Marin Alsop will pay tribute to her mentor, Leonard Bernstein, and his hero, Gustav Mahler, during the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's 2008-2009 season, Alsop's second as music director. Works by both men figure prominently, along with new pieces by Christopher Rouse and Jennifer Higdon, continuing Alsop's commitment to contemporary American music.
After last season's successful pricing of subscription seats at $25 per concert, the BSO will again offer a $25 deal. This time, it won't include all locations at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, but more than 70 percent of the seats will be eligible for $25-per-concert subscription packages. (The rest will be priced at $50 per concert.)
The subscription bargain will be underwritten by a $250,000 matching grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
The Bernstein salute is keyed to the 90th anniversary of the celebrated conductor/composer's birth.
The biggest Bernstein item next season is his Mass, the controversial "theater piece for singers, players and dancers" that opened the Kennedy Center in 1971. Alsop said the piece is "inclusive, eclectic and breaks the rules -- I'm really big on that."
The Mass project, with the BSO, Morgan State University Choir, Peabody Children's Chorus and Jubilant Sykes as the celebrant, will be performed at Meyerhoff, as well as at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center, in October.
Other Bernstein items next season include his Symphony No. 1, subtitled Jeremiah, paired on a program with Mahler's Symphony No. 1. Bernstein's Opening Prayer for voice and orchestra will share a program with Mahler's Symphony No. 6.
Bernstein also figures in the annual BSO gala Sept. 13, when Yo-Yo Ma performs the Three Meditations From `Mass,' as well as Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations.
BSO music director emeritus Yuri Temirkanov is slated to return for Brahms' Violin Concerto (with Vadim Repin) and Prokofiev's Symphony No. 5. Leonard Slatkin, conducting the BSO for the first time in 15 years, will lead his own composition, based on Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven," and Sibelius' Symphony No. 2.
After an absence of several years, Mario Venzago, former artistic director of the BSO's summer season, will be back to conduct Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 (with Nelson Freire) and Bruckner's Symphony No. 3.
Other guest conductors include Stephane Deneve, Vasily Petrenko, Carlos Kalmar, Juanjo Mena, Jun Markl and Peter Oundjian.
