BSO announces 127th season

Next spring, music director James Levine will lead the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, and a large cast of soloists in Berlioz's monumental opera "The Trojans." The concert performances promise to be a highlight of the orchestra's 127th season, the details of which were announced today.

The BSO will open its season on Oct. 4, later than usual because of the orchestra's European tour. Opening night will feature an all-Ravel program under Levine's baton, with mezzo-soprano Susan Graham and pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet joining the orchestra.

Over the season, Levine will conduct 11 subscription programs, including Smetana's "Ma Vlast" as well as the world premieres of works by three composers he has consistently championed: Elliott Carter (Horn Concerto), John Harbison (Symphony No. 5), and William Bolcom (Symphony No. 8). He will also perform as a pianist with bass-baritone Thomas Quasthoff in a recital on Feb. 24 featuring Schubert's "Winterreise."

There will be no overarching series comparable to the Beethoven-Schoenberg cycle that was a unifying theme of both last season and the current one. Levine will lead one fewer subscription program, though his total number of concerts will increase from 33 this year to 35 next year.

A familiar line up of guest conductors will return to the orchestra, including Sir Colin Davis (leading Elgar's "Dream of Gerontius") , Bernard Haitink (leading Bach's "St. Matthew Passion,") Robert Spano, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Christoph von Dohnányi, Marek Janowski, and Daniele Gatti.

Markus Stenz and BSO assistant conductor Julian Kuerti will make their BSO debuts, and Miguel Harth-Bedoya will make his subscription debut with a program featuring two cello works by Osvaldo Golijov performed by Yo-Yo Ma. (One work is "Azul," a BSO commission that Ma premiered last summer at Tanglewood.) Other contemporary composers whose work will be represented include Henri Dutilleux, Michael Gandolfi, and Brett Dean. Gunther Schuller's "Where the Word Ends," whose scheduled premiere was postponed this year, will not be performed until the 2008- '09 season.

"The Trojans" will be performed in two parts on consecutive weeks, with one single-day performance of the opera on May 4, 2008. The cast includes Anne Sofie von Otter, Marcello Giordani, Yvonne Naef, Eric Owens, and Kwangchul Youn. Ben Heppner and Gerald Finley will be the soloists in "Dream of Gerontius," and Renée Fleming returns in November to sing orchestral songs by Duparc and the American premiere of Dutilleux's work for soprano and orchestra, "Le Temps l'Horloge."

The visiting instrumental soloists include pianists Mitsuko Uchida, Leif Ove Andsnes, Evgeny Kissin, András Schiff, Garrick Ohlsson, and Peter Serkin; violinists Christian Tetzlaff, Vadim Repin, Frank Peter Zimmermann, and Isabelle Faust; and cellists Ma and Truls Mork.

Along with these visiting artists, the season will feature an entire visiting orchestra, the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, led by the rising star conductor Gustavo Dudamel. A product of Venezuela's famed music education system, the orchestra will be given its own program (on Nov. 7), and it will play works by Bartok, Bernstein, and various South American composers not yet announced. The New England Conservatory and the Celebrity Series are also co-presenters of this program.

The music of Mahler returns in force, with Levine leading the First and Ninth Symphonies as well as "Das Lied von der Erde" with von Otter and Johan Botha. Levine will also lead a week of all-Brahms programs, with the Third Symphony paired (on different nights) with the Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2.

Elsewhere in the season, Symphony Hall's organ will get a workout in Poulenc's Concerto for Organ, Timpani, and Strings, and in Saint-Saens's Symphony No. 3.

Brochures will be available in April. For more information call 617-266-1492 or visit bso.org.