After multiple seasons disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic, Carnegie Hall today announced a 2022-23 performing-arts series that looks, well, very much like a characteristic Carnegie Hall season, chock-full of returning mainstays and noteworthy debuts.
That’s no mean feat, considering the extraordinary challenges of hosting orchestras and large ensembles from overseas, which required extensive logistical planning and care even during the best of times.
Arguably, though, the foremost hurdle that confronted Clive Gillinson, executive and artistic director of Carnegie Hall since 2005, was the opening-night event scheduled for September 29th.
“As you know, due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Carnegie Hall cancelled concerts with Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra that were to have taken place in spring 2022,” Gillinson told Gothamist in an email. “Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky were also originally scheduled to open this season – something that had been planned for many years – so we needed to take some additional time before announcing the season in order to rework our opening night for the fall.”
To the rescue once again came conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who filled in for Gergiev on short notice for a series of February concerts at Carnegie Hall with the Vienna Philharmonic. Now, Nézet-Séguin and the Philadelphia Orchestra will present an evening of music by Ravel, Dvořák and Gabriela Lena Frank, and accompany the pianist Daniil Trifonov, a perennial favorite (and an outspoken opponent of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine) performing Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1.
“We deeply appreciate our great friendship with Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Philadelphia Orchestra,” Gillinson said, “and that they were not only willing to open our season, but they adjusted their own opening plans in Philadelphia to make our opening night work.”
Evident at a glance is the towering presence of women artists at the forefront of the new season. “Every Carnegie Hall season has a strong focus or programmatic thread that runs through it,” Gillinson said. “The role of women in music leads the programming for 2022-2023.”
The esteemed pianist Mitsuko Uchida and the versatile singer, songwriter, composer and multi-instrumentalist Rhiannon Giddens have been named Perspectives artists, each entrusted with multiple concerts and events spanning the breadth of their interests and skills. Assuming the Richard and Barbara Debs Creative Chair, occupied previously by composers, is the flutist Claire Chase, who will extend her ambitious 24-year commissioning project, “Density 2036.”
Visiting orchestras will return to Carnegie Hall in abundance during the months ahead, compensating for a noteworthy dearth in recent seasons. Making their first appearances in decades are the City of Birmingham Orchestra, led by Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla (who will by then have transitioned from music director to principal guest conductor); the Los Angeles Philharmonic, conducted by artistic director Gustavo Dudamel; and the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, directed by outgoing chief conductor Susanna Mälkki. (All three engagements are sure to be of special interest to New York Philharmonic aficionados speculating about that institution’s future leader.)
Making their first-ever Carnegie Hall appearances are Brazil’s São Paulo Symphony Orchestra, led by Marin Alsop, and the Lviv National Philharmonic Orchestra of Ukraine, guided by Theodore Kuchar. Kirill Petrenko will have his podium debut in his present role as chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic. Perennial mainstays returning to the venue next season include the Boston Symphony Orchestra led by Andris Nelsons; the Vienna Philharmonic directed by Christian Thielemann; and the Cleveland Orchestra conducted by Franz Welser-Möst.
Elsewhere, among a plethora of favorite returning ensembles – from the English Concert to Ensemble Intercontemporain – as well as vocal and instrumental soloists, some guests will seize the opportunity to stretch conventional boundaries. In April 2023, for example, cellist Alisa Weilerstein will present the New York premiere of “Fragments,” a juxtaposition of Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 with newly commissioned works by a variety of compositions, presented in a multimedia context.
Then in May, a constellation of prominent artists – including Gidon Kremer, Maxim Vengerov, Steven Isserlis, Evgeny Kissin, Lera Auerbach and the Emerson String Quartet – convenes to mark the centenary of Soviet-era nuclear physicist and dissident Andrei Sakharov.
One more detail reinforcing a sense of rebirth and renewed possibility in the next season is the reconfiguration of Zankel Hall into an in-the-round setting for a series of concerts in January. The hall famously was designed and constructed to be used in a variety of configurations, yet only rarely has that capacity been explored. Artists participating in that series include Rhiannon Giddens, Claire Chase, Kronos Quartet, yMusic and Third Coast Percussion, the last in conjunction with movement artists Jon Boogz & Lil Buck.
One might sense, here as elsewhere, that concerns about the pandemic have been laid to rest. Not the case, said Gillinson.
“As we were planning the season, we were doing so in a world where we have no idea of what the challenges of COVID will be in a day, month, or year,” he said. “While we are very grateful that the landscape continues to improve, we continue to have to calculate risk of what we will be able to present in the months ahead. With the 2022-2023 season, we have slightly fewer concerts, but have nonetheless returned with a full programming slate in this new year.”
Details of the forthcoming 2022-23 Carnegie Hall season are available at carnegiehall.org.
Source : https://gothamist.com/arts-entertainment/carnegie-hall-announces-2022-23-season
