Summer Night Concert from Vienna 2023 – Experience the awe-inspiring Summer Night Concert of 2023, a truly extraordinary musical event where the renowned Maestro Yannick Nézet-Séguin took the conductor’s baton, guiding the exceptional talents of the orchestra. Enchanting the audience with her remarkable voice, the internationally acclaimed soprano Elīna Garanča graced the stage as the mesmerizing soloist, adding an extra layer of brilliance to an unforgettable evening of symphonic grandeur.
Indulge in the mesmerizing experience of the highly anticipated and awe-inspiring Summer Night Concert of 2023. Prepare to be captivated as the world-renowned and exceptionally talented Maestro Yannick Nézet-Séguin takes up the conductor’s baton for the very first time, leading the orchestra with grace and finesse.
Be transported to a realm of musical enchantment as the internationally acclaimed soprano Elīna Garanča graces the stage as the captivating soloist, showcasing her extraordinary vocal prowess and leaving the audience spellbound. Join us for an unforgettable evening of symphonic grandeur, where every note and every melody intertwines to create an atmosphere of sheer musical bliss.
Summer Night Concert from Vienna 2023
Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Yannick Nézet-Séguin born Yannick Séguin 6 March 1975 is a Canadian conductor and pianist. He currently serves as the music director of the Orchestre Métropolitain, the Metropolitan Opera, and the Philadelphia Orchestra, and was previously the principal conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra from 2008 to 2018.
Biography:
Yannick Nézet-Séguin was born in Montreal on 6 March 1975. He showed a passion for music from a young age and began studying piano at the age of five. At the age of ten, he decided to pursue a career as an orchestra conductor.
Early in his career, Nézet-Séguin studied at various institutions and worked with esteemed conductors such as Carlo Maria Giulini and Charles Dutoit. He founded his own professional ensemble, La Chapelle de Montréal, in 1995, and held positions as chorus master and assistant conductor at the Opéra de Montréal.
Nézet-Séguin’s notable appointments include his role as the music director of the Orchestre Métropolitain since 2000, principal guest conductor of the Victoria Symphony, and his tenure as the eighth music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra starting in the 2012–13 season. He also began conducting at the Metropolitan Opera in 2009 and was appointed as the music director in 2016. Throughout his career, Nézet-Séguin has recorded numerous symphonies and conducted acclaimed performances. He has received widespread recognition for his talent and contributions to the field of classical music.
Personal life:
Yannick Nézet-Séguin resides in Montreal and Philadelphia with his partner, Pierre Tourville, who is a violist in the Orchestre Métropolitain. In addition to his musical pursuits, Nézet-Séguin has shown a love for animals and has created playlists on Spotify and Apple Music specifically designed for pets.
Georges Bizet
Georges Bizet, born Alexandre César Léopold Bizet on 25 October 1838 and passing away on 3 June 1875, was a highly regarded French composer of the Romantic era. While his life was tragically cut short, Bizet’s legacy lives on through his remarkable operas, with one particular masterpiece, Carmen, standing out as an enduring favorite in the world of opera.
During his time at the renowned Conservatoire de Paris, Bizet showcased his exceptional talent and was bestowed numerous prizes, including the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1857. Although he possessed remarkable skills as a pianist, he chose not to pursue a career as a performer and rarely showcased his abilities in public. Following his return to Paris after an enriching three-year sojourn in Italy, Bizet discovered that the established Parisian opera houses preferred the familiar classical repertoire over the works of emerging composers. Unfortunately, his keyboard and orchestral compositions also went largely unnoticed. Consequently, his career encountered setbacks, leading him to earn a livelihood primarily through arranging and transcribing the music of others. Driven by his yearning for success, Bizet embarked on several theatrical projects during the 1860s, most of which were ultimately abandoned. Neither of his two operas, Les pêcheurs de perles and La jolie fille de Perth, achieved immediate success during this period.
Following the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, during which Bizet served in the National Guard, he struggled to find success with his one-act opera, Djamileh. However, an orchestral suite derived from his incidental music for Alphonse Daudet’s play L’Arlésienne gained instant popularity. The production of Bizet’s final opera, Carmen, faced delays due to concerns that its themes of betrayal and murder might offend audiences. Despite Bizet’s own doubts regarding its potential, Carmen premiered on 3 March 1875. Tragically, Bizet passed away from a heart attack just three months later, unaware that his work would eventually achieve resounding success and acclaim.
In his personal life, Bizet experienced intermittent happiness in his marriage to Geneviève Halévy, and the couple had one son. Following his untimely demise, Bizet’s works, aside from Carmen, were largely neglected. Manuscripts were either given away or lost, while published versions of his compositions underwent frequent revisions and adaptations by other musicians. Bizet did not establish a school nor did he have direct disciples or successors. However, as the 20th century unfolded, his works gradually gained recognition and began to be performed more frequently. Modern critics and scholars have lauded Bizet as a composer of extraordinary brilliance and originality, recognizing his premature death as a significant loss to the world of French musical theater.
Maurice Ravel
Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) earned a prominent place in the realm of music as a gifted French composer, pianist, and conductor. While frequently associated with Impressionism alongside his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, both artists rejected this label. During the 1920s and 1930s, Ravel held the esteemed reputation of being France’s most esteemed living composer.
Born into a family with a deep appreciation for music, Ravel pursued his studies at the prestigious Paris Conservatoire, the country’s foremost music institution. However, he faced considerable prejudice and disdain from the conservative establishment, leading to a scandalous episode. Undeterred, Ravel charted his own course as a composer, cultivating a style characterized by exquisite clarity and an eclectic fusion of modernism, baroque, neoclassicism, and even elements of jazz in his later works. His artistic inclinations often led him to experiment with musical form, as exemplified by his most renowned composition, Boléro (1928), where repetition takes precedence over traditional development. Ravel also garnered recognition for his exceptional talent in orchestration, demonstrated by his notable orchestral arrangements of piano music by other composers, including his well-known 1922 rendition of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.
Compared to his contemporaries, Ravel was a meticulous and deliberate composer, resulting in a smaller output of compositions. Nonetheless, his works that have become part of the repertoire encompass a wide range, spanning from pieces for piano and chamber music to two piano concertos, ballet music, two operas, and eight song cycles. Notably, Ravel chose not to compose symphonies or church music. Many of his compositions exist in two distinct versions: initially as a piano score and later as an orchestrated version. Some of his piano compositions, such as the challenging Gaspard de la nuit (1908), demand exceptional skill from performers, while his complex orchestral works like Daphnis et Chloé (1912) require meticulous balance during their execution.
Ravel demonstrated his visionary perspective by recognizing the potential of recordings to bring music to a broader audience at an early stage. Despite his limited prowess as a pianist or conductor, he actively participated in recordings of several of his own works, and others were made under his astute supervision.