New York Philharmonic / Orfeó Català / Gustavo Dudamel

The New York Philharmonic is one of the most renowned and historic orchestras in the USA. Once conducted by Gustav Mahler and Leonard Bernstein, it now appears with its new, charismatic Music & Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel to perform a work by the influential American composer John Adams that commemorates one of the darkest chapters in the history of New York and the USA.

The world stood still when, on 11 September 2001, two aeroplanes crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York in quick succession. There was a collective sense of disbelief everywhere. Shortly afterwards, the New York Philharmonic commissioned a work from John Adams intended to capture the public’s emotional state through music. One year after the attacks, »On the Transmigration of Souls« received its world premiere at Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center. Adams describes his work as »a space of remembrance where one can be alone with one’s thoughts and feelings«. »On the Transmigration of Souls« is Adams’s most contemplative and arguably most important work – and a powerful piece of American history.

The programme also features the new work »Invisible House« by the Canadian composer Zosha Di Castri and Sergei Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony, which the composer, according to his colleague Dmitri Kabalevsky, considered »one of his finest works«. In 1944, Prokofiev distilled the essence of his work to date into this symphony and, in the hope of a swift end to the Second World War, dedicated it »to the triumph of the human spirit«.

PERFORMERS

New York Philharmonic orchestra

Orfeó Català choir

Cor de Noies de l'Orfeó Català choir

Mitglieder des Cor Infantil de l'Orfeó Català choir

Gustavo Dudamel conductor

PROGRAM

Zosha Di Castri
Invisible House

John Adams
On the Transmigration of Souls

- Interval -

Sergej Prokofjew
Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major, Op. 100