NJSO announces 2015–16 season
- Music Director Jacques Lacombe leads a season of great orchestral works and compelling programs
- Second ‘Sounds of Shakespeare’ Winter Festival to feature Bard-inspired music
- Opening Night welcomes Branford Marsalis for celebratory program
- NJSO gives world premiere of Richard Danielpour’s percussion concerto, performs works by living American composers including Jennifer Higdon
- Soprano Jessye Norman joins NJSO for performance in collaboration with NJPAC
- Guest artists include Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Augustin Hadelich, Jonathan Biss, Xian Zhang, Christoph König, Megan Hilty, Cheyenne Jackson
- Orchestra expands POPS series to five programs in Newark and New Brunswick, introduces two programs in Red Bank
- NJSO Edward T. Cone Composition Institute continues partnership with Princeton University, Edward T. Cone Foundation
- NJSO presents programs in six venues across the state
Newark, NJ (January 24, 2015)—The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra (NJSO) today announced its programs for the 2015–16 concert season, Jacques Lacombe’s sixth and final season as the Orchestra’s music director. Fulfilling its mission as a statewide orchestra, the NJSO brings subscription programs to venues in Newark, New Brunswick, Princeton, Morristown, Red Bank and Englewood, with 14 weeks of subscription classical programs, five pops programs and three family concerts, as well as several special concerts.
Lacombe says: “I am excited to lead another season that features the hallmarks of the NJSO’s performances and mission. We present great works of the repertoire and new discoveries, including music from important living American composers, with fantastic guest artists in communities across the state.”
The Orchestra increases the number of concerts it will perform in the 2015–16 season. The NJSO expands its pops offerings, adding a fifth concert to its series at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) in Newark and in collaboration with the State Theatre in New Brunswick; it introduces two pops concerts at the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank. The Orchestra also increases its Thursday-matinee classical series at NJPAC to five concerts.
“The NJSO has seen growth in ticket sales and attendance across our offerings this season, and we are thrilled to expand the number of concerts the Orchestra will present next year,” President & CEO James Roe says. “For his final season as music director, Jacques has crafted another slate of compelling programs with dynamic guest artists. Collaborations with arts organizations from across New Jersey celebrate the wealth of talent within the Garden State and further underscore the Orchestra’s mission to bring great orchestral works and performers to communities across the state.”
WINTER FESTIVAL
January features the finale of a two-year “Sounds of Shakespeare” Winter Festival celebrating music inspired by the Bard. The festival’s opener pairs Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, which conjures the Witches’ Sabbath from Macbeth, and the Tempest-inspired Lélio; Lacombe will step from the podium to play the piano accompaniment for a brief portion of the latter work. For the festival’s finale, the NJSO welcomes back actors from The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey for a special presentation of Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Lacombe says: “As we close a two-year Winter Festival cycle, we partner with two of our state’s great cultural institutions—The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey and the Montclair State University Chorale—and welcome a new collaborator, the Manhattan School of Music Symphonic Chorus, for unique programs dedicated to the wealth of music Shakespeare has inspired.”
WORLD PREMIERE & LIVING AMERICAN COMPOSERS
The NJSO gives the world premiere of Richard Danielpour’s Percussion Concerto, “The Wounded Healer,” with soloist Lisa Pegher on a program with Beethoven’s First and Fourth Symphonies; the premiere marks the third time the Orchestra has presented Danielpour’s work during Lacombe’s tenure.
Danielpour says: “My Percussion Concerto, ‘The Wounded Healer,’ uses the role of the solo percussionist to portray the many versions and guises of healers that are in our lives. I have always seen music as a catalyst for healing. A great example of the catalytic ability of an orchestra was when the NJSO premiered my Clarinet Concerto, a work that was written in tribute to and in memory of the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, with Anthony McGill last year. It is my hope that this new work, with soloist Lisa Pegher under the baton of Jacques Lacombe, will be another wonderful collaboration in which we all rededicate ourselves to the inherent power of music.”
In another pairing of contemporary works with the music of Beethoven, the Orchestra presents Jennifer Higdon’s blue cathedral and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
The Orchestra performs Night in the City by Chris Rogerson—a member of the inaugural NJSO Edward T. Cone Composition Institute class of composers. The NJSO gave the world premiere of the work in Princeton in July 2014. In July, the NJSO continues the Composition Institute in an ongoing partnership between the Edward T. Cone Foundation, Princeton University and the NJSO; the Cone Foundation has committed to supporting the Institute for the next four years. On the strength of the Institute’s 2014 sessions, the NEA has awarded the NJSO an ArtWorks grant to support the 2015 Institute.
OPENING & CLOSING WEEKENDS
For the season’s opening weekend, Lacombe and the Orchestra welcome saxophonist Branford Marsalis for Milhaud’s Scaramouche and “Escapades” from John Williams’ score to Catch Me If You Can, as well as the featured saxophone part in Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, on a program that also includes Ravel’s Valses nobles et sentimentales.
The season finale features Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloé Suite No. 2 and La Valse, Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with pianist Joyce Yang and Rogerson’s Night in the City.
GUEST ARTISTS
Legendary soprano Jessye Norman joins Lacombe and the NJSO for a program of songs of American life, from the Great American Songbook to Spirituals. The NJSO presents this special concert in collaboration with longtime artistic partner NJPAC.
Other outstanding guest artists include pianists Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Jonathan Biss and violinists Augustin Hadelich and Jennifer Frautschi. The Orchestra welcomes a diverse array of guest conductors: Xian Zhang, Miguel-Harth Bedoya and Christoph König return, and Jérémie Rhorer, Perry So and Christian Arming take the podium for their NJSO debuts. Continuing the Orchestra’s tradition of highlighting its own musicians, Concertmaster Eric Wyrick leads and solos in a program featuring Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons; Associate Principal Cello Stephen Fang performs Dvořák’s Silent Woods and Popper’s Hungarian Rhapsody.
POPS
The NJSO’s five-concert pops series in Newark and New Brunswick includes a holiday screening of Home Alone with live orchestral accompaniment, Broadway and television stars Megan Hilty and Cheyenne Jackson (the former in a Valentine’s Day-weekend program of music from the American Songbook and the latter in a program featuring music of the “Mad Men” era), a retrospective of five decades of music from the films of James Bond and the return of Cirque de la Symphonie’s troupe of acrobatic performers. The new two-concert series in Red Bank includes the programs Hilty and Jackson will headline.
FAMILY
NJSO Education & Community Engagement Conductor Jeffrey Grogan and Associate Conductor Gemma New lead the Orchestra’s three-concert family series at NJPAC in Newark; each concert features special pre- and post-concert events designed to bring young concertgoers closer to the music and music makers.
COLLABORATIONS
The NJSO partners with several New Jersey arts institutions and performs with New Jersey artists, including the Westminster Symphonic Choir, Montclair State University Singers, The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey and New Jersey Youth Chorus. The NJSO presents programs in collaboration with NJPAC, the State Theatre and McCarter Theatre Center.
View 2015–16 season highlights.
Download press materials, including high-resolution images of the NJSO and the season's featured artists.