Carnegie Hall

In the 2024–2025 season, Andris Nelsons celebrates 10 years as the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Ray and Maria Stata Music Director. Mr. Nelsons became the 15th music director in the BSO’s history at the start of the 2014–2015 season. He 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. In January 2024, Head of Conducting at Tanglewood was added to his title to reflect his expanded commitment to pre-professional training.

Mr. Nelsons’s 11th season as music director features several major projects, including performances of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony in October, the full cycle of Beethoven’s nine symphonies in January, concert performances of Erich Korngold’s opera Die tote Stadt, and performances of BSO-commissioned works by BSO Composer Chair Carlos Simon, Kevin Puts, and Aleksandra Vrebalov. Mr. Nelsons’s and the BSO’s annual two-concert series at Carnegie Hall in April features pianist Mitsuko Uchida performing Beethoven and cellist Yo-Yo Ma performing Shostakovich. The BSO’s season culminates in a European tour with performances in Vienna and Prague, as well as the orchestra’s first appearance in Mr. Nelsons’s native Riga. The tour concludes in Leipzig, where the BSO joins the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra for the Shostakovich Festival Leipzig, a comprehensive and globally unique celebration of the composer’s music that marks the 50th anniversary of his death.

As both music director of the BSO and Gewandhauskapellmeister of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra (GHO), a position he has held since 2018, Mr. Nelsons conducts both orchestras as they present the composer’s symphonies, concertos, and other orchestral and chamber works. The BSO and the GHO merge for a joint performance of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7. During the festival, Mr. Nelsons also conducts the GHO in performances of Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at the Leipzig opera house. This festival project stems from the BSO/GHO Alliance, a unique partnership initiated by Mr. Nelsons. To further mark the Shostakovich anniversary, Mr. Nelsons and the BSO’s Grammy Award–winning series of recordings of the complete Shostakovich symphonies, concertos, and Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk was released as a box set by Deutsche Grammophon. This spring, the label also released Mr. Nelsons’s and the BSO’s recent recordings of Messiaen’s Turangalîla-symphonie with Yuja Wang, and the Ravel piano concertos with Seong-Jin Cho.

One of the most revered artists of our time, pianist Mitsuko Uchida is known as a peerless interpreter of the works of Mozart, Schubert,
R. Schumann, and Beethoven, as well as a devotee of the piano music of Berg, Schoenberg, Webern, and György Kurtág. She was Musical America’s 2022 Artist of the Year, music director of the 2024 Ojai Music Festival, and is a multi-year Carnegie Hall Perspectives artist. Her latest solo recording, of Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations, was nominated for a Grammy Award and won the 2022 Gramophone Piano Award. Ms. Uchida has enjoyed close relationships with the world’s most renowned orchestras, including the Berliner Philharmoniker, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and The Cleveland Orchestra, with which she recently celebrated her 100th performance at Severance Hall. Conductors with whom she has worked closely have included Bernard Haitink, Sir Simon Rattle, Riccardo Muti, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Vladimir Jurowski, Andris Nelsons, Gustavo Dudamel, and Mariss Jansons. Since 2016, Ms. Uchida has been an artistic partner of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, with which she is currently engaged in a multi-season touring project across Europe, Japan, and North America. She also appears regularly in recital in Vienna, Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam, London, New York, and Tokyo, and is a frequent guest at the Salzburg Mozart Week and Salzburg Festival. Ms. Uchida records exclusively for Decca, and her multi–award-winning discography includes the complete Mozart and Schubert piano sonatas. She is the recipient of two Grammy Awards—for Mozart concertos with The Cleveland Orchestra and for an album of lieder with Dorothea Röschmann—and her recording of the Schoenberg Piano Concerto with Pierre Boulez and The Cleveland Orchestra won the Gramophone Award for Best Concerto. A founding member of the Borletti-Buitoni Trust and director of the Marlboro Music Festival, Ms. Uchida is a recipient of the Golden Mozart Medal from the Salzburg Mozarteum and the Praemium Imperiale from the Japan Art Association. She has also been awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society and the Wigmore Hall Medal, and holds honorary degrees from the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. In 2009, she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.