, appeared regularly on television, and led the 1971 European tour.
Seiji Ozawa became the BSO's thirteenth music director in the fall of 1973, following a year as music adviser and three years as an artistic director at Tanglewood. His historic twenty-nine-year tenure, from 1973 to 2002, exceeded that of any previous BSO conductor; in the summer of 2002, at the completion of his tenure, he was named Music Director Laureate. Besides maintaining the orchestra's reputation worldwide, Ozawa reaffirmed the BSO's commitment to new music through the commissioning of many new works (including commissions marking the BSO's centennial in 1981 and the TMC's fiftieth anniversary in 1990), played an active role at the Tanglewood Music Center, and further expanded the BSO's recording activities. In 1995 he and the BSO welcomed Bernard Haitink as Principal Guest Conductor. Named Conductor Emeritus in 2004, Mr. Haitink has led the BSO in Boston, New York, at Tanglewood, and on tour in Europe, and has also recorded with the orchestra.
In the fall of 2001, James Levine was named to succeed Seiji Ozawa as music director. Maestro Levine began his tenure as the BSO's fourteenth music director - and the first American-born conductor to hold that position - in the fall of 2004. His wide-ranging programs balance great orchestral, operatic, and choral classics with equally significant music of the 20th and 21st centuries, including newly commissioned works from such important American composers as Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, John Harbison, Peter Lieberson, and Charles Wuorinen. He also appears as pianist with the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, conducts the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, and works with the TMC Fellows in classes devoted to orchestral repertoire, Lieder, and opera.
Today the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Inc., presents more than 250 concerts annually. It is an ensemble that has richly fulfilled Henry Lee Higginson's vision of a great and permanent orchestra in Boston.
SEASON 2009/2010
JAMES LEVINE
James Levine made his BSO debut in April 1972 and became music director in the fall of 2004, having been named music director designate in October 2001. His wide-ranging programs balance orchestral, operatic, and choral classics with significant music of the 20th and 21st centuries, including newly commissioned works from such leading American composers as Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, John Harbison, Leon Kirchner, Peter Lieberson, Gunther Schuller, and Charles Wuorinen. Mr. Levine and the Boston Symphony Orchestra made their first European tour together following the 2007 Tanglewood season, performing in the Lucerne Festival, the Schleswig-Holstein Festival (in Hamburg), Essen, Düsseldorf, the Berlin Festival, Paris, and the BBC Proms in London. At Tanglewood in 2008 he was Festival Director for the Elliott Carter Centenary Celebration marking the composer’s 100th-birthday year. In February 2009, Mr. Levine and the Boston Symphony Orchestra released their first recordings together on the BSO Classics label, all taken from live performances—Ravel’s complete Daphnis et Chloé (which recently won the Grammy Award for Best Orchestral Performance of 2009), Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem, Mahler’s Symphony No. 6, and William Bolcom’s Eighth Symphony and Lyric Concerto.
James Levine is also Music Director of the Metropolitan Opera, where, in the thirty-eight years since his debut there, he has developed a relationship with that company unparalleled in its history and unique in the musical world today. All told at the Met he has led nearly 2,500 performances—more than any other conductor in the company’s history—of 85 different operas, including fifteen company premieres. In 2009-10 at the Met he conducts new productions of Tosca (introduced on Opening Night) and Les Contes d’Hoffmann and revivals of Der Rosenkavalier, Simon Boccanegra, and Lulu, as well as concerts at Carnegie Hall with the MET Orchestra and MET Chamber Ensemble. Also in New York this season, in January at Zankel Hall, he gives a master class for the Marilyn Horne Foundation. In June 2010 the Cincinnati native conducts a new Cincinnati Opera production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg for that company’s 90th Anniversary Season.
James Levine has conducted every major orchestra in the United States and Europe. Outside the United States, his activities have been characterized by his intensive and enduring relationships with Europe’s most distinguished musical organizations, especially the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic, and the summer festivals in Salzburg (1975-1993) and Bayreuth (1982-98). He was music director of the UBS Verbier Festival Orchestra from its founding in 2000 and, before coming to Boston, was chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic from 1999 to 2004. In the United States he led the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for twenty summers as music director of the Ravinia Festival (1973-1993) and, concurrently, was music director of the Cincinnati May Festival (1973-1978). Besides his many recordings with the Metropolitan Opera and the MET Orchestra, he has amassed a substantial discography with such leading ensembles as the Berlin Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, London Symphony, Philharmonia Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Dresden Staatskapelle, Philadelphia Orchestra, and Vienna Philharmonic. Over the last thirty years he has made more than 200 recordings of works ranging from Bach to Babbitt. Also a distinguished pianist, Maestro Levine is an active chamber music and recital collaborator, especially in Lieder and song repertoire with the world’s great singers.
Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on June 23, 1943, James Levine studied piano from age four and made his debut with the Cincinnati Symphony at ten, as soloist in Mendelssohn’s D minor piano concerto. He was a participant at the Marlboro Festival in 1956 (including piano study with Rudolf Serkin) and at the Aspen Music Festival and School (where he would later teach and conduct) from 1957. In 1961 he entered the Juilliard School, where he studied conducting with Jean Morel and piano with Rosina Lhévinne (continuing on his work with her at Aspen). In 1964 he took part in the Ford Foundation-sponsored “American Conductors Project” with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Alfred Wallenstein, Max Rudolf, and Fausto Cleva. As a direct result of his work there, he was invited by George Szell, who was on the jury, to become an assistant conductor (1964-1970) at the Cleveland Orchestra—at twenty-one, the youngest assistant conductor in that orchestra’s history. During his Cleveland years, he also founded and was music director of the University Circle Orchestra at the Cleveland Institute of Music (1966-72).
James Levine was the first recipient (in 1980) of the annual Manhattan Cultural Award and in 1986 was presented with the Smetana Medal by the Czechoslovak government, following performances of the composer’s Má Vlast in Vienna. He was the subject of a Time cover story in 1983, was named “Musician of the Year” by Musical America in 1984, and has been featured in a documentary in PBS’s “American Masters” series. He has received numerous honorary doctorates and international awards, among them the Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Arts from New York’s Third Street Music School Settlement; the Gold Medal for Service to Humanity from the National Institute of Social Sciences; the Lotus Award (“for inspiration to young musicians”) from Young Concert Artists; the Anton Seidl Award from the Wagner Society of New York; the Wilhelm Furtwängler Prize from BadenBaden’s Committee for Cultural Advancement; the George Jellinek Award from WQXR in New York; the Goldenes Ehrenzeichen from the cities of Vienna and Salzburg; the Crystal Award from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland; America’s National Medal of Arts and Kennedy Center Honors; the 2005 Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; a 2006 Opera News Award, the NEA Opera Award from the National Academy of the Arts, and, most recently, in December 2009, the first Bard Award in Vocal Arts from the Bard College Conservatory of Music.
SEASON 2009/2010
