ALSOP CONDUCTS BRAHMS 3
Vienna Radio Symphony, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, and the Polish National Radio Symphony.
Alsop is Music Director Laureate and OrchKids Founder of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, where during her 14-year tenure she led its first European tour in over a decade, premiered more than two dozen works, and launched the acclaimed OrchKids program. She is the 2025 recipient of the League of American Orchestras’ Golden Baton Award.
Nemanja Radulović
Serbian-French violinist Nemanja Radulović champions the power of music to bring people together with his unique energy and candor, electrifying virtuosity, depth of expression, and adventurous programming. Winner of the 2024 OPUS KLASSIK Award for Concerto Recording of the Year( Beethoven: Violin Concerto & Kreutzer Sonata), Radulović describes the concert stage as a“ second home.” His daring
Nemanja Radulović
approach— marked by risk-taking and spontaneity— transforms each performance into a compelling blend of tradition and bold experimentation.
During the 2025 – 26 season, Radulović brings his“ thrilling, magical interpretation”( Bachtrack) of Aram Khachaturian’ s Violin Concerto to the Baltimore Symphony with Marin Alsop, the opening concert of the Enescu Festival with Cristian Măcelaru, and the Melbourne Symphony with Jamie Martín. With the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, he reunites with Krzysztof Urbański for his return to the Warsaw
Sever Zolak
Philharmonic and debut with the Bamberger Symphoniker, and begins new collaborations with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra( Giedrė Šlekytė) and the Belgian National Orchestra( Antony Hermus) at BOZAR Brussels, as well as the Philharmonie de Paris. His season concludes with returns to Australia and Japan. Recent highlights include engagements with the New York Philharmonic, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Munich Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony, Gothenburg Symphony, Vienna Radio Symphony, and Sydney Symphony, along with sold-out performances with his ensemble Double Sens at La Folle Journée de Nantes and Chorégies d’ Orange, and Philharmonie de Paris, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, and Berlin Philharmonie. Radulović’ s recordings, including his acclaimed Beethoven album and recently released second Bach album( 2024) with Double Sens, reflect his restless curiosity and desire to explore.
NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
By Paula Maust
Reena Esmail
Born February 11, 1983, in Chicago, Illinois Resides in Los Angeles, California
RE | MEMBER [ 2021 ]
When Indian-American composer Reena Esmail began writing RE | Member, she had planned for it to be the 2020 season opener for the Seattle Symphony, where she was Artist in Residence. What would have been a piece symbolizing the normal ritual of returning to the concert hall after the summer break took on a completely different meaning as the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered performance spaces. When the piece was finally premiered a year later, Esmail described two different interpretations of the title RE | Member: 1) the coming back together, or re-membering, of the orchestra after the pandemic, and 2) a commitment to remembering the lessons learned while people were apart.
Perhaps most evocative of the experience of life during the pandemic is Esmail’ s use of video in RE | Member. A video recording of the principal oboist playing the opening of the piece is projected above a silent orchestra, emphasizing the desire to be together and the frustration and uncertainty that stemmed from months of distance. As the video disappears, the orchestra takes over, playing overture-like music full of different timbres and rapidly changing moods. There is darkness, levity, grandeur, and beautiful tenderness. As the orchestral music winds down, the video of the oboist reappears. But this time the principal oboist plays live along with the recording, creating a dialogue with everyone together in the same space.
Instrumentation: Three flutes( third doubling piccolo), three oboes, three clarinets, three bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, snare drum, temple blocks, triangle, suspended cymbal, glockenspiel, chimes, marimba, and strings.
Aram Khachaturian
Born June 6( May 24 in Old Style), 1903, in the city of Tiflis( present-day Tbilisi, Georgia) Died May 1, 1978, in Moscow, Russia
VIOLIN CONCERTO [ 1940 ]
During the summer of 1940, Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian spent two months at a retreat in a forest west of Moscow. A recent graduate of the Moscow Conservatory, he recalled that during this time“ themes came to me in such abundance that I had a hard time putting them in order.” That inspirational retreat resulted in his Violin Concerto, which has become one of Khachaturian’ s most well-known works. Music written in the Soviet Union was expected to conform to
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