South Florida Classical Review

Finnish conductor-comoser Esa-Pekka Salonen will make his debut with the New World Symphony in the 2011-12 season. Photo: Nicho Soedling

Sixteen free concerts on an outdoor broadcast wall, performances led by Esa-Pekka Salonen and several other well-known guest conductors and a semi-staged production of Bartók’s opera Bluebeard’s Castle will be among the highlights of the New World Symphony’s coming season.

In its first full season at it new complex in Miami Beach, the orchestra will continue its combination of innovative programming and traditional performances, with concerts broadcast on a projection wall facing their hall’s adjacent park, an in-depth Journey concert devoted to the works of Beethoven and short Discovery concerts and mini-concerts designed to attract people less familiar with classical music.

Salonen, former music director of the Los Angeles Symphony, will make his New World Symphony debut conducting his own work Nyx and Stravinsky’s complete Firebird. Other prominent guest conductors in the 2011-2012 season will include Leonard Slatkin, music director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Osmo Vänskä, music director of the Minnesota Orchestra and Manfred Honeck, music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.

Among the soloists will be James Ehnes in the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, Gil Shaham in the Prokofiev Violin Concerto No. 2, Hélène Grimaud in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 and soprano Christine Brewer in Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder.

New World Symphony artistic director Michael Tilson Thomas will continue his Mahler survey with a performance of the composer’s Symphony No. 9.

For more information, go to nws.edu.

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