Star-Ledger covers NJSO’s 2014–15 season announcement
The Star-Ledger previews the NJSO’s 2014–15 season, which the Orchestra and Music Director Jacques Lacombe announced today:
The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra will focus on the classics in its 2014-15 season.
Announced today, the season opens Oct. 10 with Orff’s raucous oratorio “Carmina Burana,” which was the first piece Jacques Lacombe led with the orchestra before becoming its music director in 2009. The local Westminster Choir College will join the ensemble.
For the holidays, the orchestra performs Handel’s “Messiah,” and the finale concludes with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 alongside his Piano Concerto No. 5 “Emperor,” the latter with the excellent Marc-André Hamelin - who appeared with the orchestra at Carnegie Hall’s Spring For Music festival - as the soloist.
Promising guest performers throughout the season add luster to familiar compositions, such as conductor Xian Zhang - who headed a stellar concert with the ensemble in 2012, and will lead works by Mozart, Strauss and Brahms - and violinist Gil Shaham, who will play Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto.
After four years focusing on natural elements, the next two Winter Festivals will have a Shakespeare theme. In January 2015, Violinist Sarah Chang will perform music from Bernstein’s “West Side Story.”