The Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra announced the schedule yesterday for its usual four concerts at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and there’s great news for contemporary music lovers, especially those who have a jones for the didgeridoo.
The season opens on February 3 with two works by the Australian composer Peter Schulthorpe–Earth Cry and Mangrove–plus Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. Music director Michael Christie, now in his second season, was formerly director of the Queensland Orchestra, which explains the ‘Roo connection.
The second concert, on March 10, pits Osvaldo Golijov’s Last Round and a new orchestration of Dreams & Prayers of Issac the Blind against Mahler’s Symphony No. 1. My money’s on Mahler by about eight minutes.
The orchestra will be joined by the Kronos Quartet on April 21 for the premiere of Julia Wolfe’s My Beautiful Scream, plus Holst’s Planets and Vaughan Williams Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, the wellspring of the spirtualist wing of contemporary music (Part, Taverner, Gorecki, Lauridsen, Whitacre et al), an important and popular modern movement mostly ignored by the fine young cannibals who gather here but greatly admired by those of us who don’t know any better.
And, speaking of Gorecki, his Symphony Number 3–with a first ever staging by the Ridge Theater–is the centerpiece of the final concert on May 12. It’s matched with Paul Hindemith’s Mathis der Mahler and Mozart’s Exsultate jubilate.
The Philharmonic also does community and school concerts, and will present two genre-blending concerts, including a program with performances by Laurie Anderson,Nellie McKay, Joan Osborne and Suzanne Vega.
Depends whether you take the totally unnecessary repeat in the first movement. That’ll add a couple minutes.
At only 52 minutes, No. 1 is Mahler’s shortest symphony.
If youre only losing to Mahler by 8 minutes, you’ve done well for yourself.