Carnegie Hall

The 2021–2022 season is Andris Nelsons’s eighth as the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s (BSO) Ray and Maria Stata Music Director. The 15th music director in the BSO’s history, Mr. Nelsons made his debut with the orchestra at Carnegie Hall in March 2011, his Tanglewood debut in July 2012, and his Symphony Hall debut in January 2013. He has led the orchestra on three European tours and one of Japan. In the pandemic-affected 2020–2021 season, Mr. Nelsons led the BSO in six of the 15 programs streamed as part of the orchestra’s BSO NOW virtual season recorded in Symphony Hall. His BSO repertoire in the 2021–2022 season ranges from favorites by Rachmaninoff and Sibelius to world and US premieres of commissioned works by HK Gruber, Jörg Widmann, Kaija Saariaho, Julia Adolphe, and Fazil Say. Mr. Nelsons is also Gewandhauskapellmeister of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra (GHO), bringing the orchestras together in a unique alliance of mutual artistic cooperation. In fall 2019, Mr. Nelsons and the BSO hosted the Gewandhaus Orchestra in historic concerts at Symphony Hall that included performances by the GHO as well as concerts featuring the orchestras combined. His project with the BSO and GHO to record major works of Richard Strauss for Deutsche Grammophon culminates in the May 2022 release of a seven-CD set featuring both orchestras. Mr. Nelsons’s ongoing series of Shostakovich symphonies with the BSO for Deutsche Grammophon has earned four Grammy Awards. Under an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon, he has recorded the complete Beethoven symphonies with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and is recording the Bruckner symphonies with the GHO. Mr. Nelsons leads such orchestras as the Berliner Philharmoniker, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and appears with such opera companies as the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and at the Bayreuth Festival. Born in Riga in 1978 into a family of musicians, Mr. Nelsons began his career as a trumpeter in the Latvian National Opera Orchestra before studying conducting. He was music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra; principal conductor of the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie in Herford, Germany; and music director of the Latvian National Opera.

Leonidas Kavakos is recognized as a violinist and artist of rare quality, known for his virtuosity and the integrity of his playing. By age 21, Mr. Kavakos had already won the Sibelius, Paganini, and Naumburg competitions. This success led to his making the first-ever recording of the original Sibelius Violin Concerto (1903–1904), which won the 1991 Gramophone Concerto of the Year Award. Mr. Kavakos is a Carnegie Hall Perspectives Artist in 2021–2022, performing concerts during the season that include a recital with pianist Yuja Wang and a chamber music trio concert with Emanuel Ax and Yo-Yo Ma. His recital program with Ms. Wang toured the US in November 2021. The Ax-Kavakos-Ma trio gives concerts at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC; Boston’s Symphony Hall; Chicago’s Orchestra Hall; and Stony Brook University, in addition to its Carnegie Hall performance this month. In recent years, Mr. Kavakos has built a strong profile as a conductor, and this season he returns to the Dallas Symphony Orchestra to lead a program of Mozart’s Sinfonia concertante and Prokofiev’s Sixth Symphony. As a conductor, he has collaborated with the New York Philharmonic, Houston Symphony, Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne, Vienna Symphony, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Orchestra Filarmonica della Fenice, and the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, to name just a few. Mr. Kavakos is an exclusive recording artist with Sony Classical. Recent releases from the Beethoven 250th anniversary year include the composer’s Violin Concerto with Mr. Kavakos as soloist and conductor with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the re-release of his 2007 recording of the complete Beethoven sonatas with Enrico Pace, for which he was named Echo Klassik Instrumentalist of the Year. Mr. Kavakos was Gramophone’s Artist of the Year in 2014, and was awarded the 2017 Léonie Sonning Music Prize, Denmark’s highest musical honor.