Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra celebrates Benjamin Zander's 85th birthday:
| Hours: | 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM |
| Ages: | Kids, Teens, Adults |
| In/Outdoor: | Indoor |
| Cost: | see below |
| Category: | Music & Concerts |
The Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra (BPYO), composed of musicians age 12-21, will celebrate the 85th birthday of their founder and conductor Benjamin Zander on Sunday, March 3, at 3:00 PM at Symphony Hall.The concert, which coincides with the Boston Philharmonic's 45th season, allows both in-person and livestream audiences around the world to join in the birthday celebration.
In a bold move that reflects Zander's commitment to musical excellence and his firm belief that young musicians can master extraordinarily complex music with the right guidance, the program features what may be the most varied and demanding in the Orchestra’s history, especially for such young musicians.
The program spans four different musical traditions, allowing the Orchestra to showcase its incredible versatility and skill: Britten's 'Four Sea Interludes' from Peter Grimes, Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No.
1 featuring Ukrainian pianist Anna Fedorova, Charles Ives's Three Places in New England, and Ravel's Daphnis et Chloe Suite No. 2.
Zander's personal connection to Benjamin Britten adds a poignant layer to the performance.
Britten completed writing Peter Grimes in Aldeburgh, his summer home by the sea, in 1943.
Years later, as one of Britten’s protégés, Zander and his family spent three summers there, taking lessons from both Britten and Imogen Holst, as well as experiencing the sea that inspired Britten’s music—making the inclusion of 'Four Sea Interludes' a fitting tribute.
After making her Boston performance debut with the BPYO in 2018, Anna Fedorova will be the soloist for the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto.
Her live recording of Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto in the Royal Concertgebouw has become the most watched Classical concerto on YouTube with more than 37 million views as of this writing.
The concert is dedicated to the memory of John Heiss, who died in August 2023, a man with an unsurpassed knowledge of Charles Ives’s music and one of the most cherished figures in Boston’s musical community.
It was he who introduced Zander to Ives’s work, particularly Three Places in New England, which features historic and natural imagery that will be familiar to New Englanders—and especially to Bostonians, since the work’s first movement, “The ‘Saint Gaudens’ on Boston Common,” in honor of the sculpture in Boston Common that pays tribute to the 54th Regiment of the Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, the first Black regiment in the Union Army.
Heiss had a profound effect on the members of the BPYO, frequently coaching them with his unparalleled understanding and legendary ear.
The concert concludes with Ravel’s musical poem, which is also about the natural world.
| COST | ↑ top |
$75, $45, $20, and $10 for students with code STU-DIS. The live stream is $20 ($10 for students). Live and streaming subscription packages are also available.
| WEBSITE | ↑ top |
www.bostonphil.org/concerts/2023-2024/bpyo2-britten-tchaikovsky-ives-ravel
| LOCATION | ↑ top |
301 Mass. Ave., Boston, MA, 02215 map
Phone: 617-236-0999
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