Stéphane will be spending most of his summer stateside this year, as he returns the USA to conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia and Boston Symphony orchestras in their summer seasons.
Traditionally, July and August sees the great American orchestras take to their outdoor stages or summer homes in the countryside and this year Stéphane will be joining the LA Philharmonic at the famous Hollywood Bowl, the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Vail Valley Festival and in Saratoga Springs and he will be making his debut at the Boston Symphony’s Tanglewood Music Center, for its celebratory 75th Anniversary Season.
Tanglewood 75th Anniversary Season
The Shed, Tanglewood
Tanglewood is one of the world’s most beloved music festivals, located in the beautiful Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts. The largest concerts take place in ‘The Shed’ (‘The Koussevitzky Music Shed’), Tanglewood’s oldest venue. The structure seats over 5,000, inside and out – as well as seating on the lawn you can also opt for an indoor position, under the acoustically-refined roof.
On August 7th Stéphane Denève will take part in a very special, ‘star-studded’ firework concert, ‘Tanglewood On Parade’. This unique concert features not one, but FIVE, conductors: Denève himself, Lorin Maazel, Christoph von Dohnányi, Keith Lockhart and John Williams. He will be conduct the Suite from Stravinsky’s Firebird, in a programme that also includes music by Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and, of course, OSCAR-winner John Williams.
Yo-Yo Ma
On August 11th, Stéphane Denève will conduct the Boston Symphony Orchestra in a Tanglewood concert that will open with the word-premiere of Andrè Previn’s Music for Boston and concludes with Shostakovich’s popular Fifth Symphony. Joining Denève and the orchestra will be the world’s best-known cellist, Yo-Yo Ma, to perform Elgar’s Cello Concerto.
Vail and Saratoga with the Philadelphia Orchestra
Gerald R Ford Ampitheatre, Vail Valley
Stéphane will appear with the Philadelphia Orchestra in two festivals this summer. The Orchestra is resident at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival, which this year celebrates its 25th Anniversary Season. Vail Valley is a picturesque ski resort, nestled in the magnificent Colorado Rocky Mountains.
Stéphane Denève will conduct two concerts in this year’s Vail Valley Festival. On July 13th the programme again includes Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony and Elgar’s Cello Concerto (this time with cellist Alban Gerhardt). The concert on July 14th features Joshua Bell, performing Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, as well as music by Mozart and Dvorák.
The Philadephia Orchestra also enjoys a three-week residency at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in New York State – a venue that was built for the Orchestra. The Center is set-in a 2,400 acre park preserve, surrounded by hiking trails, geysers and natural mineral springs. The sloping lawn is perfectly suited to full view the covered amphitheatre whilst enjoying a picnic!
You can enjoy some candid ‘behind-the-scenes’ photos of Stéphane and the Orchestra in Vail in 2011 (including Stéphane riding a ‘Diggler’!) on the Philadelphia Orchestra’s Facebook page.
Stéphane Denève conducts three concerts with the orchestra, 1-3 August, joined by pianists Garrick Ohlsson and Jean-Yves Thibaudet. The third concert will see Denève in rather unusual performance territory as he conducts a programme of film music (predominantly music from John Williams’ Star Wars), accompanied by what the concert brochure describes as:
Concert violinist performing on aerial silks (female), Spinning frame & cube (male), German wheel (male), Aerial female duo on a lira
Concert violinist performing on aerial wheel, diabolos and staff act, aerial duo on silk fabrics (male & female), strongmen balancing act
If you can get to Saratoga Springs, this sounds like an event not-to-be-missed!
LA Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl
The famous Hollywood Bowl, summer home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, is the largest natural outdoor amphitheatre in the United States and a venue where Southern Californians gather to picnic and enjoy outstanding music under the stars.
This July Stéphane Denève returns to the Hollywood Bowl to conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic in two concerts:
On July 24th he will conduct a concert of ‘dazzling Russian Romantic works’ that includes Rachmaninov’s well-known Symphonic Dances and two lesser-known works – Mussorgsky’s ‘Symphonic Synthesis of Boris Godunov’ (an arrangement by Hollywood Bowl legend Leopold Stokowski) and Conus’ Violin Concerto. Life-long friends with Rachmaninov, Conus was a Russian violinist and composer whose most ‘famous’ work is this concerto.
Hollywood Bowl
On July 26th Denève will once again team up with pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, to perform Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G, in a fireworks concert that also includes quintessentially American music by Bernstein and Gershwin, complemented by Ravel’s sensuous Suite No2 from Daphnis et Chloé.
Whether West-coast or East-coast, it promises to be a exciting summer of music-making in the USA for Stéphane Denève! View all his forthcoming concerts in the Concerts Calendar.