Saturday, November 19, 2022 8:30 PM
Hill Auditorium
Berliner Philharmoniker
in two different programs
UMS proudly welcomes the next chapter of the Berlin Philharmonic’s magnificent legacy with the Ann Arbor debut of maestro Kirill Petrenko. He leads two programs that showcase the ensemble’s mastery across classical, romantic, and contemporary repertoire.
For his debut concert, he conducts Andrew Norman’s 10-minute orchestra joyride, Unstuck, which brims with invention and energy. The orchestra’s first concertmaster, American Noah Bendix-Balgley, takes the stage for Mozart’s first violin concerto before the orchestra concludes its program with Erich Korngold’s only symphony — a work that the composer never heard performed live. Completed in 1952 and dedicated to the memory of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the work had a radio premiere in 1954 and was not performed live until 1972, 15 years after the composer’s death. Korngold’s sweeping orchestrations and brilliant orchestral color made him a huge success in Hollywood as a film composer, all of which are on display in this insightful and dramatic score.
The Berlin Philharmonic’s second program features Gustav Mahler at his most mysterious, with the tantalizing nocturnal atmosphere of his Symphony No. 7. The work, which remains the least known and least performed of all of Mahler’s symphonies, was composed during the summers of 1904 and 1905, Mahler’s only respite from the demands of conducting. The work’s wide palette of orchestral colors is filled with shadows and contrasts, and it had a mixed reception when it premiered in Prague in 1908. Nevertheless, it converted the Mahler skeptic Arnold Schoenberg, who wrote in great detail about his response to the work, stating unequivocally, “As for which movement I liked best: All of them!”
Note: both concerts are included on the Choral Union Series subscription package.
PROGRAM (Fri 11/18/2022: Hill Auditorium)
Andrew Norman Unstuck
W.A. Mozart Violin Concerto No. 1 in B-Flat Major, K. 207
Erich Korngold Symphony in F-Sharp Major, Op. 40
Join host Doyle Armbrust for “The Society for Disobedient Listeners” — a special pre-performance talk, 7 pm in the lower lobby of Hill Auditorium. (Friday only)
PROGRAM (Sat 11/19/2022: Hill Auditorium)
Gustav Mahler Symphony No. 7
Thank You to Our Sponsors
PERMANENTLY ENDOWED SUPPORT
- Permanently Endowed Support for Conductor Kirill Petrenko: The Menakka & Essel Bailey Endowment Fund for International Artistic Brilliance
PRESENTING SPONSOR
- Philip and Kathy Power
PRINCIPAL SPONSOR
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- Tim and Sally Petersen
- Shaomeng Wang and Ju-Yun Li
- Doris and Herbert E. Sloan Endowment Fund
FUNDED IN PART BY
- Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation
MEDIA PARTNERS
Kirill Petrenko, chief conductor of the Berliner Philharmoniker since August 2019, was born in the Siberian city of Omsk in 1972. At the age of 18, he moved with his family to Vorarlberg in Austria. Following his training as a conductor at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, he worked from 1997 as an assistant and conductor at the city’s Volksoper; afterwards he was music director at the Meininger Theater from 1999 to 2002.
In 2001, he first attracted international attention when he conducted Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen in the production of Christine Mielitz with designs by Alfred Hrdlicka. From 2002 to 2007, Kirill Petrenko was general music director of the Komische Oper Berlin. He has also appeared at the state opera houses in Munich and Vienna, the Semperoper Dresden, the Royal Opera House in London, the Metropolitan Opera New York, the Opéra Bastille in Paris, and the Maggio Musicale Florenz and the Salzburg Festival. From 2013 to 2015, he conducted a new production of Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Bayreuth Festival.
In the autumn of 2013, Kirill Petrenko took up his post as general music director of the Bayerische Staatsoper, which he held until the end of the 2019/20 season. On the concert stage, he has conducted the Vienna Philharmonic, the Berlin and Dresden Staatskapelle, the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic, and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.
Kirill Petrenko made his debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker in February 2006 with compositions by Bartók and Rachmaninov. In 2015, the orchestra elected him its chief conductor.
Considering it his life-long pursuit, Noah Bendix-Balgley has a personal sound that connects with his audience in a meaningful way. Whether he’s leading the Berlin Philharmonic as First Concertmaster, performing chamber music or in front of the orchestra as soloist, Noah’s gift of communication through music has reached listeners all around the world.
Doyle Armbrust is a Chicago-based violist and co-founder of the three-times Grammy-nominated Spektral Quartet. His writing has infiltrated program books at the Chicago, St. Louis, and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestras as well as publications including Crain’s Chicago Business, Chicago Magazine, Time Out Chicago, and The Chicago Tribune.
In UMS’s 2022/23 season, Doyle hosts “The Society of Disobedient Listeners” — an interactive pre-concert experience reconnecting listeners to the subversive, visceral, and even revolutionary elements of the evening’s program. Conceived as an anti-lecture, “Disobedient Listeners” draws the great music of the past into proximity with the felicities and calamities of modern life.