Welser-M‹st, along with guest conductors Pierre Boulez and Peter E‹tv‹s, will lead the orchestra in works by B_la Bart‹k: Bluebeard's Castle, conducted by Boulez; Piano Concerto No. 2 (with soloist Pierre-Laurent Aimard) and Concerto for Orchestra, both by E‹tv‹s; and Piano Concerto No. 3 (with Mitsuko Uchida), The Miraculous Mandarin and the Viola Concerto (with Kim Kashkashian), the last three conducted by Welser-M‹st.
Welser-M‹st also conducts in February the U.S. premiere of Johannes Maria Staud's Apeiron. Staud, 32, was named the orchestra's Daniel R. Lewis Young Composer Fellow for the 2007-08 and 2008-09 seasons; the latter season will see the world premiere of a new work by Staud.
Also receiving their U.S. premieres under Welser-M‹st's direction during the 2007-08 season are Thomas Ads's Suite from Powder Her Face and Matthias Pintscher's Five Orchestral Pieces. The former is a co-commission by The Cleveland Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra (London) and the Aldeburgh Festival (U.K.); the latter will occur on the season's opening weekend. Pintscher was the Daniel R. Lewis Young Composer Fellow from 2000 to 2002.
The fourth U.S. premiere by the orchestra will be performed in April with Peter E‹tv‹s conducting his CAP-KO.
An engagement at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., three concerts at Carnegie Hall, and a ten-concert European tour will include Adams's Guide to Strange Places, Beethoven's Symphony No. 7, Bruckner's Symphony No. 9, Debussy's Ib_ria, Mahler's Symphony No. 2, Mozart's Symphony No. 28 and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6.
Additionally, Vladimir Ashkenazy will lead The Cleveland Orchestra premiere of Grieg's complete incidental music to Peer Gynt with actor John de Lancie as narrator, and Ilan Volkov will conduct the orchestra's first performances of Eino Tamberg's Trumpet Concerto with principal trumpeter Michael Sachs as soloist.
Other returning conductors and soloists include Herbert Blomstedt, Alfred Brendel, James Conlon, Andrew Davis, Hans Graf, Giancarlo Guerrero, Janine Jansen, Radu Lupu, Midori, Jon Kimura Parker, Pinchas Steinberg and Osmo V‹nsk‹.
Vocalists returning include sopranos Measha Brueggergosman, Malin Hartelius and Emily Magee; mezzo-sopranos Michelle deYoung and Bernarda Fink; tenors Piotr Beczala and Jonas Kaufmann; and bass-baritones Alan Held and John Relyea.
The Cleveland Orchestra's 2007-08 season at Severance Hall begins on September 20. Visit www.clevelandorchestra.com for more information.
