TŌN, The Orchestra Now comes to New York City with two Sunday concerts at Symphony Space on February 16, 2020 at 4pm and at The Metropolitan Museum of Arts on February 23, 2020 at 2 pm
Leon Botstein Conducts The Orchestra Now at Carnegie Hall; Photo by David DeNee
Following last January’s sold-out concert, TŌN’s resident conductor Zachary Schwartzman returns to Symphony Space with more audience favorites by Ravel, Debussy, Messiaen, and Stravinsky on February 16. The Orchestra’s outstanding and enthusiastic young artists will highlight this free performance with brief remarks about each of the works.
On February 23, TŌN will give the final installment this season of its top-selling Sight & Soundseries at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Haydn’s The Clock: The Intersection of Art & Technology. The program will explore how musicians, like their contemporaries in art and science, were mesmerized by advancements and pseudo-advancements in science and technology during the second half of the 18th century. While Mozart poked fun at this fascination in Così fan tutte, Haydn drew inspiration from the advances in horology in Vienna and London.
Each presentation in the Sight & Sound series offers a discussion accompanied by musical excerpts performed by The Orchestra Now along with on-screen artworks, followed by a full performance and audience Q&A with conductor Leon Botstein.
Tickets priced at $30–$50; Bring the Kids for $1. All tickets include same-day museum admission. Tickets may be purchased online at metmuseum.org/sightandsound, by calling The Met at 212.570.3949, or at The Great Hall box office at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Conductor Leon Botstein shakes hands with concertmaster Yurie Mitsuhashi at the Metropolitan Museum on Sun 5-19-19; Photo by David DeNee
The Orchestra Now (TŌN) is a group of 65 vibrant young musicians from 12 different countries across the globe: Bulgaria, China, Hungary, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Mongolia, Peru, Taiwan, Ukraine, the U.K., and the U.S. All share a mission to make orchestral music relevant to 21st-century audiences by sharing their unique personal insights in a welcoming environment. Hand-picked from the world’s leading conservatories—including The Juilliard School, Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Royal Conservatory of Brussels, and the Curtis Institute of Music—the members of TŌN are enlightening curious minds by giving on-stage introductions and demonstrations, writing concert notes from the musicians’ perspective, and having one-on-one discussions with patrons during intermissions.
Conductor, educator, and music historian Leon Botstein, whom The New York Times said “draws rich, expressive playing from the orchestra,” founded TŌN in 2015 as a graduate program at Bard College, where he is also president. TŌN offers both a three-year master’s degree in Curatorial, Critical, and Performance Studies and a two-year advanced certificate in Orchestra Studies. The orchestra’s home base is the Frank Gehry-designed Fisher Center at Bard, where they perform multiple concerts each season and take part in the annual Bard Music Festival. They also perform regularly at the finest venues in New York, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and others across NYC and beyond. HuffPost, who has called TŌN’s performances “dramatic and intense,” praises these concerts as “an opportunity to see talented musicians early in their careers.”
The Orchestra has performed with many distinguished guest conductors and soloists, including Neeme Järvi, Vadim Repin, Fabio Luisi, Peter Serkin, Gerard Schwarz, Tan Dun, Zuill Bailey, and JoAnn Falletta. In the 2019–20 season, conductors Leonard Slatkin and Hans Graf will also lead TŌN performances. Recordings featuring The Orchestra Now include Ferdinand Ries piano concertos with Piers Lane on Hyperion Records, and a Sorel Classics concert recording of pianist Anna Shelest performing works by Anton Rubinstein with TŌN and conductor Neeme Järvi. Upcoming albums include a second release with Piers Lane on Hyperion Records in the spring of 2020. Recordings of TŌN’s live concerts from the Fisher Center can be heard on Classical WMHT-FM and WWFM The Classical Network, and are featured regularly on Performance Today, broadcast nationwide. In 2019, the orchestra’s performance with Vadim Repin was live-streamed on The Violin Channel.
For upcoming activities and more detailed information about the musicians, visit theorchestranow.org.
LEON BOTSTEIN; PHOTO BY STEVE PYKE
Leon Botstein brings a renowned career as both a conductor and educator to his role as music director of The Orchestra Now. He has been music director of the American Symphony Orchestra since 1992, artistic co-director of Bard SummerScape and the Bard Music Festival since their creation, and president of Bard College since 1975. He was the music director of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra from 2003–11 and is now conductor laureate. In 2018, he assumed artistic directorship of Campus Grafenegg and Grafenegg Academy in Austria. Mr. Botstein is also a frequent guest conductor with orchestras around the globe, has made numerous recordings, and is a prolific author and music historian. He is editor of the prestigious The Musical Quarterly and has received many honors for his contributions to music.
