Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra

Debussy / Brahms / Mahler

DEBUSSY
Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune

BRAHMS
Double Concerto

MAHLER
Symphony No. 1

Benjamin Zander, conductor

Hikaru Yonezaki, violin
Leland Ko, cello

About the Program

Regular attendees at our concerts will have grown familiar to seeing Hikaru Yonezaki and Leland Ko sitting at the first stand of the violins and the cellos respectively. This concert gives them the opportunity to step forward and shine in the spotlight, playing Brahms’s great Double Concerto. This formidable concerto, the composer’s last, finds Brahms in a mood that is deeply expressive, but also austere. It is a piece that demands the greatest maturity from its performers, which is exactly what it is going to receive from these two amazing young artists.

Finally, the season ends with the composer who is most familiar to the orchestra and to its conductor. Mahler's First Symphony tells the story of its hero’s (i.e., Mahler’s) absorption with nature, his youthful adventures, trials, and final triumph. This symphony is arguably the most breathtakingly original first symphony ever composed, from its magically evocative description of dawn at the opening to the overwhelmingly thrilling climax of its vast Finale. It will be the triumphant capstone to another enormously ambitious season of the phenomenal Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra.

Sunday, may 8, 2016
3:00pm / sanders theatre