Carnegie Hall

(NEW YORK, NY; September 30, 2024)—Carnegie Hall celebrates the start of its 2024–2025 season with an Opening Night Gala concert on Tuesday, October 8 at 7:00 p.m. featuring the Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by Gustavo Dudamel. Acclaimed pianist and Perspectives artist for this season Lang Lang, is the soloist for this special evening, performs Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 on a program that also includes Ginastera’s complete ballet music to Estancia featuring baritone Gustavo Castillo. This concert kicks off three consecutive nights of performances by Dudamel and the orchestra, which also launch Carnegie Hall’s season-long Nuestros sonidos festival, celebrating Latin culture in the US.

This Opening Night performance will be heard live by listeners around the world, launching the 14th annual Carnegie Hall Live broadcast and digital series. Produced by WQXR and Carnegie Hall and co-hosted by WQXR’s Jeff Spurgeon, the concert will be broadcast on WQXR 105.9 FM in New York and streamed online at wqxr.org and carnegiehall.org/wqxr.

Mercedes T. Bass and Hope and Robert F. Smith are the Gala Lead Chairmen for Carnegie Hall’s black-tie Opening Night Gala event. Gala Chairmen Committee members include Len and Emily Blavatnik; Maral and Sarkis Jebejian; Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis; Karen and Dennis M. Nally; Allison Rosier; Beatrice Santo Domingo; Elizabeth Segerstrom; David M. Siegel and Dana Matsushita; Vista Friends of Hope and Robert F. Smith; and Joan and Sanford I. Weill. Gala Co-Chairmen include Evercore; Suzie and Bruce Kovner; Los Angeles Philharmonic; Anne Akiko Meyers and Jason Subotky; Xiaoshan Ren; Marvin S. Rosen, Shareholder of Greenberg Traurig; Richard A. Rosenbaum, Executive Chairman of Greenberg Traurig; Tracy Chutorian Semler and Eric Semler; and Rebecca and Roy Weathers. Kirkland & Ellis LLP is the Lead Sponsor and PwC a Major Sponsor. The gala concert benefits Carnegie Hall’s artistic, education and social impact programs and includes a dinner at Cipriani 42nd Street following the concert. For more information about Opening Night, please visit carnegiehall.org/OpeningNight2024.

The next night, on Wednesday, October 9 at 8:00 p.m. Dudamel and the orchestra return joined by cellist Alisa Weilerstein for the New York premiere of Dzonot by Gabriela Ortiz. Ms. Ortiz is this season’s holder of Carnegie Hall’s Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair and a frequent collaborator with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Dzonot was co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall and the LA Phil with generous support from the MaddocksBrown Fund for New Music. The October 9 program continues with Felix Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Renowned Spanish actress María Valverde brings Shakespeare’s colorful tale to life in Spanish joined by soprano Jana McIntyre, mezzo-soprano Deepa Johnny, and New York City’s Musica Sacra choir under the direction of Kent Tritle.

For their third and final performance, on Thursday, October 10 at 8:00 p.m., Dudamel and the LA Phil reunite with internationally beloved Mexican singer-songwriter Natalia Lafourcade, who returns to Carnegie Hall following her sold-out debut in 2022 and joined by the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. The performance features music from Lafourcade’s album De Todas las Flores, which earned her Record of the Year at the 2023 Latin Grammy Awards. Dudamel and the orchestra are further showcased in Roberto Sierra’s Alegría, Arturo Márquez’s Danzón No. 9, and Gabriela Ortiz’s Antrópolis. (Note: the previously announced John Adams’s Short Ride in a Fast Machine is no longer on the program.)

These three concerts launch Carnegie Hall’s season-long festival Nuestros sonidos: Celebrating Latin Culture in the US—a joyous celebration of the vibrant sounds, pioneering rhythms, endlessly diverse traditions, and enormous influence of Latin culture in the United States, including vital contributions from the Caribbean. Concerts throughout the season feature musical styles that range from salsa, bachata, and Latin jazz to reggaeton, hip-hop, Tejano, classical, and so much more, highlighting the game-changing contributions and constant evolution of Latin music from the 1930s to today, with a special focus on genres that have developed and thrived in the US. For more details, visit carnegiehall.org/nuestrossonidos.

About the Artists
Gustavo Dudamel made his Carnegie Hall debut in 2007 leading the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela as part of the Berlin in Lights citywide festival. He has returned nearly 20 times leading the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Vienna Philharmonic, and Los Angeles Philharmonic. Most recently, in August 2024, he conducted a performance by the National Children’s Symphony of Venezuela as well as a massive play-in event featuring more than 700 young musicians from around the globe as part of Carnegie Hall’s World Orchestra Week (WOW!) festival.

Mr. Dudamel is driven by the belief that music has the power to transform lives, to inspire, and to change the world. Through his dynamic presence on the podium and his tireless advocacy for arts education, he has introduced classical music to new audiences around the globe and has helped provide access to the arts for countless people in underserved communities. He currently serves as the Music & Artistic Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, and in 2026, he becomes the Music and Artistic Director of the New York Philharmonic, continuing a legacy that includes Gustav Mahler, Arturo Toscanini, and Leonard Bernstein.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic made its Carnegie Hall debut in 1967 under the direction of Zubin Mehta and has since gone on to appear at the Hall more than 30 times, most recently, in 2022 under the baton of Music & Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel. For over a century, the LA Phil has been as vibrant as Los Angeles, one of the world's most open and dynamic cities. Under the leadership of Mr. Dudamel since 2009, it performs or presents nearly 300 events per year, harnessing the transformative power of live music to build community, foster intellectual and artistic growth, and nurture the creative spirit, while redefining what an orchestra can be.

World-renowned pianist Lang Lang made his Carnegie Hall debut in 2001 with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, returning to make his Carnegie Hall recital debut in 2003. This Opening Night 2024 concert marks his 30th Carnegie Hall appearance and kicks off his two-season Perspectives series. Lang Lang returns this season for two intimate performances in March—the first collaborating with soprano Angel Blue in her Carnegie Hall recital debut, performing works by R. Strauss, Hoiby, Poulenc, Rachmaninoff, and Dorsey, as well as a selection of traditional spirituals. For his second March appearance, Lang Lang presents a solo recital with a program that includes Fauré’s Pavane in F-sharp Minor, Robert Schumann’s Kreisleriana, and works by Chopin, including several of the composer’s beloved mazurkas.

Venezuelan baritone Gustavo Castillo makes his Carnegie Hall debut with this Opening Night 2024 concert. Mr. Castillo owes his early music education to El Sistema, the renowned music project in his home country of Venezuela. From 2016 to 2018, he was a member of the Accademia del Teatro alla Scala in Milan, where he started his stage career singing Peter in Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel and Figaro in Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia for children.

Cellist Alisa Weilerstein made her Carnegie Hall debut in 1997 as a soloist with the New York Youth Symphony. She has returned more than a dozen times for performances in all three halls, most recently in 2023 with her ground-breaking, multi-year project for solo cello, FRAGMENTS. Co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall, the project weaves together movements of Bach’s solo cello suites with newly commissioned works, responsive lighting, and scenic architecture, inviting audiences into an immersive, multisensory experience. Ms. Weilerstein returns with FRAGMENTS 2 and 3 in January and May this season including new compositions by multiple composers on each program.

Soprano Jana McIntyre made her Carnegie Hall debut in 2023 in the title role of Richard Strauss’s Daphne with the American Symphony Orchestra and conductor Leon Botstein. She is a George and Nora London Foundation Competition Award Winner as well as a Finalist in The Metropolitan Opera Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition.

Mezzo-soprano Deepa Johnny participated in Carnegie Hall’s 2022 SongStudio master classes with both Renée Fleming and Isabel Leonard, and performed in that season’s Young Artists Recital in Zankel Hall. This concert marks her debut in Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage.

Acclaimed film and television actress María Valverde made her concert stage debut narrating the Felix Mendelssohn live orchestral adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream alongside her husband, conductor Gustavo Dudamel, at the Castell de Peralada Festival in August 2019 in Girona, Spain. Born in the Carabanchel neighborhood of southern Madrid, Spain, Valverde was discovered by director Manuel Martin Cuenca in 2002 at age 15, when she was cast in the lead role of his film, The Bolshevik’s Weakness. Valverde has since appeared in more than 20 films, performing in Spanish, English, and French, and filming in locations including Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Chile, Argentina, Mexico, and Venezuela. This concert marks her Carnegie Hall debut.

Since its founding in 1964 by conductor Richard Westenburg, Musica Sacra has made it its mission to create definitive, professional choral performances of the highest caliber for the widest possible audience. It supports its mission by presenting concerts, recording, commissioning and performing new choral works, collaborating with other top tier performing arts organizations, and educating audiences, students, and the general public in the appreciation and history of choral music. The group made its Carnegie Hall debut in 1973. Its October 9 appearance marks its 70th performance at the Hall.

Natalia Lafourcade is one of the most acclaimed musical artists, songwriters, singers, and producers of Mexico and Latin America. With more than23 years in the industry, Natalia is one of the most awarded female artists of the Latin Recording Academy with 17 Latin Grammys and four Grammy Awards. With a Billboard Award and three MTV Awards, among other recognitions, and invitations to perform at the Academy Awards, Goya Awards, and Person of the Year by the Latin Recording Academy, she has both the talent and compositions to set her apart in the music scene. She made her Carnegie Hall debut in an acclaimed sold-out concert in 2022.

Program Information
Tuesday, October 8, 2024 at 7:00 PM
Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
CARNEGIE HALL’S OPENING NIGHT GALA
LOS ANGELES PHILHARMONIC
Gustavo Dudamel, Music and Artistic Director
Lang Lang, Piano
Gustavo Castillo, Baritone

RACHMANINOFF Piano Concerto No. 2
GINASTERA Estancia

Lead Sponsor: Kirkland & Ellis LLP

Major Sponsor: PwC

Lead support for Nuestros sonidos is provided by the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation and Claure Family Foundation.

Major support is provided by the Hearst Foundations and additional support by The Charles E. Culpeper Fund of the New York Community Trust. 

Funded in part by a grant from the New York City Tourism Foundation. 

Tickets $110–$275
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Wednesday, October 9, 2024 at 8:00 PM
Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
LOS ANGELES PHILHARMONIC

Gustavo Dudamel, Music and Artistic Director
Alisa Weilerstein, Cello
Jana McIntyre, Soprano
Deepa Johnny, Mezzo-Soprano
María Valverde, Narrator
Musica Sacra
Kent Tritle, Director

GABRIELA ORTIZ Dzonot (NY Premiere, co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall)
FELIX MENDELSSOHN Overture and Incidental Music to A Midsummer Night's Dream, Op. 21 and Op. 61

Sponsored by Ernst & Young LL

Lead support for Nuestros sonidos is provided by the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation and Claure Family Foundation.

Major support is provided by the Hearst Foundations and additional support by The Charles E. Culpeper Fund of the New York Community Trust.

Funded in part by a grant from the New York City Tourism Foundation.

Tickets $63–$175

___________________________________

Thursday, October 10, 2024 at 8:00 PM
Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
LOS ANGELES PHILHARMONIC
Gustavo Dudamel, Music and Artistic Director
Natalia Lafourcade, Special Guest
Brooklyn Youth Chorus
Dianne Berkun Menaker, Artistic Director

Program to include:
ROBERTO SIERRA Alegría
ARTURO MÁRQUEZ Danzón No. 9
GABRIELA ORTIZ Antrópolis

This performance is sponsored by Bank of America.

Lead support for Nuestros sonidos is provided by the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation and Claure Family Foundation.

Major support is provided by the Hearst Foundations and additional support by The Charles E. Culpeper Fund of the New York Community Trust.

Funded in part by a grant from the New York City Tourism Foundation.

Gabriela Ortiz is holder of the 2024–2025 Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair at Carnegie Hall.

Tickets $81–$225

 

Ticket Information

Opening Night Gala Benefit tickets—priced at $2,000; $3,000; $6,000; and $10,000—include concert seating and the post-concert dinner at Cipriani 42nd Street. Private Gala Dinner Tables start at $20,000. Tickets priced at $1,000 include the concert and a pre-concert cocktail reception at 5:30 p.m. in Carnegie Hall’s Rohatyn Room. Tickets priced at $10,000 include all three portions of the evening: cocktails, concert, and dinner. Gala benefit tickets are limited in availability. For updated information, please call the Carnegie Hall Special Events office at 212-903-9679 or view options online at carnegiehall.org/OpeningNight2024.

A limited number of Opening Night concert-only tickets as well as tickets for the following two evenings, priced $63–$275, are now available online at carnegiehall.org, by calling CarnegieCharge at 212-247-7800, or at the Carnegie Hall Box Office. Artists, programs, and prices are subject to change.