Kent Nagano: Book publication & CD releases (September 2014)

Kent Nagano: „Erwarten Sie Wunder! Expect the unexpected

Kent Nagano’s book „Erwarten Sie Wunder! Expect the unexpected“ will be published on 6 October by the Berlin Verlag. Based on his own biography, Kent Nagano discusses the importance and future of classical music: Classical music is in danger of disappearing from the everyday reality of the general public and becoming an antiquarianism of a social elite. Its loss would not only impoverish society from a cultural perspective, but would deprive it of inspiration, wit, emotional depth and a sense of community. Concerned about a change of values in the western societies, Kent Nagano makes a passionate plea for classical music. The book is being published in German, a publication in English and other languages is anticipated for the near future. Please click here for further information (in German).

CD releases

There will be three new CDs being released in October under the baton of Kent Nagano. Beethoven’s Symphonies Nos. 2 & 4 “The Poetry of Freedom” will be published by Sony Classical as the last part of a recording of all the Symphonies by Beethoven with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal under Kent Nagano.

A CD with Japanese Children Songs has been recorded by Analekta with Kent Nagano and the OSM. Kent Nagano was intrigued by those songs when he heard his daughter singing them. He comments: “They were at once both, intensely moving emotionally and disturbing. Their haunting, mysterious beauty has continued to entice all generations since their creation making them actual and vividly relevant to our modern world.”

The label Edel publishes a complete recording of all piano concertos by Beethoven together with the Triple concerto played by Mari Kodama (with Kolja Blacher, violin, and Johannes Moser, cello). The piano concertos No. 4 & 5 are released for the first time as part of the box. Kent Nagano leads the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin.

Virée classique in Montréal (August 2014)

Kent Nagano and the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal will be hosting the third edition of their succesful “Virée classique” from 14 to 16 August: This grand Montréal classical-music festival is a true celebration of classical music and will feature more than 30 concerts taking place in four venues, including the Maison symphonique de Montréal. The opening concert on 14 August presents Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana with a chorus of 1,000, a large-scale free concert on the Olympic Park’s Esplanade Financière Sun Life. On 15 and 16 August Kent Nagano and the orchestra welcome artists such as violinist Vadim Repin, pianists Rafał Blechacz, Andreas Haefliger and Marc-André Hamelin, soprano Erin Wall and many others. Together they will present a splendid variety of solo recitals, chamber music and orchestral concerts. As a special concert-event, the festival is staging Leonard Bernstein’s A Quiet Place.

Kent Nagano comments: “Offering musical experiences to a broad and diverse audience is a special role that the OSM takes very much to heart. As musical ambassadors for all Montrealers, we deeply value the opportunity to reach an ever-growing audience of experienced and potential music lovers.”

Please click here for the full programme.

Kent Nagano leads Vorsprung-Festival (July 2014)

Up until 2016 inclusive, conductor Kent Nagano will be leading the “Vorsprung Festival” as part of the Audi Summer Concerts. In its first year, the new series comprises five concerts.

The “Vorsprung Festival” will focus on the Audi Youth Choir Academy with two concerts on 10 and 13 July together with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Kent Nagano. Kent Nagano has already worked with the Audi Youth Choir Academy on several occasions in the past.

The “festival within a festival” also provides a platform for renowned musicians such as pianist Rudolf Buchbinder (16 July), tenor Ian Bostridge (11 July) and the ChorWerk Ruhr ensemble (12 July). Following the evening of Lieder by Ian Bostridge, the members of the Youth Choir Academy will have an opportunity to chat with the singer as well as with Kent Nagano. This – along with the performance by the young award-winning cellist Raphaela Gromes in the same concert as Rudolf Buchbinder – reflects Nagano’s desire that the “Vorsprung Festival” should provide a platform for talented young people to meet internationally renowned artists.

More Information on the Audi Sommerkonzerte

DVD Release: Kent Nagano conducts „Boris Godunov” at the Bayerische Staatsoper (January 2014)

Mussorgsky’s opera „Boris Godunov“ was Kent Nagano’s final new production in his last season as Music Director at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich. The label Bel Air will now release a DVD of the performance beginning of February. “If there was a live recording, one would have to get it immediately“, wrote Helmut Mauró on 14 February 2013 at the Süddeutsche Zeitung on the occasion of the premiere.

Child murder, scheming monks and a tsar lapsing into madness – Modest Mussorgsky spreads the thematic arc wide in his choral opera, with which he attempted to awaken an awareness of his own time through the indirect route of a historic story.

Kent Nagano and stage director Calixto Bieito put the less often performed and much shorter first version of the opera on stage – this way the spotlight is turned on the inner life of Godunov who is beset with hallucinations and feelings of guilt.

For a trailer of the performance please visit Kent Nagano’s website.

BORIS GODUNOV
Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881)

Opera in four parts and seven scenes
First version (1868/1869)
Libretto: Modest Mussorgsky after Alexander Pushkin and Nikolai Karamsins

Boris Godunov – Alexander Tsymbalyuk
Fyodor – Yulia Sokolik
Xenia – Eri Nakamura
Xenia’s nurse – Heike Grötzinger
Schuisky – Gerhard Siegel
Andrey Chelkalov – Markus Eiche
Pimen – Anatoli Kotscherga
Grigory Otropyev – Sergey Skorokhodov
Varlaam – Vladimir Matorin
Missail – Ulrich Reß
Hostess – Okka von der Damerau
Simpleton – Kevin Conners
Nikititch – Goran Jurić
The Boyar – Dean Power
Mityucha – Tareq Nazmi
Captain – Christian Rieger

Bayerisches Staatsorchester, Conductor Kent Nagano
Chor der Bayerischen Staatsoper, Chorus master Sören Eckhoff

Stage direction – Calixto Bieito

Set design – Rebecca Ringst
Costume design – Ingo Krügler
Lighting – Michael Bauer
Dramaturgie/Dramaturgy – Andrea Schönhofer

HD recording: Bayerische Staatsoper (Munich),  February 2013
Produced by François Duplat
Directed by Andy Sommer