Boston Symphony Orchestra
James Levine, Music Director and Conductor
Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Piano
Tanglewood Festival Chorus
John Oliver, Conductor
Maurice Ravel
Born March 7, 1875, in Ciboure, Basses-Pyrenées, France; died December 28, 1937, in Paris.
Now in his fourth season as Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, James Levine is the BSO’s 14th music director since the orchestra’s founding in 1881 and the first American-born conductor to hold that position. Highlights of Maestro Levine’s 2007–08 BSO programs (three of which again go to Carnegie Hall) include an Opening Night all-Ravel program; premieres of new works by Elliott Carter, John Harbison, William Bolcom, and Henri Dutilleux; Mahler’s First and Ninth symphonies and Das Lied von der Erde; Smetana’s complete Má Vlast; the two Brahms piano concertos with Evgeny Kissin, and season-ending concert performances of Berlioz’s Les Troyens. He also appears in Boston as pianist, performing Schubert’s Winterreise with Thomas Quasthoff. Mr. Levine’s 2007 Tanglewood season included seven programs with the BSO, a concert performance with the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra of Verdi’s Don Carlo, and a staged TMC production of Mozart’s Così fan tutte, as well as classes devoted to orchestral repertoire, Lieder, and opera with the TMC’s Instrumental, Vocal, and Conducting Fellows. Following Tanglewood, he and the Boston Symphony Orchestra made their first European tour together, performing in the Lucerne Festival, the Schleswig-Holstein Festival (in Hamburg), Essen, Düsseldorf, the Berlin Festival, Paris, and the BBC Proms in London. James Levine is also Music Director of the Metropolitan Opera, where, in the 36 years since his Met debut, he has developed a relationship with that company unparalleled in its history and unique in the musical world today. His 2007–08 season with the Metropolitan Opera—where he has led more than 2,000 performances of 80 different operas—includes new productions of Lucia di Lammermoor and Macbeth; revivals of Tristan und Isolde and Manon Lescaut, and concerts at Carnegie Hall with the MET Orchestra (with soloists Alfred Brendel, Deborah Voigt, and Jonathan Biss) and MET Chamber Ensemble (joined by, among others, John Harbison, Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, Yefim Bronfman, Gil Shaham, and Anja Silja). Also this season, in February, he conducts the Juilliard Orchestra in Carter’s Symphonia: Sum fluxae praetium spei (a New York premiere) and Cello Concerto to close the Juilliard School’s Carter Festival.
Pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet’s 2007–08 season includes performances with the Boston Symphony, National Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Baltimore Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Detroit Symphony , Houston Symphony, and Cincinnati Symphony; a tour with the Takács Quartet; tours with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Luxembourg, London Philharmonic, and Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo; and concerts with London’s Philharmonia Orchestra, the NHK and Singapore symphony orchestras, the Oslo Philharmonic, Radio Philharmonic Holland, Tonhalle Orchester Zürich, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Seville Royal Symphony Orchestra, and Valencia Orchestra. Recital appearances include Paris’s Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall, and Chicago’s Symphony Hall, as well as Japan, Germany, Spain, and several other US cities. Festival appearances include Tuscan Sun, Ravinia, and Saratoga; the December Nights of Sviatoslav Richter Festival in Moscow; the Cartagena Festival in Colombia; and the New Zealand Festival. Mr. Thibaudet records exclusively for Decca; his latest recording, Saint-Saëns’s piano concertos 2 and 5 with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, follows the February 2007 release Aria–Opera Without Words, featuring transcriptions of opera arias. Mr. Thibaudet was the soloist on the 2005 Oscar-nominated soundtrack of Pride and Prejudice. Other recordings include Strauss’s Burleske with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra; Satie’s complete music for solo piano, and jazz albums saluting Duke Ellington and Bill Evans. Mr. Thibaudet was born in Lyon, France, where he began piano studies at five and made his first public appearance at seven. He entered the Paris Conservatory at 12, to study with Aldo Ciccolini and Lucette Descaves, a friend and collaborator of Ravel. He won the Premier Prix de Conservatoire at 15 and the Young Concert Artists Auditions in New York City three years later. In 2001 the Republic of France awarded him the prestigious Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. In 2002 he was awarded the Premio Pegasus from the Spoleto Festival in Italy, for his artistic achievements and his longstanding involvement with the festival. His most recent accolade is the 2007 Victoire d’Honneur, a lifetime career achievement award and the highest honor given by France’s Victoire de la Musique.
The Tanglewood Festival Chorus celebrated its 35th anniversary in 2005. Following its Tanglewood performances this past summer with the Boston Symphony and Tanglewood Music Center orchestras led by James Levine, and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the TMCO led by Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, the chorus rejoined Mr. Levine and the BSO in Europe for Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust in Lucerne, Essen, Paris, and London, also performing an a cappella program of its own in Essen and Trier. The ensemble’s 2007–08 BSO season includes Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé, the world premiere of William Bolcom’s Symphony No. 8, and concert performances of Berlioz’s Les Troyens with James Levine; Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with Bernard Haitink; and Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius with Sir Colin Davis. The Tanglewood Festival Chorus was organized in the spring of 1970 by founding conductor John Oliver. Made up of members who donate their services, and originally formed for performances at the BSO’s summer home, it is now the official chorus of the BSO year-round, performing in Boston, New York, and at Tanglewood. It has also performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Europe under Bernard Haitink and in the Far East under Seiji Ozawa. The Tanglewood Festival Chorus can be heard on Boston Symphony recordings under Ozawa and Haitink, and on recordings with the Boston Pops Orchestra under Keith Lockhart and John Williams, as well as on the sound tracks to Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River, Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan, and John Sayles’s Silver City. It gives its own Friday-evening Prelude Concert each summer in Seiji Ozawa Hall and performed its debut program at Jordan Hall at the New England Conservatory of Music in May 2004.
In addition to his work with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, John Oliver was for many years conductor of the MIT Chamber Chorus and MIT Concert Choir, and a senior lecturer in music at MIT. He has appeared as guest conductor with the New Japan Philharmonic and Berkshire Choral Institute, and made his Boston Symphony conducting debut in August 1985.
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